“To fight back.” I hold his gaze, refusing to look away even as the heat from his body makes sweat prickle along my hairline.
The silence stretches between us. He’s close enough that I can smell him—smoke and metal and an undertone of heat that isn’t quite human.
Wrong. This is wrong. Dragons are threats, not attractions. His fire could unmake me as easily as it unmade that merchant on the dais—Iwatchedthat execution, from the crowd, hours before everything went to hell. I saw what he does to people who cross him.
But my magic keeps pressing toward him anyway.
“The ritual site.” His voice drops lower. “You knew exactly what you were doing. The technique was precise—cleaner than anything our scholars have managed. Where did you learn it?”
“My grandmother taught me. Before she died.” The memory surfaces unbidden—scarred hands guiding mine, a voice rough with age explaining the patterns that lived in our blood. “The Vireth line has been severing bonds for a thousand years. We know them better than the people who create them.”
“And the Blood Regent’s network specifically?”
“I’ve been studying it for months. Watching the signatures spread, mapping the nodes, learning how he’s adapted traditional blood magic with stolen dragon blood.” I pause, weighing the risk. “I can tell you things your Flight’s intelligence network hasn’t figured out yet. If you want to hear them.”
I let the offer land. A gambit. A calculated risk.
His eyes narrow.Good. Narrowed is better than dismissive. Narrowed means he’s considering.
“Why would you help us?”
“Because the Regent is hunting my bloodline to extinction, and I can’t stop him alone.” Simple truth. “Because your Flight has resources I need—information, protection, access. Because the alternative is staying in this cell until someone decides I’m more trouble than I’m worth, and we both know how that ends.”
He doesn’t respond. I feel stripped bare under his attention—not physically, but deeper. As if he’s trying to see through my survival masks to whatever exists beneath.
Don’t let him.Give him what he needs to see. Nothing more.
“The network operates on a cascade system.” I start talking, offering information before he can press harder. “Each ritual node connects to three others, creating redundancy. Destroy one node, the connected ones compensate. The Regent learned from watching your raids—he adapted his infrastructure to survive exactly the kind of strikes you’ve been running.”
Interest flickers in his expression. He doesn’t want to show it, but I catch it anyway—a slight shift in his stance, a barely-perceptible lean forward.
“Keep talking.”
“The blood-oath bindings aren’t simple compulsion. They’re enhanced with processed dragon blood—stolen, I assume, though I don’t know from where. That’s why the bound citizens are stronger than they should be. The dragon blood amplifies the oath’s hold while giving the hosts access to fire-adjacent abilities.”
“We know that much.”
“But you didn’t knowthis.” I lean forward slightly, matching his intensity. “The dragon blood component creates a weakness. The oaths are stronger than traditional bindings, yes. But they’re also more vulnerable to authority-based severance. True dragon authority—not stolen, not processed, butactual—can override the bindings without backlash. My Vireth magic does the same thing through a different mechanism.”
His expression shifts. I’ve surprised him. Good.
“You’re saying my fire could break the oaths.”
“Your firedoesbreak the oaths. I saw it during the riots—you burned the blood-oath enhancement before consuming the hosts. Clean destruction. No cascade failures.” I hold his gaze.“The question is whether you can do it without killing the bound citizens in the process.”
FOUR
ALERIE
Silence. He’s turning it over, fitting my information into whatever strategic framework he’s building. I can almost see the pieces clicking into place behind those intent eyes.
“And you can?” His voice has dropped to barely above a whisper. “Sever the oaths without killing them?”
“I did it on the altar. You watched me do it.”
“One man. In somewhat stable conditions. While a riot raged as distraction.”
“It’s a start.” I don’t let frustration creep into my voice. “Give me access to your intelligence on the network. Let me study the binding patterns properly instead of working from stolen glimpses. I can do more.”
