Chapter 9 Dayn
DAYN
The walk to the Repository is a silent torment.
Every step away from the arena feels like stretching a cord that wants to snap me back to her side, to the pillar where our power became one.
The echo of it still thrums under my skin—a perfect, terrifying harmony of shadow and flame.
It was more than I anticipated. More than just a fusion of blood magic.
It felt like two halves of a fractured whole locking into place.
I felt her need like a physical blow. The desperate, clawing hunger for my blood, for me.
It called to the beast in my own veins, the ancient possessiveness of my lineage that roared to life at her touch.
It wanted to answer her craving, to pull her closer and taste the salt on her own skin.
Maintaining composure and denying her was like denying myself air.
Nyssa’s suggestion was a lifeline. A necessary retreat. I need to reassert control, to keep it framed as a lesson, a simple exercise in power. But the truth is a venomous thing. She is not my student. She is my counterpart. And that makes her the most dangerous being in all of Draethys.
I watch Esme walk past me, her shoulders still set in a line of rigid defiance, but I see the slight tremor in her hands as she clenches them into fists at her sides.
She moves with Nyssa's steadying hand on her elbow, and her face is pale, jaw set in that stubborn line I've come to recognize as her default defense. She won't meet my eyes. Smart woman.
The Repository lies in the eastern wing, deep enough that the temperature drops with each descending step. I notice Esme shiver and resist the urge to offer her warmth. She'd likely stab me for the gesture.
“The Repository houses our most sacred artifacts,” I say, forcing my voice into the detached tone of an instructor.
I can’t control everything I feel, but I can control what I show.
“Items recovered from the surface before our descent. Relics from the Blood Wars. Documentation of treaties both honored and broken.”
“Including treaties with my people?” Esme asks quietly.
I pause at the heavy ironwood doors, my hand on the latch. “Yes. Including those.”
Recognizing my touch, the doors swing open with a groan that echoes through the cavernous space beyond.
Torches flicker to life automatically, their flames casting dancing shadows across rows upon rows of display cases.
Glass and crystal gleam in the firelight, each containing some fragment of our history.
Esme steps past me, and I catch the subtle intake of her breath. Despite everything—her exhaustion, her anger, her fear—curiosity still burns bright in her eyes. That insatiable need to know, to understand. It's one of the things that makes her so formidable. And so vulnerable.
“This section contains artifacts from before the wars,” I say, gesturing to the nearest cases. “When dragons, darkbloods, and clearbloods coexisted. When there was a certain... balance.”
She moves closer to examine a ceremonial dagger, its blade etched with runes in three different languages. “Hard to imagine,” she murmurs. “My grandmother's stories always made it sound like—”
“We were always monsters,” I finish for her, my voice low. “History is a weapon, Esme. It's forged by the victors to justify their bloodshed. Your grandmother told you the stories that kept her people sharp, angry, and afraid. Our ancestors did the same.”
I lead her past the relics of that fragile peace and into the heart of the collection, where the artifacts of war are kept. The air here is colder, heavier with memory. I feel Nyssa trailing behind us, a silent, uncertain shadow.
“The Blood Wars,” I say, stopping before a massive shard of obsidian, easily seven feet tall.
It's a fragment of a warding stone, shattered and scarred.
Runes of power still pulse faintly within it, a dying heartbeat.
“This was from the Gates of Ashkar, a darkblood fortress. It was said to be impenetrable.”
Her eyes trace the jagged edges, the deep gouges scored into its surface. “What broke it?”
“A single dragon,” I reply. “My great-grandsire. He flew into it at full speed, sacrificing himself to create the breach that allowed our forces to pour through. We lost thousands that day. So did you.” I let the silence hang, letting the weight of that mutual destruction settle on her.
“We celebrate him as a hero. Your people likely remember him as the butcher of Ashkar.”
She says nothing, her gaze fixed on the stone.
I see the conflict in her face, the way her coven-trained certainty wars with the tangible evidence before her.
This is another reason I agreed to bring her here.
For a lesson in perspective. If she is to be of any use, she needs to see beyond the propaganda she was fed from birth.
