Runebreaker

Chapter 42 Gods in Chains

GODS IN CHAINS

White walls. A courtyard with pear trees.

I sat on the edge of my bed, turning that over. That could be anywhere. Some of the manors in Skalgard had white walls, but pear trees? Pear trees needed mild winters. Southern climates. Somewhere the frost didn’t kill the blossoms.

I massaged my temples.

Vaeris had properties scattered across the realm. Estates inherited from his mother’s line, safehouses no one knew about. Rheya could be in any of them. Or none of them.

The rune beneath my ribs pulsed.

White walls. Pear trees.

The door opened, and Kairos stepped inside. He leaned against the doorframe, watching me.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You were going to.”

He crossed the room and slid on the bed beside me, his hand sliding up my back.

“We’re meeting in ten minutes,” he murmured.

I nodded, but I couldn’t make myself stand. My legs felt filled with sand. “Pear trees. If I could just—”

My breath hitched before I swallowed it down. I would not fall apart.

“Pear trees don’t survive Skaldir winters.”

“They do,” he said. “If a fae with enough money orders the runes for it. Half the nobles in Skaldir keep summer gardens in the dead of winter. Frost runes, sun runes, soil-harmony runes. You can have citrus fruit in a blizzard if you’re willing to pay for it.”

The tiny spark of hope flickered.

“She’s somewhere comfortable, but that’s all I can tell you.”

I looked down at my hands. They were clenched so tightly my knuckles ached. “She wouldn’t have brought it up if it wasn’t important.”

“Can you think of anything?”

I sighed. “When we were little, there was a stall in the market that sold candied pear slices. Rheya would steal them.”

Kairos caressed my back. “It’ll come to you.”

The memory hovered out of reach, a shape in fog I couldn’t grab. I was failing her.

I rubbed my eyes. “I feel so useless.”

“You’re not.”

“I can’t save her. I can’t break the deal. I can’t figure out what she wants me to remember about pear trees. Some sister I am.”

“You raised her by yourself.”

“And then I handed her to him.”

“You made an impossible choice to protect her.”

Gods, I wanted to believe him. I exhaled slowly, forcing my shoulders to drop. I couldn’t do anything for Rheya except stay alive and find that seal.

I slipped off the bed.

Kairos caught my waist, reeling me back to him.

“Should we go to the council?” I whispered.

He looked wrecked. Dark shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and the calm he’d worn in front of Vaeris was gone.

I touched his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Vaeris,” he bit out. “The way he talks to you.”

I blinked. “You think I’m falling for it?”

His throat worked. “I think he’s trying to drive a wedge in between us.”

The us vibrated through me like someone plucked a string in my heart.

“He’s good at watching people,” Kairos said hoarsely. “Learning what they fear, what they want. With you, he’s using all the tricks.”

I shrugged. “Well, it’s not working.”

Kairos’s eyes searched mine desperately. “He spoke to you like you’re his. It made me sick.”

I grabbed his neck, pulling him closer. “Even if he meant everything he said, I’d never choose him. Not over you.” I stroked his cheek. “You’re the one I trust.”

His jaw flexed like he was forcing something down. He didn’t say it back, or that I was his, or any of the things I suddenly wanted to hear.

“Council,” he said roughly. “Then we find a way to burn his plans to ash.”

His hand slipped from my waist, and the loss of his warmth was jarring. He turned toward the door without looking at me again.

The faint pressure tugged north. Vaeris didn’t have to tell me where he was anymore. He had stitched the answer in the deal, a nauseating thread that tightened every hour.

We gathered in the war room, Elwen, Uther, and Lioren filing in behind us.

Uther dropped into a chair, his jaw tight. “I’m going to kill him. Slowly. With my teeth. Just so everyone’s clear on that.”

“Get in line,” Kairos muttered.

“‘Food for your Dreadfae.’” Uther’s eyes flashed black. “I’ll make him eat those words. Literally.”

A startled laugh escaped me, too loud in the tense room.

Uther pointed at me. “The girl agrees.”

Elwen cleared her throat. “Can we focus?”

