Chapter 11 Kael
If this was a dream, I never wanted to wake up.
The kitchen was warm, alive with the crackling fire in the hearth and the golden glow it cast across the room. The aroma of stew that Seranni must have reheated—hearty and rich—mingled with the faint sweetness of bread, wafting through the air like an embrace.
And there she was. Seranni stood by the hearth, her smile blooming as I entered. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her smile—it was a rare and precious thing—but tonight it felt different, like the world had tilted just enough to let in some new kind of light. A light that shone for me.
It hit me then, like a blow to the chest, how long it had been since I’d come home to anything. Even before the experiments, the war, the imprisonment—I had been alone. My parents had died young, and my home had been little more than four walls I’d returned to out of habit, not comfort. But this? Seranni standing there, the firelight catching the gold in her eyes, waiting for me—this was what I’d imagined home could feel like.
Warm. Alive. Whole.
My heart was too full to speak. Instead, I crossed the room in three long strides, the firewood still bundled in my arms, and set it down clumsily by the fireplace. I turned back to Seranni, my chest tight with gratitude, and kissed her soundly.
She gasped softly, her lips warm and sweet against mine, and then she giggled—a sound like bells. Her laughter unraveled something knotted deep inside me, and for the first time in years, I felt… peace.
Now, with someone there to greet me when I came home, it felt like I had found everything my heart had ever desired.
We settled at the table for dinner. The stew was the same as always, thick with root vegetables and flecks of the meat I’d managed to dry months before, but tonight it tasted like something out of a feast hall. Perhaps it wasn’t the food but the company, the ease I felt sitting across from Seranni as she talked about her day.
I listened more than I spoke, savoring her voice, the subtle gestures she made with her hands when she got excited. Occasionally, her amber eyes would dart to me, sparkling in the firelight, and I found myself smiling for no reason at all. The simple act of being here, of sharing a meal and conversation, felt like a miracle I didn’t deserve.
We lingered long after the food was gone. The bowls sat forgotten on the table as Seranni rested her chin in her hand, asking me questions about Drakazov, about the border towns I’d grown up in.
It felt freeing, to be able to talk to Seranni about anything I wanted without worrying about whether I was going to give away my secret.
I told her about Kalinovo, the small village where I’d spent my childhood. I told her about the markets, the sound of merchants hawking their wares, and the smell of fresh-baked rye bread mingling with the smell of beef strips sizzling as the women made stroganoff for their families.
“You must miss it,” she said softly, her voice filled with a quiet understanding.
I shrugged, running my thumb over the edge of my spoon. “I miss what it was before the war. The way it felt… safe.” My gaze met hers, and for a moment, I thought about what it might be like to bring her there someday.
But I pushed the thought aside. For now, this tower, this quiet moment, was enough.
The tranquility of the moment shattered when the door burst inward, the sound of splintering wood echoing through the night. My heart thundered in my chest as I leaped to my feet, every nerve in my body thrumming with adrenaline-fueled anticipation. The air crackled with magic, and a potent mixture of fear and uncertainty hung over us like a suffocating blanket.
“Seranni, hide!” I bellowed. “Now!”
I couldn’t wait to see if she had done as I asked, because the intruder crashed through the splintered remains of the door, cackling like a deranged jester. My hair stood on end and my stomach turned to ice.
I knew that crazy laughter.
The intruder stepped fully into the light, and my chest tightened with fury. Zaorak stood before me, his eyes gleaming with malicious glee as he surveyed the chaos he had wrought.
His was face was twisted with a manic grin, his brown eyes gleaming with malicious delight. His red hair, now greying, hung in greasy tendrils around his gaunt face, and his armor, once polished and proud, was now a patchwork of rust and dents.
“Well, well, well,” he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “Look what we have here. The mighty dragon reduced to skulking in the shadows like a common cur. How the mighty have fallen.”
A soldier from Osmaria, a country to the east of Telluria, Zoarak had been captured in one of their border skirmishes that went on incessantly.
As a prisoner of war, Zaorak was one of the earliest prisoners to be experimented on by the godsdamned mage. He’d been in captivity so long that it had broken his mind, he’d ended up becoming devoted to the mage instead of despising him, like the rest of us prisoners.
“You shouldn't have come here, Zaorak,” I growled, my voice low and dangerous. “You should’ve left me alone and stayed with your precious mage. You’ll find no mercy in this place.”
Zaorak threw his head back and laughed, a sharp, grating sound that made my teeth ache. I could feel them lengthening into fangs. “Mercy?” he scoffed; his grin widening. “You speak of mercy, after what you did to our master? After you betrayed us all?”
