Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
TAMSIN
The knock on Auren’s door comes just as I’m pulling on my borrowed shift from last night.
“Auren.” Drayke’s voice is tight with something that sounds like urgency. “War council. Now.”
Auren is already moving, pulling on clothes with the efficient speed of someone who’s dressed for battle a thousand times.
I stay where I am, suddenly aware that Drayke almost certainly knows I’m here.
The Fire-Bringer quarters are on the other side of the fortress.
There’s no innocent explanation for my presence in Auren’s chambers at this hour.
“Give us five minutes,” Auren calls through the door.
A pause. Then: “Make it three.”
Footsteps retreat down the corridor. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“That’s going to be awkward.” I grab my shift and pull it over my head, grimacing at the thought of walking through the fortress in last night’s borrowed clothes.
Auren crosses to a wardrobe I hadn’t noticed and pulls out a dark shirt. “Here.” He tosses it to me. “It will be too large, but it’s better than—” He gestures at my flimsy shift.
I catch the shirt and hold it up. It’s soft, well-worn, and smells like him. Something warm uncurls in my chest as I pull it on over my shift—it falls almost to my knees, the sleeves hanging past my fingertips, but he’s right. It’s better.
And I like wearing it. Like carrying his scent on my skin, his clothes against my body. Like being marked as his, even in this small way.
The thought should probably alarm me. It doesn’t.
“I don’t care if they know.” Auren’s voice is quiet, his gaze steady on mine as he fastens his own shirt. “About us. Whatever this is.”
“Neither do I.” And I realize, as I say it, that it’s true.
Let them know. Let them see me walking out of his chambers wearing his shirt.
After everything that’s happened—Morrigan, the assault, the grief and violence and fire—this feels like something worth claiming.
“But we should probably focus on whatever made Drayke sound like that first.”
Auren nods, his expression shifting into something harder. Battle mode. “Whatever this is, it’s not good news.”
He holds out his hand. I take it.
We walk to the war council side by side.
The war room is already full when we arrive.
Drayke stands at the head of the massive oak table, his bronze features carved into hard lines.
Selene is beside him, her hand on his arm, her expression worried.
Rurik paces near the window, restless energy radiating off him in waves.
Aisling watches him with the patient resignation of someone who’s learned that trying to calm him is pointless.
Zyphon lurks in the shadows at the edge of the room, his violet-dark gaze tracking movement, his curse-cracked scales absorbing what little light reaches him.
Nasyra stands nearby, close but not touching—they communicate in silences and glances that don’t require words.
Every head turns when Auren and I enter. Holding hands. Me wearing his shirt.
Rurik’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. “Well. That’s a development.”
“Not now.” Auren’s voice cuts through the room, sharp enough to silence even Rurik. He releases my hand, but his palm finds the small of my back instead—a point of contact, of support. “What’s happened?”
Drayke’s jaw tightens. “Ulrik knows about Morrigan.”
The words land hard. Of course, he knows. Morrigan was his tool, his agent within the Valdorian bloodline. Her death would have been felt the moment it happened—the collapse of wards tied to her power, the absence of a magical signature he’d been tracking for decades.
“How bad?” I ask.
Drayke’s gaze meets mine, and I see the answer before he speaks it. Bad. Very bad.
“He attacked Valdoria’s ruins this morning.” Drayke’s voice is flat, controlled, the voice of a commander delivering casualties. “Any survivors who were hiding there, anyone who might have been waiting for you to return—”
He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.
The air leaves my lungs.
I knew there were survivors. Scattered, leaderless, traumatized—but alive. Hiding in cellars, in the mountains, in neighboring villages. Waiting for someone to tell them what happens next. Waiting for their queen.
And now they’re dead. Because Ulrik wanted to send me a message.
“How many?” My voice sounds distant, hollow.
“We don’t have exact numbers yet.” Selene’s voice is gentle, careful. “Our contacts in the area are still reporting. But the Shadow Clan was thorough. They burned what was left of the capital and swept through every village within a day’s ride.”
Auren’s hand presses harder against my back. Grounding. Steadying. I lean into the touch without thinking about it—reaching for him instinctively, the way I might reach for a weapon or a ward.
“That’s not all.” Drayke’s voice pulls my attention back. “Two of our allied outposts were hit last night. Assassins, not armies. Targeted strikes against commanders and their families.”
“Which outposts?” Auren’s tone has gone cold. Dangerous.
