Chapter 12 Nasyra
TWELVE
NASYRA
Dinner is exactly the chaos Selene warned me about.
The great hall is massive—vaulted ceilings disappearing into shadow, long tables scarred by centuries of use, a hearth large enough to roast a small horse. The fire burns high and bright, casting flickering light across stone walls hung with banners and trophies I can’t identify.
I expected tension. Expected the careful silence of people waiting to see if the newcomer is threat or ally. Instead, I get Rurik.
“There she is!” He bounds toward me the moment I enter, all wild red hair and too-bright eyes. “The woman who tried to kill my brother! Multiple times! I love her already.”
“Rurik.” Drayke’s voice carries a warning.
“What? It’s a compliment. Zyphon’s been too comfortable for too long.
Someone needs to keep him on his toes.” Rurik throws an arm around my shoulders before I can react, steering me toward the table.
“Come on, you’re sitting with us. I need to hear all the details.
Did he bleed? He never tells us when he bleeds. ”
“She’s not here for your entertainment,” Aisling says dryly, appearing at my other side. “Let her breathe.”
“I’m being welcoming! This is welcoming!”
“This is assault.”
Rurik releases me, hands raised in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. No touching. But you’re still sitting with us. I have questions.”
“You always have questions,” Selene says, sliding into her seat beside Drayke. “Most of them inappropriate.”
“The inappropriate ones are the most interesting.”
I find myself seated between Aisling and Selene—the Fire-Bringers flanking me, whether for protection or solidarity, I can’t tell.
Across the table, the dragons arrange themselves with the ease of long familiarity.
Drayke at the head, formal even in relaxation.
Rurik sprawling in his chair, vibrating with barely contained energy.
And at the far end, silent and watchful. ..
Auren.
He hasn’t spoken to me directly. Hasn’t acknowledged my presence beyond a brief nod when I entered. But I feel his attention anyway—cool, assessing, cataloging everything I do and filing it away for future analysis.
“Don’t mind Auren,” Selene murmurs, following my gaze. “He watches everyone like that. It’s not personal.”
“It feels personal.”
“That’s because you’re new. He’s still deciding what category to put you in.”
“What categories are there?”
“Threat. Asset. Neutral party. Waste of time.” Selene ticks them off on her fingers. “I was ‘threat’ for about a week before I got upgraded to ‘asset.’ Aisling went straight to ‘asset’ because she impressed him with her medical knowledge.”
“And if he decides I’m a threat?”
“Then he’ll watch you more closely until he changes his mind.” Selene shrugs. “Auren doesn’t act on suspicion. He gathers data. It’s simultaneously his greatest strength and his most annoying quality.”
The meal passes in a blur of conversation I only half-follow.
Rurik dominates most of it, telling increasingly improbable stories about past adventures that make Aisling roll her eyes and Drayke interject with corrections.
Selene adds commentary, her wit sharp enough to draw blood when Rurik gets too outrageous.
And through it all, I watch.
I watch Drayke track Selene’s movements even when he’s engaged in conversation elsewhere. The way his attention snaps to her when she speaks. The way she leans into his side without seeming to think about it, her body curving toward his as naturally as flowers toward sunlight.
I watch Rurik reach for Aisling’s hand under the table. The way she lets him hold it even while she’s rolling her eyes at his latest exaggeration. The way his whole demeanor shifts when she speaks—from chaos to focused attention, every word she says clearly the most important thing in the world.
This isn’t ownership. This isn’t dragons using Fire-Bringers as tools or power sources or property.
This is something else entirely. Something I don’t have a name for. Something that makes my chest ache with an emotion I can’t identify.
Zyphon isn’t at dinner.
I notice his absence the way I notice gaps in defensive lines—unconsciously, automatically, a survival instinct I can’t seem to turn off. His chair remains empty throughout the meal, and no one mentions him. No one explains.
I don’t ask. Asking would mean admitting I noticed. Admitting I noticed would mean acknowledging that some part of me was looking for him.
But when Selene walks me back to my quarters afterward, I can’t help myself.
“Where was he? Zyphon.”
“He eats alone most nights.” Selene’s voice is carefully neutral. “Has for as long as I’ve been here. The others say it’s been that way for centuries—ever since he got the... since whatever happened to him happened.”
“The shadows.”
“Yes.” She pauses. “They make him uncomfortable in crowds. Too much stimulation, too many people—the darkness responds to it. Gets harder to control. He finds it easier to stay apart.”