My gaze drifts to a smaller display case nearby. Inside rests a single, petrified scale, as large as a shield and the color of midnight. A familiar, aching pang goes through me.
“And this,” I say, my voice softer than I intend, “is all that remains of my mother's flight armor.”
Esme's head turns sharply, her dark eyes finding mine. The animosity in her expression is momentarily replaced by something else. Curiosity. Perhaps even a flicker of empathy.
“She was a scholar, not a warrior,” I continue, the words tasting like ash.
“She believed a treaty was possible, even at the height of the Great Purge. Later on, she slipped out to the surface to meet with a coven elder under a flag of truce.” I tap the glass case.
“They sent back this, and a message. 'No peace with beasts'.”
The lie is a necessary one. The truth is far more complicated, a betrayal that cuts deeper than any darkblood blade, but this version will suffice.
She looks from the scale back to me, her expression unreadable. For a moment, I think I see a crack in her armor. But then her jaw tightens, and the harder glint returns to her eyes.
“Every story has two sides, Daynthazar,” she says, her voice regaining its edge. “I'm sure the archives of Darkbirch tell a very different tale about that day.”
Of course they do. And that is precisely the problem.
I guide her past more displays of shattered weapons and tattered banners, each a testament to a failed negotiation or a bloody victory. I stop before a massive pedestal of black marble, the centerpiece of this section of the Repository.
Mounted upon it is my old battle saddle.
It is a monstrous thing of carved ebony and burnished gold, its high cantle shaped like a dragon's skull.
Runes of protection and endurance are burned into every surface, and the dozens of leather straps, meant to bind a rider securely to my neck through the most violent aerial maneuvers, hang like sleeping serpents.
“Wait,” she says, her voice steeped with disbelief as she takes in the object. “You were ridden into battle? By whom?”
“On several occasions,” I explain, my gaze fixed on the worn leather, remembering the sting of wind.
“During our alliances with one faction or another, some of us allowed their leaders or their finest warriors to ride us. It was more of a political statement, their ability to ride us and our willingness to carry them. A symbol of our friendship, one might say.”
Her eyes, dark and assessing, flick from the saddle to my face. “And who got to ride… you?”
“Helena Salem, mostly. A few others before her.” My gaze drops to the artfully engraved brass plate at the saddle's base. “Their names are etched there, for your curiosity.”
Esme leans forward, her dark hair brushing the cold marble. I watch her brow furrow as she scans the list. She doesn't recognize most of the names, I can tell, but I know a couple still stand out beside Helena’s. And they are all Salem ancestors. Her breath catches.
“There's more to your friendship with my family than you told me,” she murmurs, straightening up, her eyes accusing. “You're holding back information.”
“I'm merely keeping my word to your ancestors,” I reply, the statement both true and a deflection. “I made promises. I do not break them lightly.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she demands, her voice rising.
I finally meet her gaze, letting her see a sliver of the truth, a calculated crack in the wall of history I have built around her.
“The alliances I made with the Salems sometimes went against the treaties signed between the dragons and the darkbloods,” I say.
“Some secrets were meant to be kept for the good of all. Even from their own descendants.” Her face pales slightly, the implications of my words settling like a shroud over the stories she’s been told her entire life.
Her mind is reeling; I can see it in the slight widening of her eyes, the way her lips part as if to ask a question she doesn't know how to form.
Before she can regain her footing and press for answers, Nyssa turns our attention elsewhere.
She points to a small, unassuming display set apart from the others.
“What is that, my lord?”
It’s a simple object, a silver disc no larger than my palm, round like a belt buckle.
Runes I know intimately are etched into its surface, the deep crevices filled with a dark red enamel that looks like dried blood.
In the center, the three-headed serpent of the old Salem family crest rests, seemingly inert.
The memory of the first time my fingers brushed against it, the cold shock that jolted through me, hits with an almost physical force.
“Dayn,” Esme whispers, her voice barely audible. “What is this?”
“Just a keepsake,” I reply.
“A keepsake?”
