48. Chapter Forty-Eight
~Leo~
The dragon king regarded Kalo with the same intense focus he had previously reserved for the last-breath crystal, his enormous golden eyes unblinking as he considered the offer that had just been placed before him.
"You claim to possess thousands of years of memories."
"I do," Kalo confirmed.
"How?"
The question echoed through the cavern, and Kalo hesitated. He’d already asked the king to provide the heart first, but it seemed like a little more proof might be required for the king to believe him.
"It comes from the magic that made me what I am," he said at last.
The dark rings surrounding the dragon's pupils expanded, making him look even more dangerous. "That’s not an explanation."
"No, but it's enough for now. If we're discussing a trade, then I think we should establish whether there's any possibility of an agreement before I reveal more."
A low rumble passed through the gathered dragons.
Some seemed annoyed by the response, while others appeared impressed by the fact that Kalo was negotiating with their king rather than simply answering his questions.
Personally, I wasn't sure whether he was being brave or reckless.
Perhaps both, but I trusted him enough to stand back and let him handle it, even though my protective instincts had never been on higher alert.
While the king continued to study my mate, I reached out through the pack mind-link.
Calista? Felix? Do either of you actually know how we'd get those memories out of his head if the dragons agree to this?
The silence that followed was not encouraging.
No, Calista admitted eventually.
Not remotely, Felix added. It's an interesting proposition, but I don't have a solution.
So Kalo had offered something none of us knew how to deliver. Wonderful.
As though he could feel my concern, Kalo glanced over his shoulder and caught my eye. There was something irritatingly calm about his expression, and I had the distinct impression that he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Trust me, his amber eyes seemed to say.
Before I could decide whether that reassurance actually helped, his attention shifted elsewhere. The change was subtle, but I felt it immediately as his focus drifted, and his head tilted, as though he were listening to something the rest of us couldn't hear.
"What is it?" I asked quietly.
"The heart."
"What about it?"
His gaze drifted towards one of the tunnels branching away from the main chamber. "It's close, and moving closer."
The dragon king's attention snapped towards him, apparently having heard every word of our murmured conversation. "How do you know that?"
"I can hear it."
That answer seemed to surprise even the dragons. Several of them exchanged curious looks.
"You can hear it?" the king repeated.
“Yes. At first, I thought it might be my own heartbeat, but it’s definitely coming from somewhere just down that tunnel. Like I said, it’s getting louder. It feels… agitated.”
The king's gaze narrowed thoughtfully. "No one else can hear it."
I certainly couldn’t, and I’d always prided myself on having particularly good hearing.
"It's connected to the same magic we were discussing earlier,” Kalo explained. “Magic speaks to me, and from what I’ve heard, that heart was preserved through magical means.”
“Dark magic,” Evalina confirmed.
“And it’s getting louder?” the king asked.
“And faster,” Kalo added. “Like I said, it feels unsettled. As if it knows we’re talking about it.”
After another short silence, the dragon king gave a slow nod. "I have often suspected the same thing."
Every eye in the cavern turned towards him, the other dragons looking almost as surprised as I felt.
"The heart has always seemed conscious in some fashion. It reacts to visitors. It reacts to certain conversations."
A shiver ran down my spine, and across the room, Visenya's glowing eyes narrowed. “That suggests there is definitely something still there for Death to claim.”
The king released a slow plume of smoke from his large nostrils. "Perhaps."
Vaughan stepped forward, as ready as I was to move this conversation along. “Do we have a deal, then?”
The dragon king's gaze shifted between Kalo, Visenya and Vaughan as he considered the question, while the rest of the cavern seemed to hold its breath.
At last, he inclined his head. "Bring the heart."
The command echoed through the chamber, and several dragons immediately launched themselves from their resting places and disappeared into the tunnels beyond.
As we waited, I noticed Kalo becoming progressively more distracted.
His attention kept drifting towards the same passageway, and every few moments he would wince, as though reacting to a sound no one else could perceive.