I think about the ramparts yesterday. How he’d stood apart even there, positioned at the edge where shadows pooled thickest. How he’d seemed more comfortable in the darkness than in the fading light.
We reach my door. Selene hesitates.
“There’s something you should know,” she says. “About your quarters.”
“What about them?”
“They’re in the east wing. Near the Fire-Bringer rooms, like I mentioned.” A breath. “Also near Zyphon’s chambers. Three doors down.”
I go still. “That wasn’t a coincidence.”
“No. Drayke’s orders. For your protection, officially.” Selene meets my gaze directly. “If Lakhu’s forces find this place, if anyone tries to get to you—Zyphon would be closest. Could reach you fastest.”
“Or it’s surveillance.”
“Maybe.” Selene doesn’t flinch from the accusation. “I won’t pretend Drayke isn’t strategic. He is. It’s part of what makes him good at leading. But I also know Zyphon refused the assignment at first. Said it wasn’t fair to you, being watched like that. Drayke overruled him.”
“Zyphon didn’t want to be placed near me?”
“Zyphon didn’t want you to feel trapped.” Selene’s expression softens. “He knows what Lakhu did to you. How you were kept. He said he’d rather sleep in the training yard than make you feel like you’d traded one prison for another.”
I don’t know what to do with that information. Don’t know how to reconcile it with everything I thought I knew about the dragon who killed my brother.
“I’m telling you because you deserve to know,” Selene continues. “Not because I want you to feel any particular way about it. Just... information. Do with it what you will.”
“Thank you.”
She nods and turns to go. Then stops.
“For what it’s worth,” she says over her shoulder, “I think he’s terrified of you. Not because of what you might do to him—but because of what you might not feel. He’s been hoping for three hundred years, and hope is the cruelest thing of all.”
She leaves before I can respond.
I stand in the hallway for a long time, three doors down from a dragon who’s been hoping for most of his life, and try to figure out what I’m supposed to feel.
Sleep doesn’t come easily.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment of the day. Selene’s claiming mark. Aisling’s dry humor. Rurik’s chaotic welcome. Auren’s silent assessment. The way the claimed pairs moved around each other, gravitating together as naturally as breathing.
And Zyphon. Always Zyphon, circling at the edges of my thoughts like a shadow I can’t shake.
Eventually, I give up on sleep and move to the window.
The fortress is quiet at this hour, but not dark. Torches flicker along the walls. Guards patrol the ramparts in steady patterns. And below, in the courtyard—
Movement. Two figures, wrapped around each other in the moonlight.
Rurik and Aisling. I recognize his wild hair, her practical braid. They’re dancing—no, not dancing. Just swaying together, her head on his chest, his arms wrapped around her as if she’s the only solid thing in a shifting world.
He says something. She laughs—that dry, reluctant sound I’m learning to recognize. He presses a kiss to her hair and pulls her closer, and even from this distance, I can see the tenderness in the gesture. The reverence.
This isn’t a dragon claiming his property. This is a man holding the woman he loves as if she’s the most precious thing he’s ever touched.
The ache in my chest intensifies. Recognition, I realize. That’s what this feeling is. I’m recognizing something I’ve seen before, something I’ve felt before, even if I can’t remember where or when.
And then—
It comes without warning. A flash of memory, vivid and sharp, slicing through the fog in my mind.
A garden at night. Moonflowers glowing silver in the darkness. Arms around me, holding me close, swaying to music that exists only in the space between two heartbeats.
And a face. His face. Zyphon’s face, but younger. Unburdened. Looking at me with an expression I’ve only just learned to recognize because I saw Drayke give it to Selene tonight.
Longing. Devotion. Love.
The memory fractures, dissolves, slips away before I can hold onto it. I’m left gasping, one hand pressed to the window glass, the other clutched over my heart where something is breaking open.
That was real. That memory was real—not something Lakhu planted, not something manufactured to manipulate me. It felt different. Tasted different. Like truth instead of poison.
Zyphon loved me. Years ago, before I died, before everything went wrong—he loved me. And I...
I don’t know. I can’t remember what I felt. Can’t separate the truth from Lakhu’s lies, the real from the manufactured.
But I remember his face. The way he looked at me. The same way Drayke looks at Selene, the same way Rurik looks at Aisling.
Not like property. Not like a tool.
Like the center of his world.
I stay at the window until dawn breaks over the mountains, watching the light chase away the shadows, wondering what else I’ve forgotten.
Wondering what else I’m about to remember.