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I gasped when the air around him began to shimmer.

‘Is that you?’

‘Yes.’

“Look! See!” he commanded them. “Drink her in—the true vessel! The mother of a new age!”

Suddenly all that shimmering in the air became dark coils, twists of power, like oily smoke, or ribbons of vapor, rising from beneath the altar like tongues of flame.

One serpentined toward me like a snake about to strike and I flinched with a shriek—but Voski only chuckled and waved it away with the fingers of his free hand, as if it were a gnat.

‘Keep showing your fear. They feed on that. It will make them feel the power,’ he instructed.

I didn’t have to pretend.

Since he’d started speaking, the air had grown sharp. Cold. And those tendrils of power, like living creatures, rippled through the air, sometimes pausing, one end swaying, as if searching for a scent.

It was terrifying.

When any part of it touched my skin, I nearly wept. It felt like being licked in stagnant water, with dirt and oil floating on its surface.

The ribbons and coils followed Voski’s movement as he touched me, ran his hands up and down my body, and told everyone watching, in no uncertain terms, that the power they held was nothing.

And then he dropped his hands to his sides, and his chin almost to his chest. His hair fell from those slicked-back tines to obscure my view of his eyes, as his voice grew deeper, and more resonant.

“Watch… Watch and learn as your Heir Apparent calls the true power. I call for the bloodknot, the bonding, in salt and metal—I stand as One of the Blood and call the vessel to me. She will be my Pair Eternal!”

He’d said words like these before, but apparently those in the room heard—or saw—something significant, because there were gasps, and the air wavered, as if heat rippled through it, though I goosebumped because I was only growing colder by the moment.

Soon, my breath began to cloud, faster and faster, because even though I knew Voski didn’t want to hurt me, I wasn’t sure where this led.

He’d so obviously been unsettled by Cali, and now he’d shut himself away from the bond link.

Suddenly I was washed in fear—all those times he’d closed himself off. Retreated. Become angry. Would it happen again? Now? When I was so vulnerable?

Panic lit in my heart and I reached for Koa in my mind, but before I could speak, he brushed a hand to my cheek, and whispered, “Remember.”

And it all came swimming back.

I won’t waver—no matter what, I’ll prioritize your safety over my own, even if it doesn’t look like that’s what I’m doing. You have to remember that. Trust me. So if I seem frightening… if what I do or say is frightening, remember this conversation. I won’t have changed. My goal remains the same: to keep you safe. To defeat these bastards. And to free all of us from them.

I took a deep breath, and my heart steadied.

I could trust him.

“I CALL!” Voski shouted suddenly and I startled, along with half the audience. “I call the True Power—come! Show my people. Let them witness the binding of dragon vows!”

Koa chittered in my head and I instinctively pulled against the bonds at my wrists, when those ribbons and tendrils of power began to swell, and multiply.

Meanwhile, deep in my chest, where my dragon nestled, a fire of agitation sparked to life.

‘Koa! Koa, what’s going on?’

‘Kham worries, Firebird. Be safe. Be safe!’

‘Worries about what?’ I tried to reach for Voski, but his mind was still closed.

He began to speak in a deep monotone. As if by rote. His words echoing, and the snakes of power that shimmered and coiled around us grew.