Chapter 2 #3
But I did know. Through the bond, I felt it acutely. The centuries—no, millennia—of waiting. His expectation. His excitement when his dragon brothers met their bond-mates. His disappointment when his failed to materialize.
There was all this new knowledge buzzing around my skull, all these new feelings. When I gave in to the power of the bond, it was like I was becoming a new person, merging with something ancient and terrible. So I pulled myself back.
"Tell me about the cult," he said, clearly sensing my worry. "Everything. Start with your rank."
I took a sip of tea. Let the warmth settle in my chest. It was grounding. I was still myself. Still Thalia. When I spoke, my voice came out clinical. Detached. High Priestess mode—the tone I'd used when reporting ritual results to Solmar.
"I held the rank of High Priestess. Second only to Lord Solmar himself in the hierarchy of the Unnamed's servants." The words tasted like ash. "I was fourteen when they recruited me. My family's merchant business had collapsed. They sold me to settle debts. The cult called it a divine selection."
Zephyron's expression didn't change. He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin. "Go on."
"They trained me for four years. Memorization of rituals.
Study of ancient texts. Meditation techniques designed to suppress emotion and heighten focus.
Blood magic theory. Harvest protocols." I took another piece of cheese, forced it down.
"When I turned eighteen, they elevated me to High Priestess.
I performed my first harvest ritual three days after my initiation. "
"The harvest rituals." He said it without inflection. Pure information gathering. "Explain the process."
I could do this. Could deliver intelligence like I was reading from a manual. Could separate what I'd done from what I felt about having done it.
"The cult targets young women with latent bonding potential.
Virgin females between sixteen and twenty-five who carry the genetic markers that make them compatible with dragon-bonds.
We abduct them, imprison them in the Sunken Palace, and prepare them for harvest. Ironic that I, myself seem to have the markers.
" My hands shook slightly. I set down the cheese.
"The ritual itself requires three components.
The subject, restrained on the altar. The blessed obsidian blade—forged in the Unnamed's corrupted magic.
And the speaking of binding words that tear the bonding potential from their life essence and capture it in obsidian jars. "
"Jars?" His voice remained steady.
"Twenty-seven of them. One for each girl I harvested.
Solmar has been collecting for longer—he has over a hundred in the Archive.
" I picked up the tea, needing something to do with my hands.
"The magic is stored in crystallized form.
Luminescent liquid that pulses with the subject's final heartbeat. "
Zephyron leaned forward. "You documented amounts. Appearance. You observed these rituals like scientific experiments."
"Yes." The word came out flat. "That's exactly what I did."
"Good." His approval hit me through the bond. "Continue. What's the timeline?"
I forced down a piece of bread, chewing mechanically.
"Five weeks until the autumn equinox. That's when the ritual alignment occurs—the barrier between realms thins enough to channel the harvested magic into transformation.
Solmar plans to use all hundred and twenty-seven jars to break the seals containing the Unnamed and infuse him with enough bonding power to achieve dragon form. "
"Giving him a dragon's strength while retaining whatever corruption made him The Unnamed in the first place." Zephyron's eyes flashed silver briefly. "Clever. Horrifying, but clever."
"I helped them." My voice broke. "For six years, I helped plan those operations. Identified targets. Calculated optimal strike times. I'm the reason they know your patterns, your weaknesses, your—"
"Thalia." His voice cut through my spiral. "What made you run?"
I stared at the fruit on the tray. Sliced apples, their flesh already browning slightly at the edges. I'd given my last three copper coins to buy apples for a starving child. Everything I owned, pressed into her hands because I couldn't watch another girl suffer when I had the power to prevent it.
"The Unnamed spoke." The words came out whisper-quiet. "During the final harvest ritual. The twenty-seventh girl—she couldn't have been more than seventeen. Terrified. Crying. I held the blade. Spoke the binding words. And as her light faded, something else looked out through her eyes."
Zephyron had gone completely still. I felt his focus through the bond, sharp as broken glass.
"He used her final breath to speak directly to me.
Not as a god. Not as some distant divine entity we were meant to serve.
