Chapter 13 Aisling
THIRTEEN
AISLING
The heat hits first.
A wall of warmth that pushes back against us as we descend deeper into the mountain, carrying the sulfur-and-ash scent of volcanic activity. The temperature climbs with every step, sweat beading along my hairline, my shirt sticking to my back.
But it’s not the heat that makes my blood sing.
It’s the pull.
Something in my chest responds to this place—a resonance I can’t explain, as if the fire in my veins recognizes something ahead. The sensation grows stronger with every step, tugging at me like an invisible thread, and I have to fight the urge to break into a run.
The Relic. It’s calling to me.
Rurik’s hand tightens on mine. He feels it too—I can see it in the way his jaw clenches, the way his nostrils flare as if scenting danger.
“Aisling.” His voice is rough. “Your fire.”
I look down. Flames lick at my free hand, dancing across my knuckles without burning. I didn’t summon them. Didn’t even feel them kindle.
My fire is responding to something ahead. Something that wants to wake it.
I close my fist, smothering the flames. Focus on the clinical details. The temperature gradient. The composition of the volcanic rock. The structural integrity of the corridor walls. Anything to keep my mind anchored in the present instead of spiraling into—
The corridor ends.
A massive chamber opens before us, carved from the mountain’s center. The ceiling disappears into darkness far overhead, but the floor—
The floor is a volcanic pit with steam as thick as smoke rising.
Molten rock churns far below, casting everything in hellish orange light. Chains of solidified lava crisscross the pit, massive links thick as tree trunks, stretching from wall to wall in a web of impossible construction. The heat is staggering, pressing against my skin like a physical weight.
The smoke parts like a curtain.
She doesn’t step through it—she manifests.
One moment empty air, the next a figure standing before the volcanic pit as if she’s always been there.
A projection, I realize dimly. The chains still hold her true form somewhere in that churning darkness, but she’s pushed enough of herself through to take shape.
Human shape, though nothing about her reads as human.
Tall and statuesque, raven-black hair falling to her waist, porcelain skin without flaw or warmth.
Too perfect. Too still. Like a sculpture given life by something that doesn’t quite understand how living things move.
She wears crimson—a gown that seems woven from dried blood, clinging to her form with every deliberate gesture.
Her beauty is a trap, the kind that makes you want to look closer even as every instinct screams to run.
Those eyes find me. Molten gold, burning with intelligence that predates civilizations. The thread in my blood—the one I’ve been trying to ignore since I woke with Rurik’s hand in mine this morning—pulls taut with recognition.
Little flame.
Her voice doesn’t come from her mouth. It comes from everywhere. From the stone walls, from the lava chains, from somewhere deep in my own chest.
You returned to me.
Rurik’s partial shift blocks half my view—claws extended, scales rippling across his shoulders, fangs distorting his jaw. The transformation stretches his shirt tight across muscles I shouldn’t be noticing right now. A growl tears from his throat, low and savage.
“She’s not yours.”
Valdris tilts her head. The gesture is almost birdlike, predatory in its stillness. Her attention slides to Rurik with the casual interest of a cat noticing a mouse.
“The reckless one.” Her physical voice is worse than the psychic one—layered, carrying harmonics that vibrate in my bones. “All fire, no brain. Drayke’s little attack dog.”
“That’s Guardian King’s attack dog to you.” Rurik doesn’t move from his position between us. “Also, you’re uglier than your portraits.”
I can’t see his face, but I can imagine the grin. That wild, reckless grin he wears like armor. The one that makes something flutter low in my stomach even when we’re facing down primordial evil.
Valdris laughs.
The sound scrapes across my nerves like broken glass, echoing off the cavern walls until it seems to come from every direction at once.
Her eyes focus on something behind us.
Drayke shifts fully, bronze scales erupting as he positions himself to guard the exit. Selene’s fire blooms in her palms—I can feel it, a warmth reaching toward my own flames with something like recognition.
“Your Brotherhood killed my general.” Valdris’s voice drops, grief and fury tangling together in ways that make my skin crawl.
“My best warrior. The one who would have freed me from this prison you built.” Her gaze finds Drayke, and the temperature in the cavern spikes.
“Veylor was worth a thousand of you, Guardian King. And you tore his throat out like the beast you are.”
“He was trying to wake you.” Drayke’s response is flat, unmoved. “He would have destroyed everything.”
