He rises from the outcrop and moves to the carved circle on the floor. I track his movement, cataloguing everything. The symbols carved into the stone are complex, repeating in patterns I don't recognize. They're filled with something dark that stains the stone.
At the center sits a shallow basin, smooth and empty, waiting for something I don't want to imagine.
"The drownings built power gradually." He circles the ritual setup with practiced efficiency, checking details I can't quite see from my position. "Each death fed the working, accumulated the magical energy necessary for the larger goal. But capturing a dragon requires more than ritual sacrifice. It requires personal connection, emotional resonance, the kind of leverage that makes ancient creatures vulnerable."
He produces a knife from inside his jacket. The blade catches firelight as he tests the edge against his thumb. Blood wells and drips, hissing when it hits stone. The drops don't pool. They sink into the rock like it's absorbing them, and the symbols glow faintly in response.
My pulse spikes. The stone is active, prepared. Whatever he's planning has been in motion for longer than I've been on this island.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your blood will call him." Mikhail moves toward me with the knife, each step measured and deliberate. "The bond forming between you will draw him straight to this cave, furious and reckless and perfectly positioned for the trap. He'll come to save you, and in trying to protect what he's claimed, he'll walk straight into the working that will drain his essence and gift me with the power I've spent centuries accumulating."
Terror floods through me, but I force myself to keep watching. To keep cataloguing. The blade is ornate, inscribed with symbols that match the ones carved into the floor. His grip is professional, practiced. The basin placement is precise, positioned to catch falling drops without requiring him to hold me in position.
This isn't improvised. This is rehearsed. Perfected. How many times has he done this before?
I keep my voice steady despite the fear making my hands shake against the ropes. "What do you mean?"
"Godhood, Dr. Mercer." His smile carries genuine enthusiasm now, researcher's excitement when discussing breakthrough results. "Dragon essence is the key. The concentrated power of creation and destruction, accumulated over millennia, waiting to be harvested from creatures too sentimental to use it properly. I'll take everything Finn is, everything he's ever been, and I'll ascend to something beyond immortal. Beyond ancient. I'll become what phoenixes were always meant to be."
He kneels beside me, grabbing my bound wrists with one hand while positioning the blade with the other. His skin is hot, fever-hot, burning against my cold flesh.
"This will hurt. But pain is temporary. What comes after will reshape reality itself."
The knife cuts into my forearm with surgical precision. Pain blooms sharp and immediate, different from any cut I've felt before. It burns as much as it stings, like the blade carries heat that sears the wound even as it opens flesh.
Blood wells from the cut, darker than it should be in the firelight. Mikhail guides my arm over the ritual basin, angling it so gravity pulls the blood downward in a steady drip. Each drop hits the stone with a sound like water on hot metal, hissing and steaming before sinking into the basin.
He murmurs words in a language I don't recognize. The syllables feel wrong, shaped for throats that aren't quite human, carrying harmonics that make my teeth ache.
The symbols around the circle begin to glow. Faint at first, then brighter, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat. I can feel it in my chest, the synchronization, like something external is matching the rhythm of my pulse and pulling it into alignment with whatever magic he's invoking.
The air thickens. It's not just metaphor. The atmosphere becomes denser, pressing against my skin with actual physical weight. Breathing takes effort. Each inhale drags something thicker than air into my lungs, something that tastes like copper and ozone and old smoke.
Temperature rises. The cave was cold when I woke, damp stone leaching heat from my body. Now warmth radiates from the carved circle, building with every drop. Sweat beads on my forehead despite the pain, despite the fear.
The blood in the basin isn't pooling. It's disappearing, absorbed into the stone the way Mikhail's blood was absorbed earlier. The symbols grow brighter, like they're being fed, powered, activated by something in my blood specifically.
"He'll feel this." Mikhail's voice carries satisfaction as he watches blood drip into the basin. "The bond will pull him here faster than wings can carry him. He'll sense your pain, your fear, and every protective instinct bred into dragons over eons will drive him straight into my trap."
I want to scream a warning. Want to tell Finn to stay away, that it's a trap, that saving me will cost him everything. But my voice won't work. The air is too thick, something pressing too hard against my chest, stealing breath before words can form.
All I can do is watch my blood disappear into stone while symbols glow brighter and thunder rolls across the sky outside.
"You'll watch him die." Mikhail's eyes burn brighter as the ritual builds momentum. "And in his last moments, he'll understand I was right all along."
"He'll kill you." The words scrape past my throat, defiant despite everything.
"He'll try." Mikhail releases my arm and steps back, watching the ritual circle flare brighter with each drop of blood that falls. "But he's tried before, and I'm still here. Still waiting. Still working toward the moment when he finally understands what I've always known."
Thunder rolls across the sky outside the cave. Not normal thunder. This sound shakes the stone foundations beneath me, rattles my teeth in their sockets, reverberates through bone with a depth no natural storm could produce. Wind screams past the entrance, carrying salt spray and the sharp scent of ozone that precedes lightning.
Mikhail's expression changes to something that might be anticipation. His eyes track movement I can't see yet, following something approaching from the storm.
"Right on schedule."
I turn my head toward the cave entrance, ignoring the pain in my arm and the blood still dripping into the basin. Through theopening, storm clouds gather with unnatural speed. They don't roll in from the horizon. They materialize, condensing from clear sky into roiling darkness in seconds.
