Chapter 8 Nasyra
EIGHT
NASYRA
He starts talking on the third day.
Not pushing. Not demanding I listen. Just... talking. Filling the silence with information I didn’t ask for but find myself absorbing anyway.
“The Brotherhood has protected this territory for centuries,” he says as we climb a ridge that will give us our first view of our destination. “Four brothers—not by blood, but by choice. Drayke leads. He’s the Guardian King, though he’d tell you the title is ceremonial.”
“A dragon king.” I can’t keep the skepticism from my voice. “How reassuring.”
“He’s claimed. Mated to a Fire-Bringer named Selene.” Something in his voice shifts when he says her name. Warmth, maybe. Respect. “She’s... remarkable. Stubborn as hell, refuses to be intimidated, once set his cloak on fire for being overprotective.”
Despite myself, I feel a flicker of interest. “She set him on fire?”
“Just the cloak. Though I suspect she’d have aimed higher if he hadn’t apologized.” The ghost of a smile crosses his face. “They’re good together. He’s softer with her. She’s fiercer with him.”
“Softer.” The word tastes strange. “Dragons don’t get softer.”
“These do. When they find the right partner.”
He tells me about the others as we walk.
Rurik—the one I met during the escape, all fire and chaos and inappropriate enthusiasm.
His mate Aisling, a Fire-Bringer who survived torture by Valdris’s forces and came out fighting.
“She’s dry,” he says. “Sharp. Doesn’t suffer fools.
She and Rurik shouldn’t work, but somehow they do. ”
Auren, the cold one. No mate. No interest in finding one, from the sound of it. “He watches,” Zyphon says. “Calculates. You’ll feel his attention before you see him. Don’t take it personally—he does it to everyone.”
“And you?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “Where do you fit?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “I’m the executioner. The one they send when something needs to die and stay dead.”
“That’s a role. Not an answer.”
“It is what it is.” His voice has gone flat. Closed. “The shadows made me what I am. I serve the Brotherhood because they’re the only ones who’ve ever accepted what that means.”
I want to push. Want to demand more. But something in his posture warns me off—a tension that speaks of wounds I’m not ready to probe.
“These Fire-Bringers,” I say instead. “Selene and Aisling. They chose this? Chose to be... claimed?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not possible.” The denial comes automatically. “Fire-Bringers don’t choose dragons. We’re—“ I stop. What had Balroth told me? What had Lakhu reinforced? “We’re meant to be used. Power sources. Tools.”
“Is that what you believe?” No judgment in his voice. Just curiosity.
“It’s what I was taught.”
“By whom?”
By whom? By Balroth, who Zyphon claims betrayed me. By Lakhu, who locked me in a cell when I questioned him. By people who had every reason to want me believing I was less than I am.
“That’s not fair,” I manage.
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t. But it’s worth considering.”
We crest the final ridge as sunset paints the sky in shades of fire.
The fortress steals my breath.
I expected something cruel. Something that matched the monster I believed Zyphon to be—all sharp edges and dark shadows and the promise of violence.
Instead, the fortress feels... old. Weathered.
Built into the mountain itself as if it grew there, ancient stone worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain.
“Welcome to the Brotherhood,” Zyphon says quietly.
Gates open as we approach—massive things, sized for dragons in their shifted form. Guards watch from the walls, their attention sharp but not hostile. No one reaches for weapons. No one sounds an alarm.
They were expecting us.
“Zyphon.” A voice, deep and commanding, draws my attention to the courtyard ahead.
The dragon who steps forward is everything I expected and nothing like it. Tall—taller than Zyphon—with broad shoulders and golden hair that catches the fading light. His presence fills the space, not through intimidation but through sheer authority. Power worn so naturally it’s become invisible.
Drayke. The Guardian King. The one who’d fought beside Zyphon during my rescue, bronze scales blazing against the darkness.
I expected cruelty in his face. Expected the cold calculation I saw in Lakhu, the predatory interest of a dragon assessing prey. Instead, I find gravity. Concern. Something that might even be compassion.
“You made it.” He clasps Zyphon’s forearm in greeting, a warrior’s acknowledgment. “No trouble on the road?”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle.”
Drayke’s attention shifts to me. Assessing, but not threatening. “Hello, Nasyra.”
I lift my chin, refusing to be cowed. “And you must be the dragon king I’ve been hearing about.”
“Drayke.” A hint of something—amusement?—flickers in his expression. “The title is mostly grandiose. And you’re a guest here, not a prisoner.”
“Lakhu said the same thing.” The words come out sharper than I intend. “Forgive me if I’m skeptical.”
“You should be.” No offense taken. “Trust is earned, not claimed. You’ll have time to decide what we deserve.”
“Oh good, you didn’t die on the way here.”
A woman strides across the courtyard with purpose in every step. Wild chestnut hair frames a face that’s more interesting than beautiful—sharp features, gray eyes that miss nothing. And on her chest, visible above the neckline of her shirt—
A mark. Flame patterns spreading across her skin, clearly not natural, clearly not hidden.
