Drayke studies me for a long moment. Whatever he sees in my expression, he chooses not to challenge.
“Then it’s settled. Tamsin stays under Brotherhood protection. Auren is responsible for her security and evaluation. The rest of you—” He sweeps his gaze across the room. “Prepare for war. Ulrik won’t wait long before he strikes.”
The council disperses. Rurik claps me on the shoulder as he passes—a gesture of solidarity that I neither want nor deserve. Zyphon melts into the shadows without a word, his silence more eloquent than speech. Selene pauses near the door, her gray gaze troubled.
“She’s not her sister, Auren.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“Maybe you should listen.” She doesn’t wait for a response, following the others out and leaving me alone with Drayke.
He doesn’t speak immediately. Just stands there, watching me with the patient stillness of a dragon who’s known me for centuries.
“You caught her.” His voice is quiet. Thoughtful. “When she collapsed at the gate. You caught her before she hit the ground.”
“Instinct.” The word comes out sharper than I intended.
“Was it?” He tilts his head slightly. “Because the Auren I’ve known for centuries would have let her fall. Would have considered it fitting justice for a Valdorian witch to break herself on Brotherhood stone.”
I have no response to that. Because he’s right.
The Auren I was a few days ago would have watched her collapse with cold satisfaction. Would have seen poetic symmetry in Morrigan’s sister dying at the gates of the fortress Morrigan’s crimes helped build.
But something shifted when I saw her standing there. Bloody and broken and proud, refusing to beg despite having every reason to. Looking me in the eye and acknowledging my grief without flinching from it.
Hate me all you want. Just hate me while we’re saving the world.
“I don’t know what I would have done.” The admission costs me more than I want to acknowledge. “I don’t know why I caught her. I just... did.”
Drayke nods slowly. “That’s what worries me.”
“It should worry you. It worries me.”
“I’m not worried about your judgment being compromised by hatred, Auren.” He moves toward the door, pausing with his hand on the frame. “I’m worried it might be compromised by something else entirely.”
He leaves before I can ask what he means.
But I know. Of course, I know.
Because I can still feel the ghost of her warmth against my chest. Can still see the copper highlights in her hair. Can still remember the way her fire felt when it met my frost—not fighting, not resisting, just... meeting. Finding balance.
Stop.
I force myself to move. To walk to the window and stare out at the mountains beyond, letting the familiar view ground me in reality.
She’s a Valdorian witch. Morrigan’s blood. A threat to everything we’ve built.
And I’m responsible for her now.
THREE
AUREN
Ifind her in the infirmary garden.
Aisling must have cleared her to leave the medical wing, though probably with strict instructions about rest and recovery that Tamsin is currently ignoring. She sits on a stone bench beneath an ancient oak, her face tilted toward the weak afternoon sun, borrowed clothes hanging loose on her frame.
She looks smaller than she did at the gate. Fragile in a way that has nothing to do with physical weakness and everything to do with the grief etched into every line of her body.
