Chapter 1 #2
“Blood isn’t destiny.” I push myself up on trembling arms, ignoring the way my vision swims. “If blood was destiny, you’d be exactly like every dragon who came before you.
Good and bad. Kind and cruel. Every choice already made by ancestors you never met.
” I meet his stare—really meet it—and let him see everything I’m feeling.
The grief. The fury. The desperate, burning need to make him understand.
“I watched Morrigan change. Watched the sister I loved become something I couldn’t recognize.
And I’ve spent years trying to figure out what I could have done differently.
What I missed. How I could have stopped her before—”
My voice breaks.
I hate that it breaks. Hate showing weakness in front of him. But three days of running and hiding and not letting myself feel anything have taken their toll, and the cracks are spreading faster than I can patch them.
“Before she killed your sister.” I force the words out.
“Before she destroyed both our families. Before she became the monster that Ulrik uses as a weapon.” I sink back against the pillows, suddenly too tired to hold myself up.
“I would die before helping her. And if you can’t see that—if your hatred is so complete that you can’t tell the difference between a monster and her victim—then kill me now and get it over with. ”
Nothing. No response. No movement.
Auren stares at me. I stare back, too drained to guard my expression, too empty to do anything but wait for him to decide whether I live or die.
The moment stretches. Grows. Fills the space between us with everything neither of us knows how to say.
Then he stands.
“Sleep.” The word is clipped. Final. He moves toward the door without looking back. “The war council convenes in the morning to decide what to do with you.”
“Auren.”
He pauses. Doesn’t turn.
“I’m sorry.” The words feel inadequate—impossibly, painfully inadequate—but I say them anyway.
“About Lyric. About what Morrigan did. I know sorry doesn’t change anything.
I know it doesn’t bring her back. But I need you to know that I’ve carried the weight of my sister’s crimes since I found out what she did.
And I will spend the rest of my life trying to balance the scales she tipped. ”
His shoulders are rigid. His hands have curled into fists at his sides.
“Lyric was young.” His voice is quiet. Controlled.
Somehow more devastating than a shout. “She inherited our mother’s Fire-Bringer blood but not my father’s ability to shift.
She couldn’t become a dragon—couldn’t protect herself the way I could.
” A pause, heavy with decades of grief. “She was learning to control her flame. Excited about her abilities, about her future. Your sister promised to teach her. Made her trust. And then she dragged her to a ritual circle and drained her until there was nothing left.”
My throat tightens. “I know.”
“You know the story.” He turns his head—not fully, just enough for me to see his profile.
The sharp line of his jaw. The flatness in his expression that barely contains whatever writhes beneath.
“You don’t know what it’s like to feel your sister die through a bond you can’t sever.
To arrive minutes too late and find her body in a ritual circle, drained of everything that made her alive.
” His voice drops lower. “You don’t know what it cost my parents to lose her.
They died fighting the Shadow Clan—hunting the monsters that sheltered your sister.
First Lyric. Then them. Morrigan didn’t just take one member of my family. She took all of them.”
The words hit me like physical blows.
I knew about Lyric. Everyone knows about Lyric—the crime that made Morrigan infamous, the reason Auren Valek became the witch-hating ice dragon of Brotherhood legend.
I didn’t know about his parents.
“I didn’t—” My voice cracks. “Auren, I didn’t know about your parents. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t.” The word is sharp. Final. “Don’t apologize for things you didn’t do. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t change anything.” He moves toward the door again. “Sleep, princess. We’ll see if your pretty words survive the morning.”
The door closes behind him.
I stare at the ceiling, my body trembling with weariness and something that might be grief. His grief, shared through words instead of bonds, somehow making my own heavier.
First Lyric. Then his parents. Morrigan didn’t just take one member of his family. She took all of them.
I think about the sister I used to know.
And I think about Auren Valek—centuries old, controlled to the point of freezing, utterly alone. His sister murdered by dark magic. His parents dead in a war started by the woman who killed her.
We both lost everything to Morrigan’s choices. The difference is that I lost my family three days ago, while he’s been carrying his grief for decades.
No wonder he looks at me and sees a threat. No wonder he can’t separate me from her.
I’m not sure I could either, if our positions were reversed.
Sleep pulls at me, heavy and insistent. I let it come this time. Let it wrap around me without fighting.