" Tears pricked at my eyes. "He showed me what he really was.
A rejected mate. A dragon who'd bonded with a human woman three thousand years ago, but she chose another.
He corrupted himself with forbidden magic, trying to break bonds, trying to prove the system was flawed.
When that failed, he tried to destroy all Dragon Lords out of pure spite.
The other dragons had to seal him away."
"The First Sealing." Zephyron's voice carried recognition. His eyes widened. "I was there. We . . . destroyed him."
"Valdris." I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
"His name was Valdris. And he's not a god at all.
He's just broken. Ancient and powerful and completely, utterly broken.
" The tears came faster now. "The cult worships a rejected dragon who's spent three thousand years festering in his own corruption, planning revenge against every Dragon Lord who successfully bonded when he failed. "
"And now he's taught Solmar how to harvest bonding magic to fuel his transformation." Zephyron stood, pacing to the glass wall. "Using the very bonds he hates to remake himself into something greater than a dragon."
"Yes." I stared at my scarified palms. "I spent two days after that ritual memorizing everything in the Archive.
Ritual specifications. Magical formulas.
The location of the Sunken Palace. The exact configuration of the sealing wards.
I carved it all into my own back because I couldn't carry documents without magical detection. "
He turned to look at me. Through the bond, I felt his assessment. His rapid calculation of what I'd sacrificed, what I'd risked, what it had cost me.
"Then I stole a blessed blade and ran." My voice cracked completely. "I chose your territory because you were closest. I thought—I thought if I could warn you, give you the ritual details, maybe you could stop him. Stop all of it. Before the equinox."
"You came here to warn me." He said it slowly, like tasting the words. "Knowing the cult would hunt you. Knowing I might kill you for your crimes. You ran toward potential execution to deliver intelligence."
"Yes."
"Why?"
The question hung in the air between us. I stared at my hands—scarified, shaking, wrapped around a cup of tea I couldn't drink.
"Because he’s not a savior. He’s not loving. He doesn’t have a great plan. He is hatred, pure and simple. And I will not be a part of bringing that into the world."
The silence stretched. Through the bond, I felt Zephyron processing. His mind worked through implications, possibilities, tactical considerations. But underneath all of that, I felt something else. Something warm and fierce and protective.
He crossed the space between us. Knelt in front of my chair again, bringing himself to eye level.
"You're analytical," he said quietly. "Clinical. You can recite magical formulas and ritual specifications without emotional interference. You observe systems and identify patterns."
"I'm a murderer." The words came out broken. "I held the blade twenty-seven times. Spoke the words. Watched them die."
"Yes." He didn't soften it. Didn't lie. "You did terrible things. And then you chose differently. That's what matters."
"How can you—" My voice cracked. "How can you look at me and not see—"
"I see exactly what you are." His hand came up, wiping tears from my cheek with surprising gentleness.
"A survivor who broke her own conditioning.
An intelligence asset who carved classified information into her spine.
A woman who gave her last coins to a starving child even though she was starving herself.
" Through the bond, his certainty wrapped around me.
"And my fated mate, whether either of us planned for that or not. "
The acceptance in his voice—the complete lack of judgment, the matter-of-fact delivery—shattered something in my chest.
I started crying. Not the controlled tears I'd been fighting. Real sobs. Heaving, ugly, desperate sounds that I'd suppressed for six years.
He didn't try to stop me. Just let me break.
When I could breathe again, he handed me a clean cloth. "Better? Okay?"
"No. Not exactly." Honest. "But closer to okay than I've been in six years."
"Good enough." He stood, offering his hand. "Come on. I need to show you something."
He led me down a corridor made entirely of glass and steel, my bare feet silent on polished floors that reflected the morning light in ways that made my depth perception fail.
Every step took me further from the main quarters, deeper into what I assumed was a private wing.
My stomach clenched. This was where the cells would be.
Where he'd lock me up while he decided what to do with a cult priestess who'd murdered twenty-seven innocent women.
I'd earned a cell. Expected it. Almost welcomed it. Concrete punishment for concrete crimes. Something my mind could categorize and accept.