Chapter 26 Nasyra
TWENTY-SIX
NASYRA
The passage descends into the mountain’s heart.
We move in silence, Zyphon leading, Rurik guarding our rear, Aisling and I in the middle. The darkness is absolute—no torches, no light sources, nothing but the faint glow of my shadow-flame and the deeper darkness of Zyphon’s curse marking our progress.
Guards wait at the first junction. Four of them, shadow-touched warriors who’ve sold their souls to Lakhu’s cause. They see Zyphon’s shadows and attack without hesitation.
They last approximately three seconds.
Zyphon moves through them with brutal efficiency, his curse consuming their attacks, his blades finding throats and hearts with the precision of centuries. By the time I’ve raised my own weapons, the guards are already falling.
“Show-off,” Rurik mutters.
“Efficient,” Zyphon corrects.
More guards wait deeper in the passage. These, I get to fight.
The first comes at me with a shadow-blade, the weapon trailing darkness. I duck under his swing, let my shadow-flame lick along my own blade, and open his throat in a single smooth motion. Blood sprays hot across my face. I don’t flinch.
The second tries to flank me. Aisling puts her blade through his back before he gets close.
“Thanks.”
“Fire-Bringers protect each other.” She pulls her blade free and wipes it on the dead guard’s cloak. “Also, I hate being flanked.”
We fight through three more groups of guards.
Zyphon handles most of them, his shadows reaching out to consume attacks that should have killed us, his blades finding targets with supernatural accuracy.
But Aisling and I hold our own—her with clinical precision, me with shadow-flame that cuts through enchanted armor like paper.
“You know,” Aisling observes as we step over the latest pile of bodies, “when I was a veterinary surgeon in Cork, my biggest worry was emergency horse colic cases. Now I’m stabbing shadow cultists in underground tunnels.” She pauses. “My life has become extremely strange.”
“Welcome to dragon territory.” I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “It doesn’t get less strange.”
“Perfect.” She readjusts her grip on her sword. “At least it’s not boring.”
The ritual chamber opens before us, and my heart stops.
I know this room. Know the carved stone floor, the channels etched into rock, the altar at the center where power flows into darkness.
It’s not the same chamber where I died—that was in a forest clearing, under open sky.
But it’s the same design. The same purpose.
The same cold hunger radiating from every surface.
The same altar, with a Fire-Bringer chained to its surface.
Selene.
She’s conscious, her gray eyes wide with a combination of fear and fury. Blood runs from cuts on her arms, flowing into the carved channels, feeding the Dominion Heart that pulses at the altar’s base. The Relic glows with hungry light, awakening power that makes my own shadow-flame recoil.
For a moment, I’m back on my own altar. Feeling the blade bite into my flesh. Watching my brother smile as my blood drained into channels just like these.
“Took you long enough.” Selene’s voice snaps me back to the present. Hoarse but steady. “I was starting to think I’d have to rescue myself.”
“We got distracted.” Aisling is already moving toward the altar, medical instincts overriding caution. “Hold still. Let me see those cuts.”
“Wait.” Zyphon’s hand catches Aisling’s arm. His gaze sweeps the chamber, shadows stirring with unease. “It’s too easy.”
He’s right. The chamber is empty except for Selene. No guards. No Lakhu. Just the altar and the Relic and a Fire-Bringer waiting to be rescued.
A trap. Obviously a trap.
The Dominion Heart flares.
Pain explodes through my skull.
It’s not physical—not exactly. It’s deeper than that. The Relic’s power clawing at something fundamental, something that was put inside me when Lakhu dragged me back from death. Hooks buried in my soul, now being yanked without mercy.
I collapse to my knees, shadow-flame erupting uncontrolled. Distantly, I hear Zyphon calling my name, feel his hands gripping my shoulders. But I can’t respond. Can’t think. The Dominion Heart is screaming through my blood, demanding obedience, trying to drag me back under Lakhu’s control.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Lakhu’s voice echoes through the chamber, though I can’t see him. Can’t see anything except the red haze of pain and the darkness trying to swallow me whole.
