Chapter 5
FIVE
TAMSIN
Dinner is a revelation.
I expected formality—the stiff protocols of court dinners, careful conversation over elaborate dishes. Instead, I find myself in a private dining room with the other Fire-Bringers, platters of simple food spread across a worn wooden table, and conversation that flows without pretense.
“The brothers eat in the great hall,” Selene explains, passing me a basket of bread. “Sometimes we join them, but tonight seemed like a good night for something quieter.”
“Quieter meaning without Rurik making explosion sounds during every course,” Aisling adds.
“He does not—” Selene starts.
“He absolutely does. Last week, he narrated an entire battle while eating soup. There were sound effects. Detailed ones.”
“He’s enthusiastic.”
“He’s a menace. A loud, explosive menace.” But there’s no heat in Aisling’s voice. Something softer lives beneath the irritation.
“At least he’s entertaining,” Nasyra offers. “Zyphon just stares at his food like it personally offended him. Meals with him are an exercise in competitive silence.”
“And Drayke?” I ask.
“Drayke growls,” Selene says. “Actually growls. At anyone who looks at me too long, at food that isn’t prepared correctly, at chairs that scrape too loudly. I had to ban him from accompanying me to the market after he nearly shifted in front of a fruit vendor.”
“What did the fruit vendor do?”
“Offered me a free apple. Apparently that constituted a threat to our relationship.” She rolls her eyes, but the smile tugging at her mouth softens the exasperation. “Six centuries old and he still hasn’t figured out that grocers aren’t romantic rivals.”
“And Auren?” The question escapes before I can stop it.
The women exchange glances.
“Auren doesn’t eat with us often,” Selene says carefully. “When he does, he’s... observing. You can practically see him cataloguing information. Who’s tired, who’s distracted, who might be a liability in the next fight.”
“It’s not personal,” Nasyra adds. “It’s just how he processes the world. Everything is data. Everyone is a variable to be understood and accounted for.”
“He’s saved lives that way,” Aisling says quietly. “Noticed when someone wasn’t fit for battle before they knew it themselves. Repositioned forces because he saw a pattern the rest of us missed.” She meets my gaze. “The cold isn’t cruelty. It’s how he keeps people alive.”
I think about that. About watching everyone around you, calculating risks, trying to see every possible angle of attack. About carrying the weight of knowing that if you miss something, people die.
It sounds exhausting. It sounds lonely.
Despite everything—the grief, the exhaustion, the terrifying uncertainty of my situation—I feel something unexpected stir in my chest. Not sympathy exactly. Understanding.
“Can I ask something else?” The question slips out before I can second-guess it.
“Always,” Selene says. “We reserve the right to give terrible answers, but the questions are free.”
“The claiming.” I set my cup down carefully. “I’ve heard of them—the formal mating between dragons and Fire-Bringers. But I don’t really understand what they are. How they work.”
The room goes quiet. Not uncomfortable—more thoughtful. The women exchange glances, some silent communication passing between them.
“It’s not what most people think,” Selene says slowly. “It’s not ownership. Or compulsion. It’s a choice that forms when both parties want it. The dragon doesn’t claim the Fire-Bringer against her will. She has to accept it.”
“The mark appears during intimacy,” Aisling adds, clinical even now. “When both parties are fully present, fully willing. Magic responding to intent, not magic creating intent.”
“And once it’s formed?” I ask.
“You feel each other.” Nasyra’s voice is quieter now, stripped of its usual edge.
“Not thoughts. But emotions. Presence. You know when they’re hurting, when they need you.
” Her mismatched gaze goes distant. “Zyphon carries a curse that’s been eating him for centuries.
Now I feel it too—the shadow in his blood.
But I also feel his strength. Everything he is becomes part of me. ”
“It sounds overwhelming.”
“It is.” Selene’s smile turns soft. “And also the most natural thing in the world.” She pauses, gaze sharpening with interest. “Why do you ask?”
I think of Auren’s frozen facade. The way his frost met my fire last night—not fighting, not resisting, just... containing. Holding.
“Just trying to understand the world I’ve landed in.”
Selene’s expression says she sees right through me. But she doesn’t push.
“Fair enough.” She raises her cup. “To understanding. And to surviving long enough to figure it out.”
I raise mine to meet hers. The gesture feels strange—almost normal in a way nothing has felt since Valdoria fell.
“To surviving,” I echo.
For the first time, the words don’t feel like a prayer. They feel like a promise.
They give me a room in the Fire-Bringer quarters.
“Close to us,” Selene explains as she shows me to the door. “In case you need anything. In case your magic decides to throw another tantrum.”
“And if Auren comes looking for me in the middle of the night?”
“Then he has to go through us first.” Her smile turns fierce. “Fire-Bringers protect their own, Tamsin. Whatever else happens here, remember that.”
The room is simple but comfortable—a bed with clean linens, a wardrobe stocked with borrowed clothes, a fireplace that crackles to life the moment I enter. Responding to my blood. Recognizing the flame that lives inside me.
The Crown sits in a warded chest by the window. Selene had it moved here after dinner—said something about it being safer close to me than locked in general storage.
I feel it pulsing. Waiting. Patient in a way that should be comforting and instead sets my teeth on edge.
Soon, I tell it silently. Soon I’ll need what you can give me. But not yet.
I change into sleeping clothes—Nasyra’s, apparently, since we’re closest in size—and lie down on sheets softer than anything I’ve touched in days. The ceiling above me is stone, nothing like the painted murals of my chambers in Valdoria.
The silence is different too. No servants. No distant music. No comforting rumble of my father’s voice.
Everything I knew is ash and memory. And tomorrow, I begin the process of learning to function in this new world.
Dawn training with Auren. Hours of close proximity with a dragon who looks at me and sees his sister’s murderer. His frost against my fire, control against chaos.
But tonight...
Tonight I have a room in the Fire-Bringer quarters, with women who welcomed me despite every reason not to. Selene’s sharp humor cutting through my defenses. Aisling’s blunt care wrapped in threats about vegetables. Nasyra’s dark understanding offered without pity.
They call me one of them. Treat me like I belong.
I don’t know if I deserve it. But they offered it anyway—sisterhood extended without conditions, without demands, without requiring me to prove myself first.
And Auren...
Auren caught me when I fell. Carried me through corridors I couldn’t see. Stayed at my bedside through the night. His frost wrapped around my fire and didn’t try to extinguish it—just held it. Gave me something to anchor against.
He hates what I represent. But he saved me anyway.
The cold isn’t cruelty, Aisling said. It’s how he keeps people alive.
I close my eyes and try to quiet my mind. Tomorrow, training. Tomorrow, the first step toward learning to fight back. Tomorrow, I begin becoming something Morrigan and Ulrik never expected.
A weapon they can’t control.
Sleep comes slowly, dragging me down into darkness that smells like frost and pine. The last thing I see before unconsciousness takes me is the memory of golden depths—calculating, yes. Cold, certainly. But watching. Always watching.
Seeing threats. Seeing patterns. Seeing me.
He caught me when I fell.
I hold onto that thought as I sink into dreams. It’s not trust or acceptance or anything close to warmth.
But it’s a crack in the ice.
And right now, that’s enough.