“He would have restored what should have been.” Valdris’s attention swings back to me, and her gaze nearly drives me to my knees. “But you’ve brought me something better, haven’t you? A Fire-Bringer whose blood already knows me. Whose flames already answer my call.”
My fire stirs in my chest. Not at my command—at hers. Recognition and response, automatic and terrifying.
No.
I shove the flames down. Grip the discipline I’ve been building for weeks like a lifeline.
“I felt your blood sing to me across miles.” Valdris takes a step closer—the projection flickering at the edges, a reminder that her true form remains chained in the pit behind her.
“Every drop they drained called my name. Every moment of your pain fed my waking. You’re mine, little flame. You’ve always been mine.”
“I’m not yours.” The words leave my mouth before I can second-guess them. Fire flares in my palms—steady, focused, responding to my will this time. “I’m not anyone’s tool. And if you think I’m going to let you use me again—“
“Use you?” Valdris’s smile is a wound in her perfect face. “I’m going to remake you. Once my chains are broken, once I walk free again, you’ll burn at my side. Not as a tool—as a vessel. My fire in your blood, my will in your mind, my voice speaking through your lips.”
“Over my dead body,” Rurik snarls.
“That can be arranged.”
She moves.
Not toward him—toward me. The projection flickers, reforms inches from my face, and her hand shoots out with predatory grace. Her fingers close around my wrist—solid despite being a manifestation, her will made tangible through sheer force.
The pain is immediate. Absolute.
Fire—not the warm fire I’ve learned to master, but something cold and corrupted and primordial—burns into my skin. I scream. Can’t help it. The sensation is a brand, a claim, a mark being seared into my flesh through psychic will.
“Now I’ll always be with you, little flame.” Valdris’s voice echoes in my skull as well as the cavern. “Run if you wish. I’ll be watching.”
She releases me.
I crumple, clutching my wrist against my chest. The mark throbs—a design I can’t see clearly through the tears blurring my vision, but I can feel it. Feel her. A door ripped open in my mind, a window through which those burning eyes now peer.
Mine. Always mine.
“Aisling!” Rurik catches me before I hit the ground. His hands cup my face, force my gaze to meet his. Heat radiates from his palms—dragon heat, nothing like the cold violation still searing my wrist. “Look at me. Stay with me.”
But I feel her. In my blood, in my bones, in the hollow spaces behind my thoughts. Valdris. Watching. Always watching now.
The mountain shudders.
RURIK
The brand on her wrist glows.
Not with the gentle warmth of Fire-Bringer power—this is cold, emanating a sickly red light that makes my dragon roar with fury. Valdris marked her. Claimed her, in some twisted way that predates mating bonds by millennia.
I want to burn the world down. Want to tear through dimensions until I find wherever the real Valdris is hiding and rip her apart, scale by scale. Want to—
Another tremor rocks the cavern. Cracks spiderweb across the ceiling, dust and debris raining down around us.
“Her rage is destabilizing the prison!” Auren’s voice cuts through the chaos. I didn’t even hear him arrive, but he’s there, gold-white scales gleaming as he analyzes the collapsing structure with cold precision. “We need to leave. Now.”
Valdris’s projection flickers violently, her smile never wavering despite the instability.
“Run, little flames. Run back to your fortress and your delusions of safety. I’ll be free soon enough.
And when I am—“ Her gaze finds mine, contemptuous and amused. “—you’ll burn out before you ever matter, reckless one. Just like all the others who thought they could stand against me.”
“Looking forward to proving you wrong.” I scoop Aisling into my arms—she protests weakly, but I ignore it.
Her body is lighter than it should be, the scent of her hair filling my lungs as I pull her close.
Even terrified, even trembling, she fits against my chest like she was made for it. “Let’s go.”
We run.
Drayke’s bronze form crashes through a collapsing archway, clearing the path. Selene rides between his wings, her fire blazing to incinerate falling debris before it can crush us. Zyphon’s shadows race ahead, consuming obstacles, creating darkness we can move through unseen.
Aisling shivers in my arms. Her skin is too cold where the brand touches me, though the rest of her radiates the familiar warmth I’ve grown addicted to over these past weeks. The wrongness of that contrast—her fire fighting something foreign in her blood—makes my dragon snarl with renewed fury.
PROTECT. CLAIM. MAKE HER OURS SO THAT THING CAN’T HAVE HER.
The dragon’s demand echoes through my skull, and for once, I don’t argue with it.