Chapter 11 Nasyra
ELEVEN
NASYRA
Iwake to sunlight.
It takes me a moment to remember where I am. The ceiling is wrong—too high, carved from pale stone instead of the dark rock of Lakhu’s stronghold. The bed is too soft. The air smells of pine and wood smoke instead of old magic and decay.
The Brotherhood fortress. Right.
I sit up slowly, taking stock. My body aches—residual exhaustion from three days of travel and weeks of captivity before that.
But the bone-deep weariness has eased slightly.
The bed was comfortable. The room was warm.
And for the first time since my resurrection, I slept through the night without nightmares.
That should probably concern me more than it does.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and pad barefoot to the window.
The view steals my breath—mountains stretching to the horizon, their peaks dusted with snow that catches the morning light and throws it back in shades of gold and rose.
The world feels impossibly vast from up here. Impossibly free.
I try the door. It opens.
Such a small thing. Such an enormous relief. Lakhu’s doors were always locked. Always guarded. The freedom to come and go had been one more lie in a fortress built on them.
Here, the door opens. No guards. No locks. Just a hallway stretching in both directions, torch sconces flickering with flames that burn without heat.
I close the door again without stepping through. I’m not ready yet. Not ready to face whatever this day will bring, whatever tests or traps or uncomfortable truths await me in this place that insists on treating me like I belong.
But the door opened. And somehow, that changes everything.
Selene arrives an hour later with breakfast on a tray and a smile that’s far too awake for the early hour.
“Thought you might want to eat before facing the chaos,” she says, setting the tray on the small table by the window. “The great hall can be overwhelming. Rurik’s morning energy alone is enough to make most people reconsider consciousness.”
“You didn’t have to bring me food.”
“I know. I wanted to.” She settles into the chair across from me, tucking her legs beneath her with the casual ease of someone who’s comfortable anywhere. “Also, I wanted to talk. Without an audience.”
I eye the breakfast—fresh bread, cheese, fruit, some kind of pastry that smells of honey and almonds. My stomach growls despite my wariness.
“Eat,” Selene says. “Seriously. The cook gets offended when people don’t eat, and you don’t want to offend Marta. She controls the food supply.”
I take a piece of bread. It’s still warm.
“What did you want to talk about?”
Selene is quiet for a moment, her gray eyes thoughtful. Then she reaches for the collar of her shirt and pulls it aside, revealing the mark I noticed yesterday. Flame patterns spreading across her skin, directly over her heart. Intricate. Beautiful. Unmistakably not natural.
“This,” she says. “I thought you might have questions. And I’d rather you ask me than spend weeks wondering.”
I stare at the mark. Up close, it’s more detailed than I realized—not just flames, but a pattern that seems to shift and move in the morning light. Alive, almost. Responding to something I can’t see.
“The claiming mark,” I say. “Drayke’s mark.”
“Yes.”
“Does it...” I search for the right words. “Does it hurt?”
“No.” Selene lets her collar fall back into place, but she doesn’t seem embarrassed by the exposure. If anything, she wears the mark the way some women wear jewelry—with pride. “It felt like fire when it happened. Burning through me, changing something fundamental. But not pain. Never pain.”
“And now?”
“Now it feels like... home.” She tilts her head, considering.
“Like there’s a piece of him that lives in my chest. I can feel when he’s close.
When he’s worried. When he’s being an overprotective idiot, which is most of the time.
” A fond smile. “He doesn’t like it when I take risks.
Tough luck for him, because I’m not particularly good at playing it safe. ”
I don’t know what to do with this information. Everything Lakhu taught about claiming suggests it should be a violation—a dragon’s mark of ownership, burned into unwilling flesh. But Selene doesn’t talk about it like a violation. She talks about it like a gift.
“I don’t understand,” I admit. “How can you be happy about being... claimed? Owned?”
“I’m not owned.” The words are gentle but firm. “That’s the part everyone gets wrong. He didn’t take this from me, Nasyra. I gave it to him. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Yes.” Selene leans forward, her expression intent.
“I chose him. I chose to bind myself to him, knowing what it meant, knowing what I was giving up and what I was gaining. He asked. I said yes. And when I woke up with his mark on my chest, I felt... complete. Like I’d finally become who I was supposed to be. ”
“But why?” The question comes out more desperate than I intended. “Why would you choose to tie yourself to a dragon? To give up your freedom?”