A claiming mark. Worn without shame.
“Selene,” Drayke says, his voice carrying a warmth that wasn’t there a moment ago. “I was just about to—“
“Send someone to fetch me like I’m a servant? Please.” She waves him off without looking at him, her attention fixed on me. “Three days of walking through Shadow territory with Zyphon as company. You poor thing. Did he brood at you the entire time, or just most of it?”
I blink. Of everything I expected, this wasn’t it.
“He... wasn’t that bad.” The defense surprises me as much as her question.
“Not that bad. High praise.” Selene shoots Zyphon a look. “She’s being generous. Accept it gracefully.”
“I always accept grace gracefully,” he says, completely deadpan.
“See, that right there? That’s the problem.
No one can tell if you’re joking.” Selene turns back to me, her expression shifting to something warmer.
“Fire-Bringer to Fire-Bringer—you look like you haven’t eaten properly in a week, slept in longer, and you’re approximately thirty seconds from either passing out or setting something on fire. Am I close?”
“Uncomfortably.”
“Thought so.” She hooks her arm through mine before I can protest, steering me toward the fortress entrance.
“Let’s fix at least two of those problems. The cook made enough food to feed an army, which is good because Rurik eats like one.
I’ve already threatened him with bodily harm if he doesn’t save you a plate. ”
“I—“ I try to pull back, but she’s stronger than she looks. Or I’m weaker than I thought. “I don’t need—“
“Everyone needs food. And a bath. And probably a stiff drink, honestly, but we’ll start with the basics.
” She glances at me sideways, and beneath the brisk efficiency, I see something else.
Understanding. “I know this is overwhelming. I know you don’t trust any of us.
That’s fine. You don’t have to trust us to eat our food and use our hot water. ”
“That’s... practical.”
“I’m a practical person.” Her smile sharpens with humor. “I also set my mate’s cloak on fire when he annoys me, so make of that what you will.”
Behind us, I hear Drayke sigh. “That was one time, and I said I was sorry.”
“You were hovering. There were consequences.” Selene doesn’t look back. “Keep up, dragon king. If you want to debrief your brother, you can do it while walking.”
I find myself fighting a completely unexpected urge to laugh. This woman—this Fire-Bringer with her claiming mark on display and her casual command of a dragon king—is nothing I was taught to expect. Nothing I was told existed.
“You’re not what I imagined,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Neither are you.” Selene’s grip on my arm loosens but doesn’t release. “I expected someone who’d turned him inside out to be, I don’t know, taller? More intimidating?”
“I tried to kill him.”
“Oh, I heard.” She sounds more impressed than concerned. “Multiple times, apparently. And he just stood there and took it. That man has been a locked vault for as long as I’ve known him, and you cracked him open in minutes.” A pause. “I’m not sure if that’s romantic or deeply concerning.”
“Concerning. Definitely concerning.”
“Probably both.” We’ve entered the fortress, the massive hallway swallowing us in warmth and torchlight. “But here’s the thing about concerning situations—they’re a lot easier to handle on a full stomach. So let’s start there and work our way up to the existential crisis, yeah?”
I don’t have an argument for that. Don’t have the energy for one.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say. “Okay.”
The food is, as promised, incredible.
I eat until my stomach aches, barely tasting what I’m shoveling in but unable to stop.
Selene keeps up a running commentary—who cooked what, which dishes Rurik will fight over, the time Auren nearly killed a servant for rearranging his spice rack.
Her words wash over me, requiring no response, filling the silence without demanding anything.
Zyphon is there somewhere. I feel his attention on me—that awareness that’s become constant since the escape—but he keeps his distance. Let Selene handle the introductions, the settling in. Gives me space I didn’t know I needed.
Later, alone in a room that’s bigger than my cell in Lakhu’s fortress, I stand at the window and stare out at the mountains. The moon is rising, casting silver light across peaks that seem to go on forever.
I should feel trapped. Should feel the walls closing in, another cage disguised as hospitality. But the door isn’t locked. The window isn’t barred. No one has told me where I can and can’t go.
It doesn’t mean I trust them. Doesn’t mean I believe the picture Zyphon painted on the road—Fire-Bringers as partners, not property. Dragons who claim but don’t consume.
But Selene’s claiming mark wasn’t hidden. Her commands to Drayke weren’t punished. Her warmth didn’t feel performed.
What if they’re telling the truth?
The thought is terrifying. If they’re telling the truth about the claiming, about Fire-Bringers, then Lakhu was lying. If Lakhu was lying about that, what else did he lie about?
What if Zyphon is telling the truth about Balroth?
I crush the thought before it can take root. I’m not ready. Not yet.
But as I finally crawl into a bed that’s softer than anything I’ve slept on since my resurrection, one thing is clear:
I don’t believe them yet. But I want to. And that, I’m learning, is how it starts.