Chapter 8 Aisling
EIGHT
AISLING
Istand at the edge of the gathering, spine straight, fingers laced behind my back.
The Brotherhood’s inner circle fills the space around a massive carved table—Drayke at the head with Selene beside him, Auren studying maps with cold precision, Zyphon lurking in the shadows near the far wall.
Rurik paces like a caged predator, all restless energy and barely contained motion.
Don’t fidget. Don’t show weakness. You’re a veterinary surgeon, for Christ’s sake. You’ve stitched arteries back together with steadier hands than this.
But I wasn’t a prisoner for three weeks when I did those surgeries. I wasn’t a blood battery for an ancient artifact. I wasn’t—
“Her fire is unstable.” Drayke’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. He’s looking at me with those amber eyes, and I force myself to meet his gaze without flinching. “That’s a liability we can’t afford.”
A liability. Clinical. Accurate. I’m a problem to be solved, a variable to be controlled. My jaw tightens, but I don’t argue. He’s not wrong.
“It’s time for Rurik to train you.”
Silence crashes through the room like shattered glass.
Auren’s head snaps up from his maps. “We’ve already discussed this.” The skepticism in his voice could curdle milk. “Rurik, teaching control?”
“Careful.” Rurik stops pacing, a dangerous edge slicing through his usual grin. “You’re going to hurt my feelings.”
“You don’t have feelings. You have impulses and poor judgment.” Auren’s attention shifts to Drayke, his expression carved from ice. “He’s the least controlled dragon in the Brotherhood. You want him teaching a traumatized Fire-Bringer how to manage volatile power?”
Traumatized. The word lands like a slap. My nails dig into my palms.
“Fire responds to fire.” Drayke doesn’t rise to the bait. His voice carries the power of centuries, the kind of authority that brooks no argument. “And she tolerates him.”
Both brothers turn to look at me. So does everyone else in the room.
Tolerates. That’s one word for it. Yesterday, he dragged me to rescue a dying wyvern and somehow made me remember that I used to be good at something. That I used to be more than a collection of nightmares and shaking hands.
I don’t confirm or deny. Just hold Drayke’s gaze until he nods once, accepting my silence as consent.
“My mate tells me you’re stronger than you appear.” Something shifts in his expression—not quite warmth, but close. “Prove her right.”
Selene catches my arm as we leave the war room.
“Aisling, walk with me.”
It’s not a request, but her grip is gentle, her presence a steadying anchor against the chaos still spinning through my head. We move through the fortress corridors—ancient stone worn smooth by centuries of dragon claws, torchlight flickering against carved symbols I don’t recognize.
“Drayke’s gruff, but fair.” She matches my pace, keeping her voice low. “And he trusts Rurik more than anyone except me.”
“Why?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “He seems—“
Reckless. Loud. Incapable of sitting still for thirty consecutive seconds.
“—unconventional.”
Selene’s laugh echoes off the stone walls. “That’s diplomatic. He is reckless. Impulsive. Makes decisions with his gut instead of his brain.” Her smile softens, turning thoughtful. “But he’s also the most loyal dragon in the Brotherhood. When it matters, Rurik shows up. Always.”
Always. I file that away, uncertain what to do with it.
The training yard opens before us—a massive courtyard of packed earth surrounded by scorched stone walls.
Target dummies line one edge, already charred from previous sessions.
Weapons racks stand at intervals, filled with blades that catch the morning light.
Everything radiates centuries of violence barely contained.
Rurik waits at the center, arms crossed, that infuriating grin spreading across his face when he sees me.
“There’s my favorite arsonist.” He gestures at the space around him with theatrical flourish. “Welcome to my domain.”
“Your domain is a glorified sandbox.”
“A sandbox I’ve set on fire approximately seven hundred times.” He steps closer, all coiled energy and barely restrained chaos. “You’ll fit right in.”
Selene squeezes my arm once before releasing me. “You’ve got this.”
Then she’s gone, and I’m alone with the wildest dragon I’ve ever met and the fire that’s been trying to burn through my skin since I woke in this fortress.
“Light a candle.”
Rurik points at a rack of candles arranged on a stone pedestal. Six of them, wicks fresh and white, waiting to be ignited. Simple. Controlled. The kind of exercise I’ve seen in meditation retreats and wellness seminars.
You can do this. It’s just fire. You’ve been doing fire accidentally for days.