“Thornwall and Greyspire. Both commanders are dead. Their mates survived, barely.” Drayke runs a hand through his hair—a gesture of frustration I’ve never seen from him. “Ulrik isn’t just retaliating. He’s demonstrating. Showing us that he can strike anywhere, any time, and we can’t stop him.”
“Patience is no longer his strategy,” Zyphon says from the shadows. His voice is rough, rusted from disuse. “Morrigan was supposed to deliver Tamsin to him. With her gone, he’s abandoned subtlety for brutality.”
“He’s making us pay,” Nasyra adds quietly. “For Lakhu. For Morrigan. For every defeat we’ve dealt him.”
The room falls silent. I can feel everyone’s gaze on me—weighing, calculating, wondering what the princess without a kingdom is going to do now that her kingdom’s survivors are gone.
I should feel grief. Should feel the crushing sorrow of knowing that people who waited for me, who hoped for me, are gone. And I do—somewhere beneath the numbness, there’s a well of pain so deep I’m afraid to look at it directly.
But stronger than grief is something colder. Something that tastes like the white fire that burns in my blood.
Rage.
“There’s more,” Drayke says. He reaches into his vest and pulls out a folded piece of parchment. The paper is dark, almost black, and it seems to drink in the light around it. Shadow magic. Ulrik’s signature. “This arrived an hour ago. Spelled to bypass our wards.”
He unfolds it and reads aloud:
“You took my son. You destroyed my agent. Now I will take everything from you. Starting with the witch princess who thinks dragon scales can protect her.”
The words hang in the air, poisonous and precise.
“Delightful,” Rurik mutters. “The bastard has a flair for the dramatic.”
“It’s a declaration of war.” Auren’s voice is ice and steel. “Not that we weren’t already at war, but this makes it personal. He’s not just trying to claim the Crown anymore. He wants to destroy us.”
“He wants to hurt us,” Selene corrects quietly. “There’s a difference. Destruction is strategic. This—” she gestures at the parchment “—this is revenge.”
I think of what I know about Ulrik. Eight centuries of accumulated power. A king who created the curse that’s been slowly killing Zyphon for three hundred years. A father who watched his son die at the Brotherhood’s hands and responded not with grief but with calculation.
Except now the calculation has cracked. Morrigan’s death wasn’t just the loss of a tool—it was the failure of his plan. And Ulrik, for all his coldness, is still capable of rage when things don’t go his way.
“He’ll keep attacking,” I say. The words come out steadier than I feel. “As long as I’m here, as long as he knows where to find me, he’ll keep killing people to make his point. The Valdorian survivors were just the beginning.”
“You’re not suggesting we hand you over.” Auren’s voice is sharp, his hand pressing harder against my back.
“No.” I turn to face the room fully, pulling away from Auren’s touch so I can stand on my own. So they can see the princess instead of the woman who spent last night in a dragon’s bed. “I’m suggesting we stop waiting for him to come to us.”
Drayke’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”
“Ulrik is attacking because he’s lost his advantage.
Morrigan was supposed to capture me, drain my power, deliver the Crown to him on a platter.
Now he’s improvising, lashing out, trying to hurt us enough that we make a mistake.
” I let my gaze sweep the room, meeting each pair of eyes in turn.
“But that also means he’s vulnerable. Off-balance. He expected this to be over by now.”
“You want to attack the Shadow Clan stronghold.” Zyphon’s voice carries something I’ve never heard from him—interest. “Storm the most fortified position in dragon territory.”
“I want to end this.” My fire stirs in my chest, responding to the emotion building inside me. “Every day we wait, more people die. Valdorian survivors. Brotherhood allies. Anyone Ulrik thinks will hurt us.” I clench my fists at my sides. “I refuse to be the reason he keeps killing.”
“It’s not your fault,” Aisling says firmly. “None of this is—”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.” I cut her off, not unkindly. “What matters is that I can stop it. I’m the only one who can wield the Crown. If we’re going to take down Ulrik, if we’re going to end the Shadow Clan’s threat permanently, that Relic is our best weapon.”
The silence that follows is heavy with implication.
“The Crown is dangerous.” Selene’s voice is careful, diplomatic. “Even for you. Opening it, wielding that kind of power—”
“Is what my ancestors expect me to do.” I meet her gaze, letting her see the fire burning behind my eyes. “My bloodline has protected the Crown for generations because we’re the only ones who can control it. Not seal it. Not fear it. Control it. It’s time I fulfilled that purpose.”