I felt a surge of anger rising within me, threatening to overwhelm me in its intensity. “That damned mage was no master of mine ,” I spat. “He was a monster, a madman," I snapped, my claws flexing instinctively as I braced myself for the confrontation that was to come. “I only regret that I never got the chance to kill him myself!”
Zaorak’s grin faltered for a moment, replaced by a cold, calculating look that made my skin crawl. “Shut your mouth,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of humor. “Don’t speak of things you don’t understand.”
My heart thundered in my chest as Zaorak took a step closer, his boots crunching on the shattered wood of the doorframe. The air between us crackled with tension, thick enough to choke on.
“Did you think you could escape from us forever?” Zaorak said, his voice dripping with malice. “You had to know we would find you eventually. You belong to the master, and now it’s time to come home.”
“Never!” I snarled, every muscle in my body coiled like a spring as I prepared to face my adversary. “I will die before he gets his hands on me again!”
Zaorak’s grin returned, a wicked, twisted thing that sent a shiver of dread down my spine. “Then die !”
Zaorak lunged forward, his movements swift and deadly as he swung his fist toward me with bone-shattering force. I dodged out of the way just in time, the blow grazing my cheek with a searing pain that sent sparks dancing behind my eyes.
I fled, leaping silently into the shadows among the kitchen rafters, my claws gripping the aged wooden beams as I steadied myself. My chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, my body poised like a coiled spring. Below me, Zaorak prowled through the wreckage of the kitchen, his boots crunching on the debris he’d created in his destructive entrance.
“Stand and fight, coward,” he hissed into the darkness, his voice carrying an edge of frustration and glee.
I willed him to keep talking, the sound of his voice giving me the only clear indication of his location. The firelight from the hearth played tricks on the shadows, and the cacophony of his boots against the floorboards made it hard to pinpoint his movements. But his time in the brightly lit kitchen had robbed him of his night vision. For now, the advantage was mine.
“Onyx? Where aaaaare you?” His voice turned singsong, mockingly sweet.
The hairs on my arms stood up, and I fought back the shudder that threatened to ripple through me. That name. I hated it.
Onyx.
The mage had stripped us of our humanity and named us for the beasts we became. Zaorak was Topaz, for his gleaming yellow scales. Dmitri had been Jade. Pavel had been Agate. Each name a reminder of the monstrous forms we had been forced to inhabit, of the lives stolen and reshaped to fit the mage’s twisted experiments.
And I was Onyx.
“Should I hurt the little witch instead? Peel all the fingernails from her hands and see how pretty she screams?”
The giggle that followed curdled my blood. Zaorak had always been the maddest of the mage’s creations. Even back then, in the dungeons of the tower, he’d embraced his monstrous nature, reveling in the carnage and destruction he was unleashed to deliver on the armies attacking Telluria.
“We both know you’re no match for me, Onyx,” he said, his tone shifting to one of smug certainty.
Unfortunately, he was right. The last time we had fought, Zaorak had proven stronger, faster, and crueler than I could ever be. It had been when Zaorak had attacked the Stonehearts.
The mage had let us both out to annihilate the regiment attacking the Tellurian army. When the mage had let us out of our cages, I had ignored his screamed orders, flying over the countryside, intent on escape, but then I had seen Luka Kamenev, the Second Prince of Drakazov leading the charge—and that was when I realized that the mage wanted to attack my old regiment.
And Zaorak had been flying toward them, ready to burn them alive.
I had attacked Zaorak at once, trying to defend my countrymen, but in his dragon form, Zaorak had been too strong for me to beat. The most I was able to do was buy my old regiment some time.
Zaorak had brought me down, leaving me broken and humiliated. The bastard mage had imprisoned me in the tower dungeon again. He’d clicked his tongue at me, whining about how I’d wasted all the power he’d imbued me with.
Glaring at me with hate-filled eyes, he’d snapped, “You have just one transformation left within you. As soon as that pendant loses its shine, you’re dead.” He’d smiled, then. “But don’t worry. I know how to make my…ingredients last for a long, long time.”
Rindais had raved that night, pacing the cold stone floor of his lab as he outlined the new torments he had planned for me. He’d yelled about how he would use me up in his experiments until he’d wrung out every last drop of magic from my blood, until he’d taken back ‘everything I gave to you!’
But before he could make good on his threats, the news had reached the mage’s tower. Telluria and Drakazov had come to a ceasefire.
