He takes a step closer. Close enough that I feel his breath stir the air near my face.
“Why should I trust anything you’ve told me?”
The question lands heavily between us. I could give him reasons—logical arguments, evidence, appeals to mutual interest. But instinct tells me that’s not what he’s really asking.
“You shouldn’t.” The admission escapes before I can check it. Honest. Too honest. “Trust gets people killed. I’m asking you to use me, not trust me. There’s a difference.”
His inhale is sharp. Audible in the cell’s suffocating quiet. For a moment—a single moment—I see his expression fracture. A glimpse of the pressure building behind his walls.
He’s not as steady as he wants me to think. The realization hits me with the force of revelation. All that precision, all that authority—it’seffort.
Where’s the fear? A dragon on the edge of losing restraint in a confined space with a captive witch?
But terror isn’t what floods through me as I watch that fracture in his composure.
Interesting. The thought surfaces unbidden, dangerous.He’s not what he pretends to be.
The interrogation continues.Hours, maybe. The questions come relentlessly—probing my knowledge of the network, testing my claims, searching for inconsistencies. I answer carefully, offering truth in measured doses, revealing enough to prove my value without exposing everything.
He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t threaten violence. Doesn’t use any of the standard interrogation techniques I’ve endured before. Only that voice, those questions, that unnerving intensity that makes the cell feel too small and too hot and too charged with awareness I refuse to name.
I notice things as we talk. The way his hands flex at his sides when I mention my grandmother’s death. The slight hitch in his breathing when I describe the binding marks on my skin. The way his gaze keeps dropping to my wrists, tracing the silver lines, before snapping back to my face with visible effort.
He’s not interrogating me. He’s cataloging me. Learning me the way I’m learning him.
Mutual reconnaissance. The phrase surfaces from some long-ago lesson.When predators meet, they assess each other before deciding whether to fight or to cooperate.
I’m not sure which one this is.
“The network’s central node.” His voice has gone rough with fatigue or frustration—I can’t tell which. “You said there’s a weakness in the cascade system. Something the Regent hasn’t anticipated.”
“The cascade works because each node connects to three others. But someone has to activate those links manually. There’s a coordination point—a place where the Regent or his lieutenants can trigger the entire network at once.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet.” I hold up a hand before he can press. “But I know how to find it. The activation signatures leave traces. My bloodline can sense those traces if I’m close enough to a working node.”
“You want me to take you into the field.”
“I want to be useful enough that you don’t leave me in this cell to rot.” An edge sharpens my voice before I can smooth it. “I’ve been useful before. I know what it costs. But I also know what happens to Vireth witches who can’t convince their captors to keep them breathing.”
His expression shutters. For a long moment, he looks at me—not with the cold appraisal of an interrogator, but with an intensity that goes deeper. Darker.
“Who else has caged you?” The question comes out low. Dangerous. “Before this.”
Answering is dangerous. It’s personal, irrelevant to the intelligence he’s gathering. But fury builds behind his eyes—fury that isn’t directed at me.
“Does it matter?”
“Answer the question.”
The command carries weight. Actual weight, pressing against my awareness with a force that borders on magical. Dragon authority, bleeding through his restraint despite his best efforts.
“A merchant coalition, when I was twelve. They needed someone to break contracts their competitors had locked with blood magic.” I keep my voice flat. Clinical. “A minor lord in the eastern territories, when I was sixteen. He was collecting Vireth witches for his personal guard—useful tools to have on hand. The Blood Regent’s predecessor, when I was nineteen. He tried to breed the bloodline for his own purposes.”
The air in the cell changes.
“The Regent’s predecessor.”