Tomorrow, the war council.
But tonight—just tonight—I let myself rest in enemy territory and hope that the dragon who caught me when I fell won’t decide to let me drop.
Morning arrives too soon.
I wake to sunlight filtering through unfamiliar curtains and the sound of someone moving quietly nearby. My body aches in ways I didn’t know were possible—every muscle protesting three days of abuse followed by a magical outburst that drained reserves I didn’t have.
But I’m alive. That’s more than I expected when I collapsed at the Brotherhood’s gates.
“You’re awake.”
I turn my head and find Aisling near the entrance, a tray in her hands. Her sharp green eyes assess me with clinical precision.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been trampled by horses and then set on fire.” I push myself up against the pillows, wincing. “So better than yesterday.”
Her lips twitch—almost a smile. “Your magical reserves are still depleted, but they’re replenishing faster than I expected. Whatever your dual bloodlines did to your abilities, it seems to include accelerated recovery.”
“Small mercies.”
She sets the tray on the table beside my bed—bread, broth, tea that smells like herbs I recognize from my own healing studies.
“War council convenes in an hour.” Aisling hands me the cup of tea
I wrap my hands around the cup, grateful for its warmth. “Auren thinks I’m a trap.”
“He thinks everyone’s a trap.” Aisling settles into the chair Auren occupied last night. “It’s his job—seeing threats before they materialize, planning for every contingency. Don’t take it personally.”
“Hard not to take it personally when his hatred is specifically about my bloodline.”
“Fair point.” She studies me. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a trap.
Traps don’t usually drain themselves half to death in defensive magic flares.
” She shakes her head. “I’ve only known about my Fire-Bringer heritage for a few months—been trying to learn everything I can, reading anything Selene and Nasyra can dig up.
But that fire of yours... nothing I’ve read mentioned anything like it. Not until Nasyra explained.”
“The white flame.” I sip the tea, letting the herbs ease some of the ache in my bones. “It’s always been this way. Since I was seven.”
“Nasyra seemed to understand it instantly. Said something about royal lines and power that feeds itself.” Aisling’s brow furrows.
“The Valdorian royals bred for this specifically. Generations of careful matches to keep both gifts at full strength.” I set the cup down. “Most heirs manifest one ability or the other. I manifested both.”
“And the Crown amplifies it further?”
I hesitate. “I don’t know. I’ve never opened it.”
Aisling’s eyebrows rise. “Never?”
“The Crown isn’t a toy. It amplifies magical abilities a hundredfold—but it also drains the wielder. Without proper control, it could kill me.” I stare at my hands, still trembling faintly. “My mother was supposed to train me. We were supposed to have years. Instead...”
Instead, the Shadow Clan came, and years became days became nothing at all.
“I’m sorry.” Aisling’s voice softens. “About your family. Your kingdom. All of it.”
I nod because I don’t trust my voice. The sympathy catches me off guard—unexpected kindness from a stranger in a place that should have been nothing but hostile.
“Selene’s found you clothes.” Aisling stands, gesturing to a pile of fabric on the chair by the window. “Nothing fancy, but it’s better than the bloody rags you arrived in. Eat. Dress. Rest.”
She pauses at the threshold.
“One more thing.” Her green eyes find mine. “The other Fire-Bringers—Selene, Nasyra, and me—we’ve talked. Whatever the council decides, we want you to know that you have allies here. Not because of politics or strategy, but because we know what it’s like to be hunted for what we are.”
Something cracks in my chest. Not grief this time—something closer to hope.
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate, but they’re all I have.
Aisling nods once and slips out, leaving me alone with breakfast and borrowed clothes and the terrifying possibility that I might actually survive this.
I eat quickly. Dress in simple clothes that fit well enough—dark trousers, a soft shirt, boots that are slightly too big but serviceable. Practical. Warrior’s clothes, not princess’s finery.
Good. I’m not a princess anymore.
I look at myself in the small mirror above the washbasin. Dark hair tangled from sleep. Amber eyes shadowed with exhaustion. A thin face that’s lost its courtly softness over days of running.
I don’t recognize the woman staring back at me. She looks harder than the princess I used to be. More desperate. More dangerous.
Good.
I’m going to need dangerous to survive what comes next.