The war was over.
Which meant that all of the King’s mages had to report back to him. Even Rindais. And he’d grown too attached to the freedom to experiment with his magic as he wished.
So, he fled into the night before the soldiers came.
I had been hidden in the dungeons underneath the tower as the soldiers had swept through the tower in search of the mage, and finding him gone, they’d abandoned the tower. When I had broken free from my prison, the tower was empty of Rindais and Zaorak both.
I should’ve known Rindais wouldn’t have left without a plan to take back what was his.
I’d hoped Zaorak had perished when the soldiers had come, but I was not so lucky.
And now here he stood, in the middle of the tower that had been my prison but had then become my home, trying to provoke me into attacking.
Beneath me, Zaorak snarled, throwing a chair across the room where it shattered against the wall. My dragon roared within me, furious at the violation of what had become our sanctuary. The beast demanded to be set free, snapping at the air and longing to burn Zaorak to a crisp.
But I couldn’t afford to lose control. If I transformed now, I’d be sealing my own death sentence. The black gem in my pendant was dull, nearly lifeless—a constant reminder that my next shift would be my last. I clung to the rafters with iron determination, forcing my human mind to stay in control.
Because Zaorak was right. If I let my dragon out, even just one last time, I would still lose. Topaz was stronger, faster, wilier than my dragon was. I was no match for him head on. Which was why I needed to think like a man , and not like a beast.
I clutched at the rafters with my claws as I leaned out to look down at Zaorak. Where was Seranni? I’d told her to stay hidden, but with Zaorak’s abilities, he would be able to sniff her out in no time. She had to stay safe.
If he found her….if Zaorak got his hands on Seranni…
Just the thought of it had my blood roaring through my veins as my dragon longed to shift and rip Zaorak’s face off.
I battled down the surge of power. If I lost control and shifted, it would all be over. The pendant around my neck was a reminder of that. If I burned myself out by using up the last of my power, Seranni would be left defenceless. I couldn’t afford to leave her at Zaorak’s mercy.
I had to stay as I was, a human.
I crept through the broken tower, keeping to the shadows, even as Zaorak did the same. I could hear the floorboards creaking under his feet as he tore through the tower, only stopping to pick up a few books and thrust them into his bag.
Why was he here? If he was here for the mage’s books, why attack us?
None of it made sense.
Unless…the villagers had betrayed Seranni. They all thought she’d run away, but what if someone had seen the lights in the tower and figured out our secret? If they’d set the mage and his dogs onto the tower, Zaorak could be here for her.
I’d seen the mage work with others before, in the long year that I’d been his captive. One boy had come as a wide-eyed apprentice, eager to learn from the mage. Once he’d seen how the mage had been torturing us to succeed in his experiments, he’d threatened to reveal everything to the King. The poor boy had never realized that the mage was only working on a royal order.
For the folly of trying to do the right thing, the mage had killed him. And used him as as an ingredient in his experiments.
I shuddered. I wouldn't let that happen to Seranni.
She was too good, too lovely for that to happen to her.
And I had brought Zaorak into her life. I had to protect her from him.
Zaorak flipped the kitchen table over, making plates and dishes clatter to the floor. But the space beneath the table was empty.
Where was Seranni hiding?
I understood at the same time as Zaorak did. His gaze went to the larder, a tall cabinet that we used to store our bread and cheese. It stood in one corner of the kitchen, shrouded in shadow. The only hiding spot in the whole room.
Zaorak smiled.
“Found you,” he cooed, taking a deliberate step toward the cabinet.
My breath hitched, and my power surged through me as my dragon demanded that I shift and protect my mate.
Mate?
Yes. My mate.
The word echoed through my mind with primal certainty. Seranni was my dragon’s mate, the only one who would ever heal my heart and the one my dragon had claimed. The only one I would ever love.
The one I would protect at any cost.
I had to keep her safe.
No matter what.
Zaorak reached for the larder door, his fingers brushing the handle—
“Zaorak,” I growled, dropping down from the rafters to land with a heavy thud behind him.
He froze, turning slowly to face me. His lips twisted into a sneer, his eyes gleaming with unholy delight.
“My name ,” he hissed, “is Topaz.”
I shook my head, still unable to understand why he was loyal to the mage.
“You’ll always be Zaorak to me,” I shot back, my claws flexing at my sides. “What do you want?”
His hand lashed out, faster than I could react, closing around my throat in a vice-like grip. He lifted me off my feet with ease, his strength overwhelming.
“The mage wants you , Onyx.”