Uther exhaled hard, propping his boots on the table. “Fine. So we’re at war with everyone. Skaldir. Thalir. Caelir. What else is new?”

Kairos sighed. “Lunir’s on the fence. I need to write to Taressa.”

“I’ll help you draft it,” Elwen said, sliding into the seat opposite mine. “But first, we need to discuss the dragons.”

Everybody looked at me.

The weight of their stares pressed down on me. They wanted answers I barely understood. Elwen poured a glass of purple wine, pushing it in my direction. I wrapped my fingers around the stem, grateful for something to hold.

I inhaled a tight breath. “I heard them in Dr?thmar, like…deep voices quaking the earth.”

“What else did you hear?”

“Screaming.” I sipped the sweet drink, and warmth slid down my throat. “The seal must’ve been weak.”

Lioren’s robes whispered across stone as he stepped closer. “It is remarkable that you heard anything at all. Have you communicated with dragons before this?”

“No.” I hesitated. “But…after the palace collapsed, I met one. In a dream. I was…somewhere. A strange world broken by time magic. Myndra.”

Elwen froze. Uther sat up straighter.

“A man approached me,” I murmured. “He called himself Lord Tazurel.”

Elwen grimaced. “The Peacock Tyrant.”

Uther raked a hand through his hair.

Kairos’s hand squeezed mine under the table. “What did the dragon want?”

I gripped it tightly as cold spread through my chest. “He wanted me to kneel. When I wouldn’t, he burned me.”

I drank more, trying not to dwell in the dark memory. I could still picture the way he’d stared at me, like I was an insect that needed to be crushed.

A shaky breath slipped out of me. “Twice.”

“Sounds right,” Uther muttered. “Demand worship, then throw a tantrum when you don’t grovel fast enough.”

I nodded, shame coiling hot in my chest. I’d given him exactly what he wanted because the other option was burning alive. And if a vision could hurt me that much…what would the actual dragon do when he was free?

“What was he like?” Elwen breathed.

“Intense. Beyond furious, like…he’s desperate to kill all of you for imprisoning them.” I bit on my lip. “He said I broke the first seal, and that he could reach beyond his prison.”

“And you understood him?” Lioren asked, his brows raised.

“Of course. Why?”

His silver eyes fixed on me with uncomfortable intensity. “Dragons don’t speak in a language most beings can comprehend. Only Speakers understand them.”

“Speakers?” I asked.

“Hybrids. Created when fae bred with dragons.” Lioren’s tone was detached. “They could hear dragon speech and interpret it. After the sealing, every known bloodline was hunted down and destroyed.”

My stomach dropped. “All of them?”

His gaze never left mine. “So we thought.”

The room tilted.

I gripped the edge of the table, my vision tunneling. “You’re saying I’m part dragon?”

It sounded completely absurd.

“A descendant,” Lioren corrected. “Your bloodline is watered down by generations of human breeding, but you heard dragon speech. It was inside your head, right?”

“Yeah.”

Lioren nodded grimly. “Then that confirms it.”

A high laugh scraped out of me. I reached for Elwen’s wine and drained half the glass in one swallow. The warmth hit my belly, but it didn’t steady anything.

I set the glass down hard. “I thought maybe there was some fae in my bloodline. A great-great-grandmother who made a bad decision. Not that someone—” I gestured vaguely, hysteria creeping into my voice. “Not that someone fucked a dragon.”

Uther choked.

“Aelie,” Elwen said gently.

“How does that even work? They’re enormous. They have scales and breathe fire. Did they—I mean how—”

“Dragons can take any shape they wish.” Lioren shrugged, utterly unbothered. “They often wore human forms when they wanted to… couple.”

“Fuck,” I ground out. “My ancestor fucked a beast with wings.”

Uther pointed at Kairos. “He’s a beast with wings.”

“I have a name,” Kairos deadpanned.

Uther grinned. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to be upset about dragon-fucking, you might want to reconsider—”

Wine sprayed out of my nose and mouth, dripping all over the table. Elwen handed me a towel as I mopped my face, laughing, and suddenly I couldn’t stop. My chest ached, but I kept giggling.