“I didn’t give up anything.” Selene’s smile turns wry. “If anything, I have more freedom now than I did before. Drayke would burn the world to protect me, but he’d never try to control me. The mark isn’t a chain—it’s a promise. His promise to be mine, as much as I’m his.”
I don’t have a response for that. The sincerity in her voice is unmistakable—she believes what she’s saying. More than believes it. She’s living it.
“I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” Selene adds, reading something in my expression. “I know you’ve been told a different story. Lakhu probably made claiming sound like slavery. But I wanted you to hear my side. To know that whatever you’ve been taught, it’s not the only truth.”
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate. “For... for telling me.”
“Thank me by eating that pastry before it gets cold. Marta puts her heart into those, and honestly, they’re better warm.”
Despite everything—the confusion, the fear, the persistent sense that I’m missing something crucial—I reach for the pastry.
It’s delicious.
Aisling finds me in the Fire-Bringer quarters after breakfast.
Selene has set me up in a small sitting room—comfortable chairs, a fire crackling in the hearth, books lining one wall. “This is where we gather,” she explained before leaving to attend to something Drayke needed. “Fire-Bringers only. The dragons know better than to intrude.”
The idea of a space where dragons aren’t allowed is novel enough that I’m still processing it when the door opens and Aisling slips through.
She’s different from Selene. Where Selene is warmth and easy smiles, Aisling is all sharp edges and careful assessment.
Her red hair is pulled back in a practical braid.
Her green eyes hold shadows that speak of things she doesn’t discuss.
She moves with the controlled grace of someone who’s learned to be ready for anything.
“Mind if I join you?”
“It’s your space.”
“It’s ours.” Aisling settles into the chair across from me, tucking her feet beneath her in a gesture that mirrors Selene’s earlier pose. “Fire-Bringers. All of us. That includes you now, whether you’re ready for it or not.”
“I’m not sure I’m a Fire-Bringer anymore.” I look down at my hands, where shadow-flame flickers at the edges of my consciousness. “Whatever Lakhu did to me... the fire isn’t right. It’s darker. Wrong.”
“Trauma does that.” Aisling’s voice is matter-of-fact. “Changes things. Twists them. Doesn’t mean you’re less than what you were—just different.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“I am.” She doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t offer details I haven’t asked for. The restraint is refreshing after Lakhu’s constant probing, his endless questions designed to map my weaknesses.
“Selene told me about your first days here,” I say cautiously. “That you didn’t trust them either.”
“Trust is too strong a word for what I felt.” Aisling’s mouth quirks. “I hated them, actually. All of them. Rurik especially.”
“The dragon you’re mated to now.”
“The very same.” She shakes her head, something like amusement flickering in her expression.
“I spent weeks wanting to stab him in his sleep. He was loud, and invasive, and had absolutely no concept of personal boundaries. Still doesn’t, really.
But somewhere along the way...” She trails off, shrugging.
“You stopped wanting to stab him?”
“No, I still want to stab him regularly. I just don’t want him to stay dead anymore.” Aisling says it so casually, so dryly, that it takes me a moment to process.
And then I laugh.
It erupts out of me without warning—a real laugh, full and startled and completely involuntary. The sound is foreign in my own ears. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this. Before my death, certainly. Before everything went wrong.
Aisling watches me with something like satisfaction. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“Proof that you’re still in there.” She leans back in her chair. “Selene told me you’ve been running on survival instinct since you got here. Fight or flight. All defenses, no space for anything else. But you just laughed. That means there’s something left besides the fear.”
I don’t know what to say. The echo of the laugh still rings in my chest, strange and unfamiliar and somehow... healing.
“I did warn you,” Aisling continues. “Yesterday, on the balcony. I said we’re all disasters here.
I meant it. Rurik set his own face on fire trying to impress me.
Drayke spent weeks treating Selene like she was made of glass until she threatened to burn his cloak again.
Auren once told a visiting dignitary that his treaty proposal was ‘functionally illiterate’ and had to be physically removed from the negotiation before he caused a diplomatic incident. ”
“Wow.”
“Ask him about it sometime. Watch his jaw clench.” Aisling’s expression softens slightly. “My point is—we’re not perfect. We’re not even particularly good at being normal. But we’re honest about what we are. And that’s worth something, isn’t it?”
I think about Lakhu. His perfect performance of kindness. His careful manipulation of every interaction. How he’d seemed so trustworthy until he wasn’t.
“Yes,” I say slowly. “It’s worth something.”