Let us help,I say.We’ll smash our way in, and fight whoever remains—
No. Darial’s voice cuts through the link.If we all enter, we risk alerting the dragons inside, and she is tethered, possibly by magic we cannot break. Let me try first. If I need you, I’ll call.
Kelan’s wings flick open and shut again, trembling with restraint.
Fine, he growls.But if anything happens to her…
The connection with Darial quiets as he focuses on the window. We remain still as he releases a thin stream of fire. Even from this distance, I sense his effort and the precision with which he controls his power.
Minutes pass. I count each breath and heartbeat.
Then—
It’s working. Glass is softening.
I finally exhale.
Has she moved?I ask.
No. Still sleeping, I think. But the cloak… it pulses. She must be terrified.
My claws pierce the metal ledge beneath me.
Then bring her back, Darial,Kelan whispers.Bring her home.
The window bows, and Darial shifts, clinging to the window with his human hands. As he’s dropping through the window, the dragon who left minutes ago swoops in and lands on the roof.
“Shit,” Kelan says. “Do you think he saw Darial?”
We watch as he shifts and sprints for the stairwell.
“I’d say from his speed of entry, he did. And he’s telling the others right now.”
“Fuck,” Kelan says, running for the edge of the roof. He shifts as his foot leaves the ledge, his dragon form emerging with such force that the momentum pushes me back. I follow, leaping after him, my skin transforming into scarlet scales as I fly toward Aura’s window.
Kelan and I grip the building’s façade, our claws embedded in the steel ridges beneath the glass, wings flared for balance and hearts pounding. The wind buffets us, but we remain resolute.
Darial is inside. He lifts Aura from the bed, freeing her small body from that cursed cloak and then focuses on the golden tethers laced with dragon power. Her eyes flutter open, dazed and barely lucid, lips parting in a whisper I can’t hear.
She is alive. That’s all that matters.
We have her.
Darial tries to free Aura’s hands, but with a surge of magic, she dissolves the tethers herself. Darial guides her to the window, one arm around her back, the other braced on the sill. He begins to pass her to us, but—
The door behind him bursts open. Lythian screams, shrill and furious. Three male dragons surge in, bare-chested and eyes blazing. One roars, already halfway through his shift. “She is ours!”
Darial spins, pressing Aura behind him, shielding her with his body. His arms flare, golden scales crawling over his skin as he half-shifts. Flames burst from his gaping mouth, catching the silk-draped bed instantly. It ignites in a column of fire, followed by the curtains and rugs.
The room erupts in chaos.
Kelan growls, eyes glowing like twin coals.Now.
He lunges forward, reaching through the melted window to pull Aura into his arms. She screams as she falls backward into his embrace, her magic surging in reflex. Atorrent of golden light bursts from her, knocking the male dragons across the burning room. One crashes into the wall, another into the mural, cracking its surface. The impact splinters marble, sending shards of enchanted stone hurtling to the ground. The painted woman fractures along the center, her face splitting as if prophecy itself is breaking.
I howl, the sound torn from my throat like a war cry and slam my claws into the reinforced glass. Cracks spread outward before they shatter. Slivers rain down as I widen the opening, heat radiating from my scales.
Darial stumbles backward, half-shifted, his golden claws scarring the scorched floor. Wings unfurl behind him as smoke coils around his legs. He snarls, flames licking past his teeth, then turns and dives through the fractured window frame as the ceiling collapses in a storm of fire and debris.
