Chapter 21
K.
Hours crawl past. Or maybe just minutes. I’ve lost the ability to measure time in this white room. So I use the time to think things through.
I run through possibilities. Plans. Every one ends with Mara in danger.
Think.
But thought brings me nowhere. Only the same loop: they believe I’m someone I’m not. They want me to lead them. They threaten her if I refuse. They threaten the world if I do.
The door opens.
Creed and Vex enter wearing different clothes—long robes of deep crimson fabric, old and ceremonial. The sight triggers something beneath my ribs. Flickers at the edge of recognition I can’t quite grasp.
“We’re taking you somewhere,” Vex says. His earlier deference has shifted into something darker. Expectation weighted with centuries. “Perhaps this will convince you.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Oh, but we will. You see, it never occurred to us that the ritual was interrupted.”
“What ritual?”
“That is why you have lost your true vision,” he continues, ignoring me. “But if we complete it, you’ll be fully restored. Back to yourself. And then you will see. You will understand!”
Nothing he’s saying is making any sense, but his eyes are burning with manic fervor. There’s no point in trying to reason with him. To tell him that he’s wrong.
The guards unlock my restraints. Four of them, all watching with weapons drawn. I calculate my odds.
They’re poor.
I stand.
Creed leads. Vex follows behind me. The guards form a tight box around us.
We move through corridors I haven’t seen before, then out into the compound before entering a doorway cut into the side of the hill that forms one boundary of the facility.
Here, stone replaces sterile white. The air grows colder.
Damper. We’re descending into older places—natural rock instead of construction.
Torches flicker in iron sconces. Actual flame, not the glowing globes I’ve seen elsewhere.
The fire calls to something in my blood.
My hands flex. The suppression devices whine higher, compensating for power they can’t fully contain.
Something is changing.
Something inside me.
We reach a massive iron door carved with symbols that pull at the edges of memory. My fingers twitch. The pattern means something. Should mean everything.
Creed pushes it open.
Beyond is a cavern. Vast. Natural stone formations twist overhead like frozen waterfalls. But at the center—
The space has been made into a burial chamber.
Shadowy figures line up against the walls, and low chanting fills the air as we step further into the space.
It rings through my brain, low and resonant as I take in my surroundings.
Gold gleams in torchlight. Tapestries hang from walls, depicting battles I almost recognize.
Dragons in flight. Warriors with blades of fire.
Weapons displayed in careful arrangement. Treasure stacked with care.
All of it surrounds a raised dais of chiseled stone.
On it rests a figure carved in eternal sleep.
My breath stops.
It’s giant-sized. A warrior in full plate armor, hands folded across his chest. Dragon-wing motifs cover every surface. The face is serene. Strong. Regal.
And familiar.
Wrong. All wrong. This face shouldn’t exist here. Shouldn’t be carved in stone like the dead—
The chanting grows louder.
Pain lances through my skull.
A throne room. Fire everywhere—
I stumble. Catch myself against the cavern wall.
“Do you remember now?” Vex’s voice carries an edge that makes my jaw tighten.
My legs move forward without consulting my mind. Each step closer increases the heat beneath my skin. Power floods my system faster than the suppression devices can drain it.
This place knows me.
“Four hundred years,” Creed says behind me. “This chamber has been sealed. Waiting. Only those with the purest blood can even enter. The wards would kill anyone else.”
The air tastes like dust and time.
I reach the dais. Look down at the stone figure’s face.
The chanting reaches a fever pitch.
Memories assault me. Flashes too quick to grasp, too vivid to dismiss.
A council chamber. My voice—someone’s voice—speaking with absolute authority. Dragon warriors kneeling in formation. Command settling across shoulders like lead.
No. Not mine. Can’t be mine.
A woman’s hand in mine. Dark hair catching firelight. Eyes like stormy skies. Her laugh. Her voice whispering words in that language I speak in dreams.
Pain explodes through my temples.
Castle walls under siege. Fire answering my call— No, not just answering, obeying. Power that felt limitless. Terrifying—
“No.” The word tears from my throat.
“Yes.” Vex moves closer, arms outstretched. “You can feel it now. The resting place of power. Architect of the old order. Builder of everything we seek to restore.”
More images flood in. Faster now. Overwhelming.
Battlefields soaked in blood and ash. Advisors whose names I almost remember. Enemies I almost recognize.
And her. Always her. The woman with dark hair who—
I grip the edge of the dais. My hands shake.
“The woman who died,” I hear myself say. “I see her.”
“Yes.” Creed’s voice carries too much satisfaction. “Lost to treachery. She died protecting what you valued most.”
Her body in my arms. Gone. Everything gone.
The memory dissipates. Skitters away before I can hold it.
“You understand now,” Vex says. “The clans have fallen into disorder. We need you now more than ever.”
I look at the stone figure again. At the face carved in rest that never came.
They made a tomb for a king who didn’t die.
Just slept.