Elwen’s hand found my shoulder. “Breathe.”

I rubbed my eyes, forcing the madness down. When I glanced up, everyone was watching me with varying degrees of concern. Except Lioren, who seemed to be cataloguing my breakdown for future study.

“I’m fine. It’s just…my mother died from sickness, and she never mentioned anything about this.”

“She likely didn’t know,” Elwen said softly. “The hybrids would have hidden their children and married into human families. Over time, the truth was forgotten.”

I breathed in deeply, clinging to Kairos’s hand.

The worst part was his face—calm, resigned, like he’d suspected this and it simply confirmed every strange thing about me.

My heart squeezed. He’d known. Maybe not the specifics, but he’d sensed I was something else, and he’d still done everything he could to keep me safe.

“So what does that make me?” I whispered.

Lioren didn’t blink. “The first Speaker in nearly two thousand years.”

I shook my head, drinking more wine. “But how does Vaeris understand them?”

“Dragons can communicate with fae, but they hate it. They consider it degrading,” Lioren said. “They don’t use words. You perceive it the same way you feel heat from a fire. But it isn’t speech.”

Uther nodded grimly. “More like getting shoved in the skull with an idea.”

“Only Speakers ever heard real language,” Lioren continued. “Vaeris receives fragments. Images. If they spoke to Vaeris at all, it would be in the simplest terms.”

The room felt suddenly too small.

A chill slid down my spine. Tazurel definitely hadn’t communicated like a creature lowering himself to talk to me, he’d spoken like a god reclaiming what was his.

“If I can understand them and Vaeris can’t, then he’s guessing at what they want.”

Lioren nodded. “That’s why they’ll want you alive. A Speaker who hears the nuance, the depth of their thoughts…is invaluable to them. Especially after two thousand years of trying to be heard.”

Invaluable.

That hung around my neck like a noose. I needed to tell them the rest. But saying it meant admitting something I didn’t want Kairos to hear.

“There’s more.” My hands twisted together. “He…he gave me a command. Told me where to go.”

“Where?” Elwen asked.

I forced the words out. “To the shadow-wielder.”

Kairos’s dark gaze found mine. “Anything else?”

“He wants me to destroy the other seal. Or…or I’ll feel his wrath again.”

Lioren crossed his arms, glaring at me.

“I won’t do it. He can threaten me all he likes, but I’m not helping him.”

Uther shot Kairos a look. “Why would Vaeris risk everything to free them?”

“It makes sense,” Kairos deadpanned. “He’s too human for the fae courts, too fae for human society. Now he’s king, but it’s not enough. They still hate him.”

“He’d unleash these dragons out of spite?” I asked.

Kairos’s eyes darkened. “No. Desperation.”

Of course.

I pictured the evenings that Vaeris stormed into a room, raging about what happened at court, his shadows crawling up the walls and ceiling. I’m their prince, and they openly despise me, he’d said, his voice drenched with bitterness.

I’d pitied him once. Thought we understood each other, both of us caught between worlds that didn’t want us. And he’d discovered beings who could help him crush everyone who’d mistreated him.

Yes. He’d absolutely burn the world down for that.

“Back to the immediate problem.” Uther glanced at me. “The deal. Can it be broken?”

“I tried,” I muttered. “But…it fought back hard. I don’t think I’d survive breaking it.”

“Then we kill him,” Uther said.

“Which requires finding him first,” Kairos replied.

“I can do that.” I pressed my hand to my abdomen. “I can feel that I’m supposed to go north.”

Elwen frowned. “He knows that she’ll lead us to him. He’s using the deal to draw you exactly where he wants.”

I set down my glass. “What if we use it to stop him?”

“How?” Elwen asked.

“We find the seal first. He can’t break it without me anyway. Then force him to come to us on our terms.” I looked at Kairos. “If we’re already there, we choose the battlefield. The deal will tell us when he’s getting close.”

Kairos turned to Lioren. “Search the archives. Look for anything that mentions the seals, the binding ritual, locations of power. I don’t care how obscure.”

Lioren swept wordlessly from the room.

I stood, my chair scraping back. “I’ll help.”