I close my eyes and feel my magic hum in rhythm with his footsteps.
This cage is different. I told myself that in the Ash Cells, and I tell myself again now. Different, but still a cage. Still walls I can’t pass. Still a captor I can’t escape.
But the captor is pacing his chambers because of me. The cage has become something I don’t have a word for—notfreedom, not captivity, but a third thing neither of us was built to navigate.
I don’t know if that makes me safer or puts me in more danger than I’ve ever been.
I suspect I’ll find out soon enough.
NINE
IZAN
The doors explode inward.
Not metaphorically—literally. Obsidian splinters spray across the hall as figures pour through, moving with coordination that shouldn’t be possible for humans. Blood-oath enhanced mercenaries, at least two dozen, armed with enchanted weapons designed to pierce dragon-warding.
They target the council members first. Smart. Eliminate leadership, create chaos, use the confusion to accomplish whatever objective brought them here.
I’m already shifting.
Scales ripple across my shoulders and spine, obsidian-dark and veined with lines of molten light. My forearms harden, claws extending from fingertips that were human a heartbeat ago. The transformation is partial—full shift in these close quarters would kill allies as easily as enemies—but it’s enough.
The first mercenary dies before he finishes his swing. My claws tear through his throat, and I’m already moving to the next target. Fire builds in my core, demanding release, and I let it flow through my hands in controlled bursts that don’t burn flesh—they burn authority.
The blood-oath enhancements shatter under my wrath.
One moment, the mercenaries are moving with supernatural coordination. The next, they’re stumbling, disoriented, suddenly human and vulnerable. Their borrowed strength drains away as my fire strips the magic that gave it to them.
Around me, other dragons engage. Partial shifts everywhere—scales and claws and teeth extending from human forms, fire and frost and lightning crackling through the air. The hall becomes a slaughterhouse, council members demonstrating exactly why the Cinder Flight rules Pyraeth.
Blood sprays across obsidian floors. Bodies fall. The air fills with screams and the copper-hot stench of death. I move through the chaos like a blade through water, striking, killing, moving on. Each mercenary that falls is one less threat. Each enemy eliminated is one step closer to ending this attack.
But the mercenaries are a distraction. I realize it a heartbeat too late.
A second group has circled through the servants’ passages. They’re not attacking the council—they’re heading for the observation alcove, where non-essential personnel were shepherded when the fighting started.
Where Alerie was waiting during the briefing.
I tear through the mercenaries between me and the alcove with violence I don’t bother to calibrate. Bodies fall. Blood sprays. I’m not thinking about clean kills or tactical efficiency—I’m thinking about reaching her, protecting her, making certain no one touches what’s?—
One mercenary reaches her before I do.
She’s not cowering. Not screaming. She’s pressed against the alcove wall, ash magic crackling at her fingertips, facing down an attacker three times her size. Her magic lashes out, and I watch the blood-oath enhancement on her attacker begin to fray.
Not fast enough. His blade arcs toward her, and even with her magic weakening him, he’s still strong enough to?—
I intercept.
My hand closes around his wrist. Bones shatter under my grip. He screams, dropping the blade, but I’m not finished. The wrath in me demands payment for his attack, and I provide it.
He doesn’t die quickly.
He dies in layers—authority first, then skin, then muscle, then bone. I burn him from the inside out while the entire hall watches, while Alerie watches, while my dragon roars satisfaction at the destruction of an enemy that dared threaten what belongs to me.
When it’s over, ash sifts between my fingers. The mercenary is gone. Unmade. Nothing left but residue that drifts toward the floor.
I turn to Alerie.
