I try to move my legs. They don’t respond—feel distant, foreign, disconnected. “Probably not.”
He doesn’t hesitate. Just shifts his grip and lifts me, cradling me against his chest the way he did that first day when I collapsed at his gates. Only this time, there’s no hatred in his touch. No resentment. Just love, and relief, and a possessive tenderness that makes my heart ache.
“Then I’ll carry you.”
He carries me out of the throne room. Past Ulrik’s corpse, past the shattered throne, past the evidence of our victory. Outside, the battle is over. Shadow Clan forces have scattered or surrendered. The Brotherhood stands triumphant on the plateau.
“It’s done,” I say, loud enough for them to hear. My voice is weak, but the words carry. “The Shadow King is dead.”
For a moment, silence.
Then Rurik lets out a whoop that echoes off the mountains, and despite everything—the pain, the exhaustion, the fact that I almost died—I find myself smiling.
We won.
And I’m going to live to see what we build from the ashes.
THIRTY-NINE
AUREN
The Shadow Clan stronghold burns behind us as we fly home.
I don’t look back. Don’t need to. The flames are visible for miles—orange and gold consuming centuries of darkness, reducing Ulrik’s seat of power to ash. The Shadow Clan will spend generations recovering from this defeat. Their king is dead. Their forces are shattered. Their stranglehold on dragonkind is finally, permanently broken.
I should feel triumphant. Should feel the satisfaction of a war well-ended, a threat eliminated, a future secured.
All I feel is the woman in my arms.
Tamsin sleeps against my scales, exhausted beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed. Aisling healed what she could—closed the wounds, stopped the bleeding, replenished some of the life force the Crown devoured—but the rest requires time. Rest. The kind of deep recovery that can’t be rushed.
She almost died. The thought keeps circling, a predator I can’t escape. She almost died in my arms, blood streaming from her eyes and ears, her heartbeat stuttering against my chest. If the Fire-Bringers hadn’t poured their power into her?—
I don’t finish the thought. Can’t.
She’s alive. That’s what matters. She’s alive, and she loves me, and somehow, impossibly, we have a future.
The Brotherhood fortress appears on the horizon as dawn breaks—gray stone catching the first light, familiar and welcome in ways it hasn’t been for decades. Home. I haven’t thought of it that way in so long. But with Tamsin’s warmth pressed against me, her breath steady and sure, it feels true again.
We land on the main platform in formation. Drayke first, massive bronze form touching down with practiced grace. Rurik follows, his usual chaotic energy subdued by exhaustion. Zyphon materializes from shadow at the platform’s edge, the purple cracks in his scales dimmer than I’ve ever seen them. The curse is fading. Slowly, but noticeably. Ulrik’s death is already unraveling his greatest creation.
The Fire-Bringers dismount. Selene leans into Drayke, their claiming bond visible in the easy way they touch. Aisling is already cataloguing injuries, her healer’s instincts overriding her own exhaustion. Nasyra stands close to Zyphon, not quite touching, but close enough that he could reach for her if he needed to.
I shift to human form, keeping Tamsin cradled in my arms. She stirs at the change but doesn’t wake. Just turns her face into my chest and sighs, her breath warm against my skin.
“Take her to the infirmary.” Aisling appears at my side, professional despite the dark circles under her eyes. “I need to check her vitals, make sure the healing took?—”
“My quarters.” The words come out harder than I intend. “She’ll rest better somewhere familiar.”
Aisling’s eyebrows rise. Something knowing flickers in her expression—the same look Selene gets when she’s about to make a comment I won’t appreciate. But she just nods.
“I’ll check on her in a few hours. Make sure she drinks water when she wakes. And, Auren—” She pauses. “Take care of her.”
“I intend to.”
I carry Tamsin through the fortress corridors, ignoring the stares of the guards and servants we pass. Let them look. Let them see their cold, controlled strategist carrying a witch princess through the halls. Let them understand that something has changed.
Everything has changed.
