I shake my head, unable to accept such easy reassurance. "You cannot know that."
"No," he admits. "I cannot. But I know what I have gained by accepting what the Threads have woven for me. And I know what you stand to lose by fighting against what is clearly already begun."
My jaw tightens, defensive words rising on my tongue, but Varok continues before I can speak.
"You are a hard-headed fool, Second Fang," he says, but there is no malice in his tone, only the exasperated affection of a commander who has watched a valued warrior make the same mistakes he once did. "If you believe denial can outrun destiny, you understand neither. The air already answers your call. The element has awakened, whether you acknowledge it or not. The only question that remains is whether you will embrace its full potential or cripple yourself by fighting what cannot be changed."
"And if embracing it brings ruin to our kind?" I challenge.
"And if refusing it denies us the strength we need to face what comes?" he volleys back. "We stand at a crossroads, Lurok. Worms within our ranks, humans at our borders, TrueCoil fanatics wait in shadows. The old ways have brought us to this precipice. Perhaps the new ways are our only path forward."
I want to argue further to defend the beliefs that have defined my existence for the whole of my life. But Varok's words have planted a seed of doubt that I cannot easily uproot.
"The prophecy advances whether you wish it or not," Varok says quietly. "Fire first awakened in me. Now air stirs in you. The Threadborn Prophecy unfolds exactly as foretold."
He leaves me there, alone with the carved map and my tangled thoughts. I remain coiled before the open door long after his tail disappears from view, struggling against truths I am not ready to accept.
The ancient prophecy echoes through me like a battle drum. Only love will awaken what sleeps inside me. Each element requires its catalyst, its spark to fully emerge.
Fire awakened in Varok through his bond with Leira.
Air stirs in me now, growing stronger with each thought of Serin.
If I deny it… If I bury whatever grows between us, I can halt fate before it unfurls further. I could prevent whatever cataclysm the Season of Naga might bring.
Yet when I felt her heart beating against mine in that hidden grotto, when I pulled her from the ash pit and breathed life back into her lungs, something fundamental shifted within me, as if the very air recognized her as a part of me.
When I imagine never touching her again or feeling her hand in mine, something essential within me rebels. The air around me shivers in response.
Venom take it!
To surrender to Serin, to the feelings growing within me, would allow the prophecy to move forward, would accelerate the change it heralds. To resist is to protect my kind from certain ruin.
I do not know which path to heed. I only know that with each breath and each thought of her, the choice becomes both clearer and more impossible to make.
Chapter Nineteen
SERIN
Light presses against my eyelids, not the gray haze of before but a steady glow. It pulses in shades of blue and gold. I blink, and the chamber comes slowly into focus around me. A flame burns at the center of the room, rising from a shallow basin of obsidian so dark it looks like a hole torn into the world. The fire moves with a strange, living grace. Its colors shift in impossible hues of blue-gold, as if it breathes. It should scorch the air. Yet no heat reaches my skin, only a faint shimmer that makes the air waver above it.
My lungs still ache when I draw breath, a dull burn lingering deep in my chest. The sharp agony from before has faded. I peer around, taking in the chamber. The stone walls are etched with spirals of serpentine script that curl and coil like frozen motion. I cannot read the symbols, yet they press in on me with a quiet gravity, as though the words themselves are alive. This time, my thoughts hold steady. The darkness no longer drags at me.
A rustle of fabric draws my attention to the left. Curled in a carved wooden chair, Leira buries her nose in what appears to be ancient scrolls. Her brow furrows in concentration. Loose waves of hair tumble around her shoulders, copper highlights catching the blue-tinged light—details I've never noticed before.She looks different: harder in some places, softer in others, as if the edges of her have been both honed and worn smooth.
"You're scowling," I whisper, my voice still rough but stronger than before. "You always scowled when reading father's history books."
Her head snaps up, scrolls cascading to the floor as she launches from the chair. "Serin!" In a heartbeat, she's at my side, her trembling hands cradling my face, her storm-gray eyes searching mine with such fierce relief that my chest tightens. "You're back with us. How are you feeling?"
"Like I survived," I whisper, attempting a smile that cracks my parched lips. My voice emerges as sandpaper against stone.
"That’s good to hear." She reaches for a cup on a nearby table and brings it to my lips. "The healers left this for when you woke. It smells like pond scum, but they swore it would work wonders to heal you more rapidly."
The liquid is cool against my throat, bitter and earthy with an aftertaste like mint gone wrong. I grimace but drink deeply, each swallow easing the rasp in my voice.
"Better?" she asks, setting the cup aside.
I nod, taking stock of myself. The countless tiny cuts that had mapped my skin after the ash pit seem mostly healed. I trace a finger along the fading burns where the shock rod had pressed against my ribs. The raw rings around my wrists, where metal had bitten into flesh during days of struggling against my chains, have faded to tender pink circles. My chest still feels heavy, though, as if weights press against my lungs. "How long?"
