Chapter 16 Dayn
DAYN
The academy is a hive of frantic activity, but I move through it untouched, a ghost of fire in their cold stone halls.
The council meeting was a predictable exercise in futility.
They cling to their ancient rituals and their hatreds like drowning men clinging to an anchor.
They would rather sacrifice their best weapon than trust mine.
My feet carry me upward, spiraling through the academy’s labyrinthine corridors. I am not guided by memory, but by an instinct far older, a pull in my blood that seeks its counterpart. The bond. At close distances, it hums, a low thrumming beneath my skin, leading me to her.
Her room is at the apex of the tallest, most isolated residential turret.
Of course it is. A perch for a predator, a cage for a solitary soul.
Her door is plain black wood. Beside it, a single torch burns with a rose-gold flame that is steady even when the mountain winds claw across the battlements.
The flame’s color strikes me as… oddly romantic, for Esme.
For a moment, I am amused. It seems even the deadliest of witches has a sentimental streak for a pretty fire.
I knock briefly on the door, then push it open and step inside.
The room is exactly as I expect: sparse, severe, a testament to a life stripped of all but necessity.
A narrow bed, neatly made. A desk, its surface clear save for a single, leather-bound book.
A row of blades gleams on a rack against one wall.
The air smells of her—clean linen, sharp steel, and the faint, intoxicating scent of shadow magic and wildflowers.
She stands at the arched window, a black silhouette against the bruised twilight sky. She doesn’t turn, but I see her shoulders tense. She knew I was coming.
“The guest quarters weren’t enough for you?” she asks, her voice quiet. “You had to invade my room as well?”
“I go where I please,” I say, closing the door behind me. The sound echoes in the small space, sealing us in. “And I am not finished with our conversation.”
I move to the center of the room, feeling the oppressive weight of the coven’s magic even here. It’s weaker than normal, but it’s still everywhere, clinging to the stones. A constant, irritating pressure.
“What conversation?” She finally turns, her arms crossed over her chest. Her face is pale in the fading light, her storm-gray eyes wide but reserved. “I’m sure you’ll understand why I don’t have time to spare right now. The council’s decided the trials will commence at dawn.”
“The council has decided to throw you into a fire and hope something useful crawls out of the ashes,” I counter, my voice a low growl. “It is not strategy. It is desperation.”
“It’s a calculated risk,” she says, her chin lifting in that infuriating, stubborn way. “We’re used to taking them. And this one, we have to take.”
“A risk you have to take,” I correct, taking a step closer. The air between us thickens, charged with the heat radiating from my skin. “And for what? For the belief that crossing a mortal’s boundaries would somehow lead to something good? There are other options. My options.”
“Your options involve trusting clearbloods and begging dragons for a truce,” she scoffs. “Forgive me if I’m not inspired by the plan.”
“My plan doesn’t involve you channeling a power that could tear your soul apart.
” I am closer now, close enough to see the flicker of something in her eyes: not just anger, but uncertainty.
She is concerned. Good. Fear can be reasoned with.
Stubborn pride cannot. “You’re the strongest witch they have for this.
But even you will struggle with an Ide.”
My hand lifts, an involuntary movement, and my fingers brush her arm. Her skin is cool and I feel her pulse hammering beneath my fingertips, a frantic, wild rhythm. She flinches but doesn’t pull away.
“Your mother knows it could be a death sentence,” I murmur, my gaze dropping to her mouth. “I saw it in her eyes. Your sister knows it. Even Corvin knows it, though he’d never admit it.” I lean in, my voice dropping to a whisper. “You know it, too.”
Her breath hitches. Her scent fills my senses, a heady mix of defiance and a vulnerability she would die before admitting to. It is a dangerous combination. It makes me want to protect her. It makes me want to devour her.
“I’m used to risks,” she murmurs. “And this is the only solid plan we have.”
“I’m not sure that last part is true,” I say. My voice is quiet but my grip on her arm tightens fractionally. I watch her carefully, seeing the way her shields rise, the way her gaze hardens. “Your sister said something in the council chamber. About your ancestor. Helena.”
She tries to pull her arm back, but I hold her fast.
“It was nothing,” she says, her voice sharper. “Ancestral gibberish, like I said.”
“You are a terrible liar, wife.” The word is a deliberate provocation, and it lands with the intended effect. A flash of pure anger ignites in her eyes. “She told you something. Something you’re not telling me. Something you’re not telling any of them. Another path. What exactly did she say?”
“I said it was nothing, and certainly nothing solid!” She shoves against my chest, her strength surprising.
I let her break the contact, the sudden absence of her touch leaving a strange chill on my skin.
She backs away, putting the desk between us like a barricade.
“The trials are happening, Dayn. With or without your approval. I am a Salem. I am a darkblood of this coven. I have a duty.”
“Duty is a fine thing to hide behind,” I say, not moving to follow her. “It won’t protect you from a force like this.”
I see the truth of it in the rigid line of her shoulders, in the way she won’t meet my gaze. She is hiding something. Helena’s words were not gibberish, they were an alternative. An alternative she is refusing to explore.
I need every detail of what Helena said. Dragons may hoard knowledge, but an ancient spirit’s perspective is always singular. They exist beyond the physical, seeing angles and truths flesh and bone could never reach.
But the silence stretches, filled with the unspoken things between us—the bond, the kiss, the war, the secret she guards so fiercely. She is walking to her own execution, and she is refusing the one hand that might pull her back from the ledge.
“Leave, please, Dayn,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically polite, purged of emotion. “I have to rest.”
For a moment, I consider refusing. I consider walking around that desk, pinning her to the cold stone wall, and forcing the truth from her lips. The dragon in me roars at the thought, at her defiance. It craves submission. It craves… her.
But the man—the king who must think in strategies and alliances—knows that would solve nothing. It would only drive her further away.
I turn and walk to the door, my movements stiff with the effort of controlling myself.
My hand rests on the iron latch. “When you are standing on the precipice tomorrow,” I say without turning back, “and you feel that power begin to unmake you, remember that you chose it. You chose it over the truth.”
I leave her there, a solitary queen in her tower, surrounded by blades and secrets, and walk out into the cold, watchful night. The trials begin at dawn.
But I’m nowhere near done.