Chapter Seven
RAZE
A Week Later
I’ve let her rot down there for seven days, iron burning her skin, cold seeping into her bones, darkness pressing against her skull until most humans would be begging for death just to make it stop.
Seven days of Wreck feeding on her terror through the viewing slot, of complete isolation broken only by the bare minimum sustenance required to keep her breathing.
Seven days to teach her that defiance has consequences, that touching my flame comes with a price she cannot afford to pay.
The flame in the dome burns brighter every time I pass it, mocking me with colors that shouldn’t exist, pulsing with life it hasn’t shown me in decades.
Gold threads through crimson, blue edges the dancing fire, and beneath it all runs something else entirely, something that tastes like her scent on the wind, wild, untamed, and absolutely infuriating.
My boots echo on stone as I descend the stairs to the lower levels, each step carrying me deeper into the mountain’s belly, where we keep the things too dangerous to let roam free.
The temperature drops with every turn of the spiral, cold enough that moisture freezes on the walls in delicate patterns that catch torchlight and throw it back in fractured rainbows.
The air down here tastes stale, recycled through too many centuries without seeing the sun, thick with the weight of too many bodies that entered these corridors and never left.
I reach her door and stop, my hand hovering over the lock as something in my chest tightens without permission. The flame’s response to her touch haunts me in ways I refuse to examine too closely, whispering possibilities I can’t afford to entertain.
Humans break.
They always break.
Fear, pain, and isolation strip them down to their base components until nothing remains except the instinct to survive at any cost.
She should be broken.
The lock disengages under my touch, mechanisms clicking with sounds that promise there’s no escape from the inside, no hope of freedom without my explicit permission.
The door swings inward on hinges that don’t creak, despite their obvious age, revealing the cell beyond bathed in that weak, flickering light that does more to cast shadows than to eliminate them.
She’s sitting against the far wall exactly where I left her a week ago, chains pooled around her wrists and ankles in heavy coils of iron that have burned patterns into her skin.
The raw wounds stand out in stark relief against pale flesh, angry and red, weeping slightly where metal has eaten through layers of epidermis to expose the vulnerable tissue beneath.
Bruises bloom across her exposed arms in varying shades of purple and yellow, marks left by cold and iron working in synchronization to break her down piece by piece.
But she doesn’t flinch when the door opens.
She doesn’t cower.
She doesn’t beg.
She just looks at me with eyes that should be dull with despair and exhaustion, but instead burn with something harder, more dangerous than anything I’ve seen in a human who’s spent seven days chained in darkness.
Defiance, raw and unbroken.
Absolutely intoxicating in ways that make my dragon stir beneath layers of ice and curse, interested despite every rational instinct screaming that she is a problem I don’t need.
“Why. Won’t. You. Break?” The question leaves my mouth before conscious thought approves it, genuine curiosity bleeding through the glacial control I maintain over every word, every gesture, every breath.
“Humans always break. Fear does that… isolation, pain, you should be begging me for mercy by now, promising anything if I’ll make it stop! ” I growl.
Her lips curve into something that might be a smile if it carried any warmth instead of the bitter edge that makes it look more like a snarl.
Blood has dried in her hair, crusting against her scalp where wounds from the crash haven’t properly healed in the absence of medical attention.
Her clothes are filthy, torn in places, stained with blood and dirt, and gods only know what else she’s been sitting in for the past week.
“Because fuck you! That’s why.” The words land with the force of a physical blow, sharp and cold, carrying enough venom to poison rivers.
She doesn’t raise her voice, doesn’t scream or rage, or give me the satisfaction of seeing genuine emotion.
Just delivers the statement in a dead, even cadence, like my question is a minor inconvenience rather than a challenge.
Something cracks.
Not loudly.
Not obviously.
But I register the fracture running through the glacial armor I’ve built around whatever passes for a heart in creatures like me, a hairline fissure that shouldn’t exist, that can’t exist, because allowing prisoners to affect me is how mistakes get made and empires crumble.
