Chapter 3
Lore
Dorion came over to stand next to me. I didn’t look up, but I felt how still he stood. Heard his ragged breathing.
“Lore…” His voice fractured. “What’s wrong with her?”
“What do you mean, what’s wrong with her? She’s wounded. Dying. Dead. Look at her!” My voice dropped to almost nothing. “Look at her.”
I pressed my palm against her chest and poured healing magic into her, giving her everything I had and more.
Energy brushed across her skin, but it didn't sink in. It unraveled into nothing, drifting away. She wasn’t cold; her heartbeat still echoed beneath my fingers.
She was here. Still here. She had to be.
“I don’t—” He shook his head. “She’s not dead.”
“Then why won’t she wake up?” I bellowed.
“I think she’s…lost.”
Her wound pulsed, spilling blood, and the power inside her shimmered under her skin. It sparked, then jolted again, twitching like a dying firefly. It didn’t match. It stuttered where it should have flowed. It fought itself.
“What do you fucking mean?” I croaked, my voice nearly gone.
“Look at her shadow.”
I turned my head slowly. Moonlight shone down on us as if this was a twilight of beauty instead of something blindingly horrifying.
Behind her, where our bodies should cast a simple silhouette on the grass, her shadow stretched away from mine, across the ground. It thickened at the edges, rippling like it breathed.
Her shadow turned to me.
Whatever Prager had done wasn’t just poison or fire. It was theft. Of Reyla’s light. Of herself.
I didn’t know if I could love her back into being or if I’d already failed.
My breath caught in my chest. I’d seen someone else’s shadow move like this. Farris, when we thought he was alright and discovered he wasn’t. Prager had done something to him, and it impacted his shadow. Now she’d done it to Reyla.
The forest darkened. Trees creaked. The world bent. Not in any way that would make someone scream magic, but I felt it. A silent ripple at my feet, as if a thread of the world had twisted out of alignment and snapped back into something new. My spine locked, and I peered around.
Farris stiffened, his ears pricked toward the woods again, his nose twitching.
Wind slithered across the meadow, whipping through the tall grass. Cold air snaked up from the ground, wrapping around my legs, my waist, my throat. Something old was coming. I could feel the age of it in my bones.
Something massive slipped around the thick trunks at the edge of the clearing. Scaled and ancient. Their head lowered, and they did not speak, but the words stamped themselves into my mind like a heartbeat. Will you honor the bond Evergorne promised?
Evergorne? I'd suspected this…dragon who'd helped me inside the labyrinth might be related to my court, though I didn't know how. The runes of a dragon in the room below our thrones told me something was missing from our past.
I froze, ice plunging through my veins.
I knew that voice. Not only with my mind, but with that marrow-deep instinct that senses danger before a sword is drawn. They’d spoken to me once before.
Reyla was dying, her chest barely rising as I tried to heal the putrid wound on her arm.
Without magic, I couldn't do a damn thing.
I'd held her. Begged her to stay. And washed the wound that only festered further.
Our time left had been measured by her slowing pulse, her jagged breathing, and the way her cries of pain broke through the night.
My love for her crushed me. I’d called out to the shadows, to the silence. To anything that would listen inside that cursed labyrinth.
“Heal her,” I’d bellowed until I was hoarse. “I’ll give anything. Anything in exchange. Just don’t take her from me.”
And something answered. A shift in the air, a pressure from deep within the labyrinth, a crackle of fire in the dark. I’d looked up into nothing and saw glowing eyes, a large form sliding through the night. Watching my every move.
It offered to help but like everything in life, it wanted something in return. A favor to be called due in the future. Favors were as binding as a bloodsworn oath, but I gave it willingly.
Anything.
And my wildfire healed.
When shadows came to steal her last breath, I healed her once, the dragon said. Now you ask for healing again. So I ask you. Will you fulfill your side of the bargain?
“I will,” I hissed.
When that time comes, make sure you do.
What would Wildfire say if she knew I’d bartered the unknown for the chance to hold her one more night? Would she still look at me with the same trust?
What would it ask of me, and would I truly be willing to give?
My hands shook. Heat pulsed around my wrist, making my mating mark glow. Veins of silver and red throbbed beneath my skin. A mark seared to life across my forearm. Curling. Shifting. Alive.
A dragon? It moved into place as if it had remembered that it belonged there.
My mouth went dry.
