Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
AUREN
The Crown opens.
White light explodes across the battlefield—not attacking, not destroying, just announcing.
A declaration of power that silences every other conflict for a single, breathless moment.
The crystallized sphere in Tamsin’s hands shatters its dormant form, geometric patterns cascading outward to create a corona that hovers above her head.
White light pulsing in rhythms that match her heartbeat.
The same color as her fire. The same color as stars.
Power pours from her in waves I feel against my skin. Heat that doesn’t burn, magic that resonates in frequencies that make my dragon instincts want to bow. She’s magnificent. Terrible. Something more than human, more than Fire-Bringer, more than witch.
She’s everything the prophecies promised. Everything the bloodline was bred to create. Everything I never knew I needed until she walked through my gates and refused to break.
And she’s mine.
The thought cuts through me, fierce and primal and undeniable. Mine. This impossible woman with power that dwarfs kingdoms, who chose me despite every reason not to, who reaches for my hand even as she holds enough magic to unmake the world.
I take her free hand. Lace my cold fingers through her blazing ones. Feel the shock of our opposite temperatures, the thrill that still runs through me every time we touch.
Mine. And I am hers. Whatever comes.
Tamsin raises her hand toward the fortress, and the universe holds its breath.
White fire erupts from her palm—not the controlled bursts I’ve seen her use before, but a torrent.
A flood. Power amplified a hundredfold, directed with the precision her witch blood provides.
It slams into the fortress wards and they shatter into a thousand fragments, eight centuries of protection dissolving in seconds.
The shadow constructs that have been reforming throughout the battle simply cease to exist. Her fire touches them and they’re gone, unmade by power they were never designed to withstand.
Dragons in the sky scream as wards they’ve relied on for protection fail, leaving them exposed to attacks that moments ago would have been useless.
In the sky above, Ulrik screams.
The sound is rage and shock and something that might be fear, though the Shadow King would never admit to such weakness.
Eight centuries of absolute power, and he’s never faced anything that could break his defenses.
Never imagined that the Crown he sought to claim could be turned against him so completely.
He disengages from Zyphon, banking hard, diving toward us with void-fire gathering in his maw. Toward Tamsin. Toward the threat he should have eliminated when he had the chance.
I shift between heartbeats.
Gold-white scales erupt across my skin as I launch myself into his path.
Human to dragon in the space of a breath, rising to meet the Shadow King with fire building in my chest. We collide in midair—my flame against his void, ice meeting shadow.
The impact sends shockwaves across the plateau, cracks spider-webbing through stone that has stood for millennia.
His power presses against me, trying to erase me the way his fire erases everything. I feel myself beginning to fade at the edges, existence unraveling where our magics meet.
I push back with everything I have.
“You dare?” His voice echoes with accumulated arrogance, booming across the battlefield. “You think you can stand against me, little guardian?”
I don’t bother answering. I just hold. Just buy time.
Just give Tamsin the seconds she needs to finish what we came here to do.
My claws rake against his scales, finding no purchase.
His void-fire lashes my side, and I feel parts of me cease to exist—scales, flesh, things I’ll need to regenerate if I survive.
When. When I survive. She’s waiting for me. That’s not something I’m willing to lose.
Zyphon hits Ulrik from behind—curse-cracked claws raking across void-black scales, finding the seams where shadow magic is weakest. The Shadow King roars, twisting to face this new threat, and I use the distraction to disengage.
To return to Tamsin’s side. Where I belong.
She’s still holding the Crown open. Sweat beads on her forehead despite the cold, her hands trembling with the effort of containing power that wants to consume her. But her eyes are clear. Focused. Victorious.
“The inner wards are down.” Her voice strains but holds steady. “We can reach the throne room. End this.”
I shift back to human form, staggering slightly as my injuries translate from dragon to man. The wounds from Ulrik’s void-fire throb with absence rather than pain—places where I simply don’t exist anymore.
Tamsin catches me. Her free hand grips my arm, steadying me, her fire warming the void-touched places without quite filling them. Her touch grounds me in ways I can’t explain.
“You’re hurt.” Not a question. Her amber eyes sweep over my wounds with the assessment of someone who has seen too much damage in too short a time.
“I’ll heal.” I cover her hand with mine, press her palm flat against my chest. Let her feel my heart beating beneath her fingers. “Don’t leave me.”
She looks up at me, Crown blazing above her head, power rolling off her in waves. And she smiles—soft, real, just for me.
Behind us, Zyphon and Ulrik tear at each other with renewed fury. Drayke and Rurik have broken through the remaining Shadow Clan forces, bronze and red-gold dragons driving enemies back toward the fortress. The Fire-Bringers advance in their wake, combined flames providing cover.
The tide has turned. We’re winning.
And watching Tamsin wield power that should have destroyed her, power that bent to her will instead of breaking her—I feel something crack open in my chest. Something I’ve kept locked away since Lyric died. Since I decided that feeling anything was too dangerous to risk.
It’s not just desire. Not just attraction. Not even the protective instinct that’s driven me since she arrived at our gates, half-dead and burning with determination.
It’s something fiercer. Deeper. Something that terrifies me in ways Ulrik’s power never could.
I love her.
The realization hits with the force of a physical blow. I love her. This witch princess who should be my enemy, who carries the bloodline of the woman who killed my sister, who has become so essential to me that I can’t imagine existing without her.
I love her. And I will burn the world to keep her safe.
“Auren.” Her voice brings me back to the present. She’s looking at me with those amber eyes, fire and exhaustion mixing in her gaze. The Crown still blazes above her head, its geometric patterns pulsing with each beat of her heart. “We need to move. Before Ulrik breaks free.”
I take her hand again. Her fingers are burning hot against my cold palm, her fire leaking through skin that can’t contain all the power coursing through her. It should hurt. It doesn’t. Nothing about touching her has ever hurt.
“Stay with me,” I say. It’s a command. A plea. A promise.
She squeezes my hand, and her smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
We move toward the fortress. Side by side. Toward the Shadow King’s throne room and the final confrontation that will decide everything.
Behind us, Ulrik roars in fury, swings his massive tail around, and sends Zyphon tumbling across the sky. Then the shadow king vaporizes into black mist. I can barely track the dark cloud as it dives into the center of the fortress.
Great. So much for sneaking in.
Ahead, the fortress gates gape open—massive stone sized for shifted dragons, carved with faces that seem to scream if you look too long. An invitation to death that we accept without hesitation.
The battle isn’t over.
But we’re going to win.
I know it with the same certainty that I know I love her. Know it the way I know my own name, my own magic, the ice that has defined me for six centuries.
Some things are simply true. Beyond strategy. Beyond calculation. Beyond the cold equations I’ve used to navigate the world since Lyric died.
Tamsin is one of those things. And I will spend every moment I have left making sure she knows it.
But first—
First, we kill a king.