I step into the cell, my presence filling the small space until there’s nowhere for her to look except at me, and the temperature plummets in response to the confusion and frustration warring beneath my skin.
Frost races across stone, climbing walls and coating the ceiling in layers thick enough to crack mortar.
Ice spreads from my boots in unique patterns that reach toward her with translucent fingers before stopping just short of touching the iron chains.
She doesn’t react to the cold, doesn’t shiver or pull her limbs in closer to conserve heat. Just watches me with that steady, unblinking gaze that suggests she’s already cataloged every exit route, every potential weapon, every weakness she might exploit if opportunity presents itself.
She is calculating.
She is dangerous.
“You touched my flame.” The accusation comes out rougher than intended, my voice dropping into registers that make humans instinctively back away from predators they can’t fight or outrun.
“Made it burn brighter than it has in decades. That alone should terrify you, should make you understand exactly how deep the trouble you’re in is.
But you sit here in chains and defiance like you think attitude will save you from what I could do if I stopped caring about answers. ”
“So do it.” She shifts slightly, chains clinking against stone when she adjusts her position to meet my eyes more directly.
The movement costs her. I catch the wince she tries to hide, the way her ribs protest breathing too deeply, but she pushes through the pain with the same stubborn determination that kept her from breaking under isolation’s weight.
“Kill me. Torture me. Feed me to whatever the hell Wreck is. I’m dead either way, aren’t I?
At least this way, I go out on my terms instead of giving you the satisfaction of seeing me beg. ”
The crack widens, spreading through ice and fury until something uncomfortably close to respect blooms in the space where absolute certainty used to live.
She’s right, of course. The witch’s laws are absolute, and humans who breach our world don’t leave it breathing.
But she’s also sitting here in chains, bleeding, bruised, and utterly unbroken, staring down a dragon with enough power to freeze her solid without breaking a sweat.
And the little firecracker doesn’t blink.
I move before conscious decision catches up with instinct, crossing the distance between us in two long strides that bring me close enough to smell the blood in her hair, the fear she refuses to acknowledge, and beneath it all something else that makes my dragon inhale sharply.
My hands reach for the chains, fingers wrapping around iron that burns against my skin, a reminder of what iron does to supernatural flesh, and, with a thought, I freeze the locks solid before shattering them with pressure that sends fragments skittering across stone.
The chains fall away from her wrists and ankles in heavy coils, iron clanking against stone with sounds that echo through the cell like funeral bells.
Raw wounds circle both wrists where metal has eaten away at skin for seven days straight, the flesh red, angry, and weeping slightly where infection threatens to take hold without proper treatment.
She stares at her freed hands like she doesn’t quite believe they’re real, flexing fingers that must ache from days of being unable to move properly, testing the range of motion that the chains restricted so absolutely.
Then her gaze snaps back to my face, suspicion and confusion warring across features too expressive to hide what she’s thinking.
“Why?”
“Because keeping you chained serves no purpose except satisfying my temper, and I don’t make decisions based on emotion.
” The lie tastes bitter and utterly unconvincing even to my own ears.
“You’re not broken. You’re not going to break.
And iron burns waste resources better spent on actual threats instead of photographers who stumbled into the specifically crafted nightmare by accident. ”
I turn and head for the door without waiting for a response, every instinct screaming that lingering in this cell with her unbound and defiant will lead to complications I’m not prepared to handle.
“Move. You’re being relocated to better accommodations.
Still locked, still a prison, but with a window, bed, and heat that won’t freeze you solid before I figure out what you are and why my flame responds to you like it’s been waiting centuries for this exact moment. ”
She doesn’t move immediately, nor does she rush to follow, as most prisoners would, when offered even marginal improvements to intolerable conditions.
Instead, she takes her time, pushing herself to her feet with movements that suggest several ribs are at least bruised, if not cracked, using the wall for support as she tests her balance on legs that haven’t properly stood for a week.