Chapter 16 Aisling
SIXTEEN
AISLING
The vision rips through me like a blade.
Stone walls. Torchlight. The copper stench of blood so thick, I can taste it.
And Niamh.
My cousin hangs from chains bolted to volcanic rock, her dark hair matted with blood, her face—that face I’ve known since we were children sharing secrets in her mother’s garden—bruised beyond recognition.
She’s conscious. That’s the worst part. Her eyes are open, fixed on something I can’t see, and her lips are moving in what might be prayer or might be my name.
“Aisling.”
The voice comes from everywhere. From the shadows pooling in corners. From the fire that burns without heat. From inside my own skull.
“She came looking for you, little flame. After you disappeared. Asked questions. Searched. Such loyalty.”
Valdris steps from the darkness, and even in a vision, even knowing this isn’t real, my body locks with terror. She’s beautiful the way a blade is beautiful—cold and perfect and designed for one purpose.
“I thought you might need... motivation.” Her hand trails across Niamh’s cheek, almost tender. My cousin flinches. “She’s not a Fire-Bringer. Just human. Fragile. But blood calls to blood, doesn’t it? You’ll come for her.”
“Don’t—“
“Three days, little flame. Then I start removing pieces.”
I wake screaming.
Fire erupts from my palms, scorching the sheets, the headboard, the air itself. Someone’s holding me down—weight across my hips, hands pinning my wrists—and I thrash against them, still half-trapped in volcanic stone and my cousin’s broken face.
“Aisling. Aisling.”
Rurik’s voice cuts through the panic. Not commanding. Not demanding. Just my name, over and over, until the flames gutter and die and I’m left shaking in a ruined bed with ash floating around us like gray snow.
“There you are.” He releases my wrists slowly, carefully, like I’m a wounded animal that might bolt. “Bad one?”
I can’t answer. Can’t make my throat work around the scream still lodged there.
He shifts his weight off me but doesn’t leave. Just settles beside me on the scorched mattress, close enough that I can feel his heat, far enough that I don’t feel caged. He’s learned that balance over the past weeks. When to push. When to wait.
“Vision,” I manage finally. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged across gravel. “Valdris.”
His whole body goes rigid. “What did she show you?”
“My cousin.” The words crack something open in my chest. “Niamh. She has Niamh.”
The war room is full by the time I’ve pulled myself together enough to face the Brotherhood.
Drayke stands at the head of the table, Selene at his side. Auren has maps spread across every surface, his golden gaze tracking my entrance with clinical assessment. Zyphon lurks in his preferred shadows, darkness writhing around him like a living thing.
And Rurik. Rurik hasn’t left my side since I woke. His hand rests at the small of my back—warm, steady, grounding me when everything else feels like it’s spinning apart.
“Tell them.” His voice is low, meant only for me. “All of it.”
I tell them.
The vision. Niamh’s face. Valdris’s three-day ultimatum. The threat that plays on loop behind my eyes every time I blink: Then I start removing pieces.
When I finish, silence hangs heavy enough to suffocate.
“It’s a trap.” Auren’s assessment is immediate. Brutal. “She’s using your cousin as bait to draw you out.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be walking directly into her territory. Into whatever defenses she’s constructed. With the full knowledge that she wants you there.”
“I know.”
“Then you understand why—“
“I understand that my cousin is going to die.” I cut him off, and something in my voice makes even Auren pause. “I understand that she’s only there because of me. Because she went looking for me when I disappeared. Because Valdris needed leverage and Niamh was convenient.”
My hands are shaking. Fire flickers at my fingertips, responding to the guilt that’s eating me alive.
“Niamh doesn’t know about any of this. Dragons.
Fire-Bringers. Ancient relics. She’s a schoolteacher in Galway who likes terrible romantic comedies and calls me every Sunday to complain about her mother.
” My voice cracks. “She’s the only family I have left that actually gives a damn whether I’m alive or dead.
And Valdris is going to carve her apart piece by piece unless I do something. ”
“Aisling.” Selene’s voice, soft with understanding. She knows what it’s like to be used as leverage. To watch the people you love suffer because of what you are. “We’re not saying we won’t help. We’re saying we need to be smart about this.”
“Smart would be not going at all.” Zyphon’s voice drifts from the shadows. “Smart would be accepting that your cousin is already dead and refusing to give Valdris what she wants.”
Rurik’s snarl rips through the room before I can respond. “Watch your mouth.”
“I’m stating facts.” Zyphon doesn’t flinch. “The queen has been planning this for weeks. She chose this cousin specifically because she knew it would work. Knew our Fire-Bringer would abandon strategy for sentiment.”
“She’s not abandoning anything.” Rurik steps forward, putting himself between me and his brother. “She’s refusing to let an innocent woman die because asking for help makes her a target.”
“An innocent woman who’s already—“
“Enough.” Drayke’s command cuts through the argument. His amber gaze sweeps the room, settles on me. “Aisling. If we do this—and I’m not saying we will—what’s your assessment of Valdris’s position?”
The question catches me off guard. He’s asking for my tactical input. Treating me like a strategist rather than a victim.
I force my mind to work. To think past the image of Niamh’s broken face.
“She’s not fully free yet. The vision showed the same chamber where she held me—volcanic rock, chains, the Relic energy pulsing through everything. She’s still bound to that mountain. Still limited in how far she can project her power.”
“So she needs you to come to her.” Auren’s tone has shifted. Less dismissive. More calculating. “She can’t hunt you across territories, so she’s creating incentive.”
“Which means she’s desperate.” I meet his gaze. “She lost Veylor. Lost most of her rogue forces. The Brotherhood is stronger than she anticipated, and the longer she stays trapped, the more time we have to prepare. She’s forcing our hand because waiting favors us, not her.”
Silence. Then Auren’s mouth curves into something that might be approval.
“Tactical assessment exceeds expectations.”
“High praise,” Rurik mutters. “Can we focus on the actual problem?”
“The problem is that she’s right.” Drayke studies the maps spread across the table. “Valdris is operating from weakness, not strength. If we hit her now—hard, fast, before she can rebuild—we might end this.”
“Or we might walk into a slaughter.” Zyphon’s shadows pulse with agitation. “She’s had weeks to prepare that mountain. Traps. Wards. Creatures we haven’t even seen yet.”
“Then we don’t walk in blind.” I step forward, past Rurik’s protective stance, until I’m standing at the table beside Drayke.
“I’ve been inside that mountain. I know the layout—the blood channels, the prisoner cells, the path to her chamber.
And she doesn’t know that I’ve been training. Doesn’t know what I can do now.”
“You’re suggesting we use that.” Drayke’s voice is neutral, but I catch the glint of interest in his eyes.
“I’m suggesting we stop letting her control the narrative.
She expects me to come running, desperate and alone.
She doesn’t expect the full Brotherhood at my back.
” I tap the map where Valdris’s mountain rises.
“Give me a team. Let me get Niamh out while you hit her defenses. By the time she realizes I’m not the broken prisoner she remembers, it’ll be too late. ”