“I remember pieces,” I say quietly. My voice almost swallowed by the sound of the chanting. “Nothing whole.”
Vex exhales. Relief and triumph war in his expression.
“Then you’ll help us. Lead us. Take your rightful—”
“I remember,” I continue, cutting him off, “that power destroyed what I loved.”
His face hardens. “You cannot mean—?”
Something shifts in the air. A wrongness I feel in my bones. In my blood. As if part of me exists somewhere else, and that part is suffering.
My hand goes to my chest. The place where fire lives.
Mara.
Her name surfaces with absolute certainty. Not a memory. An instinct deeper than memory.
She’s hurt. Sick.
The realization stuns me. The bond I created when I pulled her back from death—it’s not just connection. My fire has been keeping her anchored while her body healed.
Except I’m here. And she’s—
“Where is she?” The question comes rough. “The woman from the village. What have you done?”
Creed and Vex exchange glances.
“Nothing. We—”
The chamber door explodes inward before he can answer.
Stone fragments fly. Torchlight flares wild across the suddenly chaotic space.
Half-shifted dragons pour through the opening. Scales gleam bronze and silver in the flickering light. Fire illuminates ancient stone. Battle cries echo off the cavern walls.
A massive wolf bounds ahead—pale green eyes unmistakable even in partial shift. Behind it, more warriors. A coordinated strike force.
And at the back—
Blue hair catches torchlight like a beacon.
Mara.
Everything in me surges toward her. Every instinct screams to reach her, pull her close, pour fire into the bond until she’s whole again.
But she’s not alone. And she looks—
Wrong. Too pale. Gray beneath the skin. Moving like each step costs her something she can’t afford to spend.
Dying. The bond is failing.
One of the guards raises his weapon toward the intruders.
I move without thinking.
Touch his shoulder.
He disintegrates. One moment, solid flesh. The next—dust. His weapon clatters to stone. The armor-plating crumples empty.
Silence crashes in for one suspended breath.
I stare at my hand. At the smoke drifting from my fingers.
The memory of doing this before—not just once, but hundreds of times—rises unexpectedly. Ancient battles. Enemies who threatened everything. Power I wielded without hesitation because I knew—knew—how to unmake flesh with nothing but will and fire.
“Yes.” Vex’s voice carries jubilation instead of horror. “You remember. The power remembers—”
The cuffs around my wrists crack. Metal groans.
Power explodes through my system like a dam breaking. Compressed magic flooding back into a body that remembers how to wield it.
The devices shatter.
Heat rolls off me in waves. The guards stumble back. Even Creed and Vex retreat a step, their earlier confidence wavering.
Across the cavern, Mara’s eyes find mine. Wide. Shocked. Brilliant… beautiful.
A Syndicate operative moves toward her from the side. Weapon raised.
Fire surges in my veins. Every instinct screams to reach her. Protect her.
But I don’t need to reach her.
Not anymore.
The operative combusts. One moment threatening. Then, just dust motes in the air.
I didn’t touch him. Didn’t even move toward him.
Just willed him away.
And he was.
The wolf tears through another guard, teeth gnashing through flesh. Around it, dragon warriors are laying into Syndicate operatives who barely have time to react.
But I see what they don’t.
Three exits. The main door they came through. Two passages at the back—one leads deeper into the mountain, the other circles to higher ground. Creed’s forces are concentrated near the dais. The tapestries provide cover. The gold treasure is just decoration, meaningless in combat.
And Mara—
She needs me. Needs my fire to complete the healing.
While I’m surrounded by enemies who think I’ll lead them.
I could end this. Right now. All of them.
The thought comes with terrible clarity. And more terrible—I know how. Can feel the pattern of power that would reduce every Syndicate operative in this chamber to dust. Can see the movements that would prevent their escape.
I was a warrior. A weapon when necessary.
I remember that now.
Creed backs toward one of the side passages. Vex moves to follow. They’re retreating. Abandoning their guards to cover their escape.
I could stop them. Should stop them.
Three exits. Two blocked. The third—
Fire answers my call. Not controlled. Not measured. Ancient power responding to intention more than conscious thought.
Flames erupt across the rear passage. Blocking escape.
Vex spins back, trapped between my fire and the advancing shifter forces.
Mara stumbles. Just slightly. Her hand goes to the wall for support.
She needs you. Go to her.
But I don’t move. Can’t move.
Because another memory surfaces, clearer than the rest, a memory that sucks the air from my lungs:
Standing over the bodies of those I’d killed to protect something precious. Winning the battle. Losing everything that mattered.
Power doesn’t protect what you love.
It destroys it.
Mara’s eyes lock on mine across the cavern.
And I realize—
I don’t need to be what I was.
I need to be what she needs.
The fire dims. Controlled again. My breathing steadies.
The battle rages on around us—dragons against Syndicate forces, the wolf a blur of violence, weapons clashing against stone—
I know this world. This life of violence.
And I know who I am.