It was the look on Zander’s face. Like he’d just been gutted. Like something inside him had been severed.
He turned to me, slow, hesitant.
“They took her,” I whispered, voice hollow.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t have to.
The ground beneath our feet began to tremble.
Dark Fire seeped up from the stone, curling like serpents around Zander’s boots, swirling higher with every breath he took. The temperature dropped. Not with cold, but with fury.
With power.
He exhaled, and the flames roared.
Black as midnight. Endless as grief.
They climbed his legs, his back, his arms—cascading around him like a storm given form. I had to step back, the air thick with magic that crackled with grief and vengeance. Even Kaelith backed away, wings folding tight, her eyes wary.
Theron’s face paled. The heat was unbearable, but it wasn’t fire that unsettled him. It was what pulsed beneath it.
The Ascension Grounds fell silent.
Every rider. Every dragon. Every breath.
Still.
Because we all knew what this was.
Zander wasn’t summoning Dark Fire.
Hewasthe Dark Fire.
And in that moment, even Theron seemed to realize?—
If Zander lost control, we wouldn’t just lose an heir.
We’d lose the continent.
The last embers of Dark Fire curled into the air like fading smoke, and Zander dropped to his knees as if his rage had finally broken him.
I was beside him in a breath.
“We’ll get her back,” I said, gently placing my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch. Just stared at the ground, his jaw clenched tight, his chest still heaving.
“She wants me,” I whispered. “This is a ploy, Zander. Elara is leverage. She won’t hurt her, not yet.”
Zander shook his head, lips pressed into a trembling line. “She’s a child,” he rasped. “She’s just a little girl, Ashlyn. What if she?—”
“She won’t,” I cut in, firmer this time. “But you need to calm down. Right now, your emotions are a mess, and if you want to save her, you have to control this.”
He tried. Gods, he tried. I saw it in the way he gritted his teeth, in the sweat beading his brow as he dragged breath after breath into lungs too tight with fear. His hands trembled as the heat faded from his skin.
When he finally looked up at me, he seemed… older.
Worn.
