Fire and Shadows (Darkbirch Academy #3)

Chapter 1

ESME

My mind snags on Helena’s words. Complete your union.

I can’t help thinking there aren’t many things those words could mean in the context of Dayn and me.

But I shove it down. There’s no time to unpack whatever cryptic message my distant, dead ancestor was trying to send me.

And to be honest, I’m growing more and more unfond of such messages, considering that the one my grandmother sent me is the reason I’m in this flaming nightmare to begin with.

Not now. Anees is sitting on a stolen throne and his new kingdom is baying for our blood.

I don’t know where Dayn is, but he already pushed me away, and I’m out of time for chasing thick-skulled lizards. He’ll have to get himself out of this mess, if he hasn’t already. I need to get my sister to safety.

Brynn and I make it to the same route she and Chad used to get in, the one leading straight to the Salt Flats.

It’ll take another spell to reverse it and travel the other way, but since it’s already been opened, it shouldn’t require too much time and effort.

Not now that Dayn’s broken the runes that stifled our native darkblood magic.

I draw a slow, uneven breath as we approach our exit.

Below, Draethys is a city transformed. The initial shock of King Bemmar’s death has curdled into a feverish, martial pride.

Banners bearing the Draxion sigil are being hung from every spire, and the air thrums with the sound of forges, of steel being sharpened.

That confuses and unsettles me; I’m not sure what use they’ll have for steel in their dragon forms… except for armor.

We’re a few hundred meters from where, according to Brynn, the upward-sloping tunnel is supposed to be, when a familiar voice hisses behind me.

“Esme.”

My shadow blade is in my hand before I even turn to register who it is.

“Nyssa,” I gasp.

She stands with inhuman stillness, wearing her dark Bellatorium leathers. Her vibrant, amethyst-flecked eyes are fixed on me, and for a heart-stopping second, I don’t know if she’s friend or foe. She acted as my mentor, a friend, but her loyalty to Draethys has always been absolute.

“I learned how to spot your shadow energy,” she explains, her voice low, “from all our training and time together.”

Which means the shadow cloak I used to cover Brynn and myself on the way here wasn’t enough to stop her from trailing us. Great.

Brynn tenses beside me. “What do you want?”

Nyssa’s gaze flickers to my sister, then back to me. There’s no hostility in her eyes, only a deep, weary sadness. “Just to talk, before you leave.”

She takes a step forward, and I take one back.

“Tell me why I should trust you,” I say, not lowering my blade.

She lets out a long, slow breath. “Because I don’t believe it… None of it. Anees’s story is too neat, too convenient. The Payne brothers confessing so quickly? Arrynth falling in line? It’s wrong.”

My heart is pounding a rhythm against my ribs. I search her face for any hint of deception, any flicker of a lie, and find none. I make a choice. “Anees murdered his father. I was there. I saw it.”

The air goes still. Nyssa’s face drains of color, but her expression hardens with the grim finality of a truth she already suspected.

“I knew it,” she whispers. “The king… he was a good man. Hard, but honorable.” She swallows back a choke and looks past me, eyes watery, toward the distant clamor of the city.

“But it doesn’t matter what I know... What we know.

The bell has been rung. Draethys is on military alert.

Anees is the king, and he’s surrounded by his most loyal followers.

To go against him now is to go against almost all of Draethys.

” She steps aside, her shoulders sagging.

“I agree that you should go. Get out of here. Find Dayn. Find Byzu. They’ve both vanished since the… coronation.”

I stare at her, lowering the shadow blade until it dissolves into my palm. “Both of them?”

She nods.

I shelve that piece of intel to process later.

“Also,” she adds. “Something else you should know. There are rumors… reconnaissance troops are being sent to the surface ahead of the main invasion.”

My blood runs colder. “Who?”

“I’m not sure of everyone, but at least Sema Braynor, Rhodes Meraxis, and Colonel Rogon’s niece and daughter, Ariella Rogon and Raelle Rogon.”

“That bitch,” I mutter.

Nyssa’s eyes meet mine as if she means for me to understand a silent message.

“The Rogons,” she says. “Theirs is a military house through and through, but their honor is legendary. Their father is a good man, Esme. He served King Bemmar loyally for centuries. He would never support a king who took the throne with lies and murder.”

The unspoken part hangs in the air: if he knew the truth.

A flicker of temptation crosses Nyssa’s face. “I need to try to tell him,” she says softly.

A knot forms in my throat. It feels like Nyssa and I have been on opposite sides for so long, but in this moment, the gap between us closes. She’s going to talk to the colonel. Try to plant the seed of doubt. It’s a risk that could easily get her killed.

“Nyssa…” I start, but she cuts me off with a shake of her head.

“I know the risks involved. But I have to try,” she says. “This is my home. My people are about to be led into a war they don’t fully understand, and someone has to be here to… do what can be done.”

I nod stiffly. Strategically, it makes sense. But somehow that doesn’t make it easier to swallow. You’ve gone soft on a dragon, Esme. Never thought you’d see the day.

“We’ll see each other again,” Nyssa promises, her voice thick with an emotion she rarely shows. “I’m sorry it won’t be under better circumstances.”

“Remember this is treason,” I whisper. “Helping the resistance.”

A faint, grim smile touches her lips. “Not if the new king doesn’t hear about it.”

I let out a breath, hoping to every higher power in existence that she will be careful. “Take care of yourself… okay?”

The words hang in the air between us, thin and inadequate. Nyssa offers a tighter smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “You too, Esme.”

And then something inside me breaks. A dam I didn’t even know was there, holding back years of discipline, of training myself not to feel, not to care too much.

She’s walking back into the heart of the conspiracy, armed with nothing but a desperate hope that one honorable dragon will listen. She’s walking to her probable death.

Before I can think, before I can stop myself, I close the distance between us in two quick steps.

My arms reach up, awkward and unsure, and wrap around her shoulders.

I pull her into a hug, burying my face against the warm fabric of her uniform.

It’s clumsy and hard, not soft at all, but it’s real.

My hands fist in the back of her clothing, holding on like she’s the last solid thing in a world that’s dissolving into fire and lies.

For a second, she’s completely rigid, a statue of shocked stillness. Then, slowly, her arms come around me and tighten too.

“The flame of Draethys burns in the righteous,” she whispers against my ear, her voice a small, hopeful thing. “Don’t forget that.”

I want to nod in reassurance. But the trouble is, I’m not sure anyone qualifies as righteous in any of this. We all carry the weight of things we’ve done.

When we pull apart, her eyes are shimmering with unshed tears, and I suspect mine look similar.

But now we’ve said everything we can.

An unspoken pact passes between us—a promise to fight, to survive, to see the other side of this madness, regardless of whose uniform we wear.

She gives me one last, sharp nod, a return to the soldier she’s trained to be. Then she turns and, without a backward glance, melts into the shadows of the city-bound path.