I extend my hand toward the nearest candle. Focus on the wick. Will the flame to appear—controlled, precise, just enough heat to—
The entire rack explodes.
Fire erupts in a column that reaches for the sky, consuming all six candles in a heartbeat.
Wax melts and splatters across the stone.
The pedestal cracks from the heat. I stumble backward, hands raised, trying to pull the flames back, but they’re already spreading to the nearest training dummy, licking at the straw stuffing with hungry orange tongues.
“Shit—I didn’t mean—“
“Okay!” Rurik claps his hands, entirely too cheerful for someone watching a Fire-Bringer burn down his training equipment. “We’ll work up to candles.”
He moves past me, breathing fire of his own at the spreading flames—not to feed them, but to somehow absorb them. The conflagration dies as quickly as it started, leaving scorched stone and the acrid smell of burnt straw.
I stare at the destruction, chest heaving, hands still shaking. “That was—“
“A beginning.” He turns back to me, that grin still in place. “A very explosive beginning, but still a beginning. Again.”
The next hour is a masterclass in humiliation.
I scorch three training dummies to ash. I nearly set Rurik on fire twice—the first time, he dodges with a laugh; the second time, the flames catch the edge of his sleeve, and he extinguishes them with a casual pat that does absolutely nothing to diminish his apparent delight.
“There we go! Now we’re cooking!”
“I nearly burned you alive.”
“Please. This is the most fun I’ve had in decades.
” He rolls up his singed sleeve, revealing forearm muscles that I absolutely do not notice.
“Auren’s experiments are boring. Drayke’s strategy sessions are boring.
You?” He gestures at the smoldering wreckage around us. “You’re chaos incarnate. I love it.”
Chaos incarnate. I want to argue, but the evidence is damning. Training dummies reduced to ash. Candle rack destroyed. Scorch marks radiating across the courtyard like a blast pattern.
And through it all, my hands won’t stop shaking.
“Your fire responds to fear.”
The voice comes from the shadows near the wall. I spin, heart lurching, fire flaring unbidden at my fingertips before I register the source.
Zyphon.
He steps forward, shadows writhing around his shoulders like living things. His scales seem to absorb the light, and his gaze pins me in place with unsettling intensity.
“You’re trying to control it the way you control everything else.” His voice is ice and darkness, ancient in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Logic. Force. The same mechanisms you use to compartmentalize trauma and maintain function.”
Compartmentalize trauma. My jaw clenches. “I don’t—“
“Fire isn’t logical.” He moves closer, each step deliberate, those violet-shadowed eyes never leaving mine. “Neither is trauma. Stop fighting yourself.”
The words land like blows, precise and painful. My fire flickers at my fingertips, responding to the anger rising in my chest.
“I’m not fighting—“
“You’ve been fighting since the moment you woke in that infirmary.
” He stops, close enough that I feel the cold radiating from his cursed form.
“Every list you make, every schedule you create, every attempt to impose order on chaos—it’s all a fight.
Against your fear. Against your power. Against the parts of yourself you can’t control. ”
Silence stretches between us. The fire at my fingertips pulses with my heartbeat, unstable and dangerous and entirely too accurate a reflection of my internal state.
“What do you suggest?” The question comes out sharper than intended. “Let the fear take over? Let the fire burn everything down?”
“No.” Something flickers in his expression—not warmth, but understanding. “Accept it. The fear. The fire. They’re part of you. Fighting them only makes them stronger.”
He turns and walks back toward the shadows, leaving me with Rurik and the wreckage of my control.
“Well.” Rurik rocks back on his heels, studying me with an expression I can’t read. “That was intense.”
“He’s not wrong.” The admission costs me more than I want to acknowledge. “I am fighting. All the time. Every minute of every day since—“
I stop. Can’t finish the sentence. The memories are right there, pressing against the walls I’ve built to contain them, and if I let them through—
“Hey.” Rurik’s voice softens, losing that manic edge. “I get it. I do.”
I look at him, past the grin and the restless energy and the apparent inability to take anything seriously. Something shifts in his expression, a crack in the performance that reveals something raw underneath.
“You think I don’t know about fighting yourself?” He runs a hand through that wild red hair, for once not fidgeting just to fidget. “I’ve been at war with my own dragon for three and a half centuries. Every day. Every hour. The beast wants to burn, and I have to keep it contained.”
“How?” The word escapes before I can stop it.
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he turns away, facing the scorched training yard with his back to me.
“I don’t.”
I blink. “What?”