"Is it that loud?" I asked him.
He nodded. “The closer it gets, the stronger it becomes. It feels like someone’s beating a drum inside my skull.”
Silo whimpered in my head, the idea of our mate being in pain utterly distressing to him, and I quickly mind-linked the others again. Kalo says the heart is painfully loud. Why is he feeling it so much?
He’s susceptible to magical fields, Calista reminded me. It makes sense that dark magic would have a negative field.
The dragons returned, carrying a familiar metal box between them. The moment it entered the chamber, Kalo visibly flinched, and my stomach tightened.
The dragons carefully lowered it to the stone floor before their king, and Kalo’s hands went to his ears on instinct.
“Louder?” I asked.
“Deafening,” was his unfortunate response.
The dragon king rested one enormous claw on top of the box and regarded us once more. "If I surrender this heart and discover your offer was dishonest, every member of your group will answer for it."
The threat settled heavily over the chamber, and I reached for the pack bond once again.
Nobody has a backup plan if we can't actually transfer the memories, do we?
Not currently, Calista admitted.
Working on it, Felix said.
That's code for 'absolutely not', Darius muttered.
Despite the circumstances, a brief pulse of amusement moved through the bond.
Vaughan's authority cut through it a moment later. We're here. We’re committed. Let’s see it through.
That settled the matter, and no one offered any argument.
The dragon king seemed satisfied by whatever he saw on our faces, because after a moment he lifted his claw away from the box.
The heart was ours, but whether we could actually use it to get what we wanted was another question entirely.
Calista stepped forward first. "If we're summoning Death, perhaps we should do it outside?"
The king's gaze settled on her. "No. I would prefer to witness it."
Several dragons rumbled in agreement.
"We rarely encounter Death ourselves. Most dragons live for thousands of years. Some never see him at all."
The statement made a strange sort of sense. Humans feared death because it was inevitable. Dragons, apparently, viewed it as a curiosity.
The only person in the room who didn't seem intrigued by the prospect was Visenya. Her posture had grown noticeably more rigid, and her gaze remained fixed on the iron band around her arm.
Evalina approached her carefully. "Are you ready?"
For a moment, I didn't think Visenya was going to answer. Unexpectedly, she reached out and caught Evalina's hand.
Darius reacted immediately, reaching her side before anyone else had fully processed what had happened.
"Visenya? What’s wrong?"
The concern in his voice was impossible to miss, and when the reaper looked at him, for the first time since we'd met her, she seemed almost vulnerable. "I’m nervous."
The admission felt far more significant than anything else she'd revealed so far.
Evalina squeezed her hand gently. "About Death?"
Visenya nodded. "I don't know how he’ll react."
That simple statement carried centuries of history behind it, and Darius looked ready to suggest abandoning the entire plan. However, Vaughan stepped in before it could get that far. His calm, steady voice carried the same reassuring certainty that had guided the pack through countless crises.
“We have to observe you with him to have any chance of breaking your bond to him. Otherwise, things will have to go back to the way they were before. You told us so yourself.”
The reaper lowered her eyes briefly before finally nodding. “Yes. You’re right.”
We all knew there was no back-up plan and no safer option waiting for us elsewhere. Whatever happened next, it was the only path that truly led forward.
Evalina reached for the mobile trap once more, and magic flared around her fingers. The iron band softened instantly, the carefully crafted metal unraveling beneath her touch until it slid free from Visenya's arm.
Visenya closed her eyes, and every muscle in her body went perfectly still.
“Is it working…?” I started to ask just before the cavern erupted with blinding white light.
It poured from the reaper in every direction, flooding the enormous chamber so completely that I threw an arm across my eyes. The dragons recoiled, several hissing in surprise, while Silo pressed instinctively against the back of my mind.
The stone beneath my feet vibrated and the air itself seemed to thicken. Beneath it all, stronger than sight or sound or instinct, something ancient and vast approached.
Death had heard her call.