“You have me,” he says simply. “Whatever you need. However you need it. I’m yours.”
The words undo me completely.
I pull him down to me and lose myself in the only power that matters.
THIRTY-TWO
AUREN
The mountains lean inward as we fly, blocking out the sun.
I’ve studied maps of this region for weeks. Memorized the terrain, the approaches, the optimal attack vectors. None of it prepared me for the reality—peaks that seem to shift when you’re not looking, valleys choked with mists that swallow sound, forests where the trees grow black and nothing moves beneath them. The land itself feels wrong, tainted by millennia of shadow magic until hostility seeps from every rock and crevice.
The Shadow Clan has held this territory since before the Brotherhood existed. The earth has absorbed their power, become an extension of their will. Every instinct I possess screams that we should turn back.
We don’t.
My brothers fly in formation around me—Drayke at the lead, massive bronze-gold scales catching what little light filters through the perpetual gloom. His chest fire glows with barely contained power, a beacon against the darkness that presses from all sides. Rurik flanks his left, red-gold wings trailing actual flames that hiss and spit against the cold mountain air. He’suncharacteristically quiet, the usual jokes and bravado set aside for the grim focus of imminent combat.
Zyphon takes the shadows on our right. His obsidian form ripples with glowing purple, the curse that’s been killing him for centuries pulsing with anticipation. He’s nearly invisible against the darkness—a darker shape amid the gloom, there and gone depending on the angle. His eyes burn violet-white, fixed on the horizon with an intensity that makes even me uneasy.
This is personal for him. Ulrik created his curse. Made him into the monster he fears becoming. Today, that debt gets paid.
And with us, carried in the protective formation we’ve maintained for hours, the Fire-Bringers.
Selene rides with Drayke, her gold fire a steady warmth against the oppressive cold. She’s pressed against his spine the way Tamsin presses against mine, and I notice—really notice, for the first time—how natural they look. How right. The claiming bond hums between them, visible to my magical sight as threads of gold and bronze woven too tight to separate.
I used to find it weakness. Now I find myself envying it.
Aisling clings to Rurik’s back with grim determination, her sharp green eyes cataloguing every shadow, every threat. Already calculating injuries, no doubt. Already planning how to put us back together when this is over. Her wild red hair streams behind her, and even at this distance, I can see the scarred skin of her wrists where magic-suppressing manacles once bound her.
Nasyra moves with Zyphon, shadow-touched and silent. Her eyes scan the darkness with the awareness of someone who has been hunted before. Been killed before. Her shadow-flame flickers around her hands, ready to strike at threats before they fully form.
And Tamsin.
Tamsin rides with me.
Her arms wrapped around my neck, her body pressed against the ridge of my spine. Even in dragon form, I feel her warmth—the steady pulse of her fire, the heat of her skin seeping through scales that have never registered temperature as anything but data. She’s become part of me in ways I can’t explain and have stopped trying to analyze. Her presence is a comfort even as we fly toward a battle that might kill us both.
The Crown rests against her chest. Dormant. Waiting. A weapon that will either save us all or consume her trying.
I won’t let it consume her.
“There.” Drayke’s voice rumbles through the formation, more felt than heard. His massive head turns toward the eastern horizon.
I see it. The Shadow Clan stronghold.
Massive gates sized for shifted dragons gape open, an invitation that promises death to anyone foolish enough to accept. No landing platforms like our fortress—the Shadow Clan prefers their visitors to approach through shadow, materializing inside rather than landing outside. The physical approach is meant to be impossible.
They didn’t plan for us.
Wards shimmer around the stronghold in layers I can see even at this distance. Warning wards that will announce our presence the moment we cross them. Pain wards designed to incapacitate. Death wards that stop hearts and freeze blood. And beneath those, older protections—wards that consume magical energy, that turn attackers’ power against them, that have been refined across eight centuries of paranoid preparation.
Ulrik’s masterwork. Designed to withstand siege by any force imaginable.
He didn’t imagine us.
He didn’t imagine her.