Drawing Reyla closer, I curled my body around hers. Her breath barely shifted the air. Her shadow flickered again, uneven.
“I don’t know what you want,” I whispered to the beast. “I don’t know what it means. But take it. Whatever it is, it’s yours.” My heart pounded, and desperation filled my voice. “Anything. I’ll give every piece of myself. Take my strength. My crown. My life. Take it all. Just help me save her.”
I was king of nothing if she died. My power and title might as well be ashes if I couldn’t keep the one person who made me want to rule in the first place. Burn it. Break it. Bury it. If only she'd look at me again.
The wind stilled. Branches quit creaking. I sensed the world waited.
The dragon mark on my skin flared, hot silver weaving through it like fire licking across dry grass. Tendrils of light left it, spiraling up my arm to my chest. The etched dragon clawed into movement, wings outstretching, its jaws wide in a soundless roar.
The creature came closer. Broad as a house, its scales gleamed like shards of polished obsidian. Moss shriveled beneath its weight and bloomed again behind it. Smoke drifted off its body as if it was halfway between form and air.
Dorion hurtled backward, his hands raised, wisps of fire coiling across his fingers. “Lore—” he choked out. “What is that?”
Farris whined and slunk around to cower behind me, pressing himself against my spine.
“I don’t know what it is,” I said, my voice shaking. “I didn’t call it. It came.”
When the dragon loomed over us, it lowered its massive snout to Reyla.
Drawing in a breath, it exhaled. Heat wrapped around her chest and shimmered into her skin.
The wound that would not close began to knit together slowly, strands of magic looping back where my own had failed.
I watched, barely breathing, as blood faded into clean flesh.
I wasn’t sure how I knew, but this dragon was female. She pulled back, and her voice filled my head again, pressing deep into my bones. She saved you today. Now you must save her.
I blinked fast. “Tell me what to do.”
She’s caught. Locked in shadow and pain. Her spirit sleeps, but she does not rest. Her sleep is an open wound that bleeds her very lifeblood.
A pit opened in my stomach.
Enter her shadow. Inside, Prager has bound her with dreamcraft chains. Only a true soul mate can sever those chains. Shadow and love must fuse together.
It sounded like madness, like nothing real.
“How do I do this?”
The dragon tilted her head, her eyes as old as stone meeting mine. Ask Valera.
I stared at her, stunned and reeling. “What does a librarian know about this?”
She vanished, her body turning to coils of smoke and light, twisting across the clearing like wind that had taken form and fled. She shot into the forest and was gone.
Reyla didn’t speak, but her chest rose. Her breathing came steady. Her wounds had sealed.
Alive.
I held her, leaning my forehead against hers, afraid her next inhalation could be her last. My tears dropped onto her cheeks, but she didn't wake. She’d always wiped them away.
Even when I didn’t want her to see. Now she just…
let them fall. She wasn’t here to tease me, to scold me, or to cup my face and tell me we’d make it through this together.
Dorion stared toward the forest. “What…just happened?”
“I’m not sure.” My voice came out gritty, worn out by pain. “I’m taking Reyla and Farris to Evergorne Court.”
Dorion nodded slowly. “I’ll follow. I think I know where the third talisman is. I’ll…let you know.”
I only half heard him. The night buzzed in my ears. The third talisman didn’t matter. Not now. Only Reyla.
“Come with me, Farris,” I croaked.
When I stood with Reyla, her fluffy pet pressed against my leg, his solemn gaze locked on my wife.
A flit, and we arrived in our bedroom.
Farris whined and leaped up onto the bed, his gaze still on Reyla.
After easing the blankets down, I gently laid her on the surface.
Drew up the covers as if she shivered with cold.
She looked almost peaceful, as sweet as the first time I’d met her.
If only her eyes would open. If only she’d spit fire.
She’d call me an ass, tell me to straighten myself out and get looking for the third talisman.
She’d tell me she loved me.
I wanted to coil myself around her, hold her forever.
On my knees beside the bed, I clutched the quilt. With my head bowed to the mattress, I pressed my forehead against her hip. I was determined to bring her back to me through sheer will alone, but I couldn’t feel her inside me like usual. All that remained was silence. Cold, aching silence.
“I was never meant to survive,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and broken. “You were. You hear me? You were always supposed to live through this.” Never me.
No one else but my wildfire would roll their eyes and fill my life with something better. No one else would dare call me out in front of the court and kiss me in the same breath.