“It’s from a belt buckle worn by Arturius Salem, the youngest of the Salem sons who fought in the Blood Wars.
It bears no real use or significance,” I lie, a cold knot tightening in my chest. “I convinced my father to preserve it as a museum artifact. To the dragons of old, it serves as a reminder of how far one is willing to go for victory. To the dragons of youth, it’s meant as a warning. ”
“A warning of what, my lord?” Nyssa asks, her brow furrowed with earnest curiosity.
“A warning of what will happen if we do not learn from our past mistakes,” I say, my gaze sweeping over both of them, a prince delivering a sermon.
“Alliances were what kept the balance in the world above. When alliances broke, blood was shed, lives were lost, and we ended up in Draethys, confined to the bowels of the earth for our survival.”
Esme never takes her eyes off me. Her focus is sharp and piercing.
I’m well aware that she has picked up on the subtle tells—the slight stiffness in my shoulders, the way my words are too perfectly measured.
She knows I’m not being entirely truthful with regard to the buckle.
She keeps her lips pressed in a tight line, a single vein throbbing in the pale skin of her neck, a frantic, tiny pulse I suddenly long to feel against my tongue.
I move to the adjacent display, a deliberate shift of my body to distract attention.
“And that’s my personal ceremonial sword,” I say, my voice steady, betraying none of the turmoil her focus on the buckle has stirred.
The steel blade rests on a bed of dark velvet, runes of enhancement a silver river down its center.
“I used it for the peace treaty signing, among other important occasions.”
“Which peace treaty?” she replies. “No, wait, it doesn’t matter. You probably ended up breaking all of them anyway.”
Nyssa, ever the loyal subject, frowns. “I thought it was the darkbloods who betrayed the dragons at the Battle of Emerald Hill.”
“Emerald Hill?” Esme repeats, her head snapping toward Nyssa. “No. The dragons turned their fire on us instead of the clearbloods.”
She doesn’t know. But neither does Nyssa.
The truth is a wound that never healed. What happened at Emerald Hill was a betrayal that stained all sides.
I was still young then, merely a pup compared to my father and his commanders, but I had been tasked with keeping the diplomacy talks afloat ahead of another attempt at a peace treaty.
I worked closely with Sarah Salem on that.
We were so close to putting an end to the violence, to forging something real from the ashes of our hatred.
But we were ambushed. The bitterness of that day lingers in my heart, a cold stone that the centuries have failed to wear down.
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that the past cannot be changed.
When I turn, I find Esme’s gaze has drifted back to the Salem buckle. The sword was a failed distraction.
“You’re really not telling me everything about that piece,” she murmurs, her voice low.
“It’s not my story to tell,” I reply, the words feeling inadequate even as I say them.
“I’d summon Arturius, if he’s still able to retain his spirit form.
Given how old he is, I doubt it…” Her voice trails off, a flicker of frustration crossing her features.
“On top of that, Draethys keeps me from reaching out to my ancestors.” She turns fully, her body now angled to face me, the full weight of her dark, intense eyes pinning me in place.
“This place you brought me to… it’s a spiritual dead zone.
It severs the Path of Eternal Vigil. You’ve cut me off from my power, from my family, from my history. ”
The accusation hangs in the cold, still air, and I don’t deny it.
“My coven is my strength. My ancestors are my shield,” she continues, her gaze unwavering.
“And you’ve taken both. So don’t you dare talk to me about stories that aren’t yours to tell.
As long as I am trapped here, cut off and blind, every single one of these secrets is my business.
” Her tone drops lower, to almost a whisper.
“And I will uncover them. With or without your help.”
Her defiance is a wildfire, set in the heart of a mountain. It is the very essence of the Salems I once knew, the quality that made them such formidable allies and devastating enemies. It is the reason I need her. And the reason she may very well destroy me.
She walks off, but I can’t help watching.
Even in the functional lines of the Bellatorium uniform, she has a lethal grace that’s impossible to ignore. Her hips sway with each angry step, her spine ramrod straight. That indomitable Salem pride. It is the single greatest threat to my plans, and the very thing that sets my blood on fire.
Infuriating. Exquisite.