“The Relic remembers you, Nasyra. It brought you back. It owns you. And now...” The pain intensifies, and I scream. “Now it’s bringing you home.”
My shadow-flame turns against me. I feel it trying to break free of my control, trying to attack the people I care about. Zyphon. Aisling. Rurik. The Relic wants me to destroy them—wants to use my power the way Lakhu intended from the beginning.
No.
The word rises from somewhere deep inside me. Not a thought—a declaration. A refusal so absolute, it burns through the Relic’s chains.
I am not your weapon.
Lakhu brought me back to be used. To be aimed at the Brotherhood and fired. He twisted my memories, made me hate the man who loved me, shaped me into a tool for his revenge.
But tools don’t choose. Tools don’t love. Tools don’t kneel on cold stone floors while dragons fight to protect them, while Fire-Bringers hold them through the fire, while a man with centuries of grief learns to hope again because of them.
I am not a tool.
I am Nasyra Hawk. I set hedge mazes on fire and reduced scholars to tears and fell in love with a dragon who kept a garden of my favorite flowers alive for hundreds of years. I died on an altar because my brother betrayed me, and I came back from death because a prince wanted vengeance.
But I am not his vengeance. Not his weapon. Not his anything.
I am mine.
The chains shatter.
Not easily. Not cleanly. The Relic fights me, claws at me, tries to drag me back under. But my fire is stronger than it was when I woke in Lakhu’s stronghold, confused and afraid and desperate for something to hold onto.
I have things to hold onto now. Selene’s warmth as she held me while I fell apart. Aisling’s dry humor cutting through my despair. Zyphon’s devotion, patient and fierce and unwavering despite everything I threw at him.
The bond growing between us—not claiming, not yet, but something real. Something that anchors me when the darkness tries to drag me under. Something that reminds me who I am when ancient magic tries to make me forget.
I rise to my feet. The pain is still there, but it’s background noise now—something I can fight through, can push past. My shadow-flame settles back under my control, no longer trying to attack my allies.
Zyphon’s hand finds mine, his fingers threading through mine, his shadows wrapping around my fire in a gesture of support that needs no words.
Lakhu materializes from the shadows at the far end of the chamber, his beautiful face twisted with fury and disbelief. “That’s not possible. The Relic—“
“The Relic doesn’t own me.” I straighten my spine, meet his gaze without flinching.
My voice comes out steady, strong, carrying the weight of everything I’ve survived to stand here.
“You don’t own me. I am not your weapon.
” The words echo through the chamber, through so much suffering, through weeks of manipulation. “I never was.”
Lakhu’s expression shifts through several emotions—fury, disbelief, calculation—before settling on something cold and dangerous. “You think breaking free of the Relic changes anything? You think your little rebellion matters?”
“I think it matters to me.” I squeeze Zyphon’s hand, feeling his shadows pulse in response. “And I think you’re about to find out exactly what happens when you underestimate a Fire-Bringer.”
Something dark and satisfied flickers in Zyphon’s expression. He releases my hand and steps forward, shadows surging around him, the curse that’s been consuming him finally aimed at the man who deserves it.
“You should have left her dead,” he says to Lakhu. “You gave me back everything I lost. And now you’re going to pay for what you did to her.”
Lakhu’s expression shifts—fury bleeding into calculation, pride giving way to survival instinct. He’s facing two people who have every reason to want him dead, and his primary weapon just refused to work.
“Free Selene,” Zyphon says without looking away from the prince. “Get her and Aisling out of here. I’ll handle this.”
“Zyphon—“
“Go.” He finally looks at me, and there’s something fierce in his expression—something that makes my heart clench even as battle rages around us. “I’ll find you. I always find you.”
I want to argue. Want to stay, to fight beside him, to make sure he survives what’s coming. But Selene is still chained to that altar, still bleeding, still in danger. And Aisling is already moving toward her, blade in hand, ready to cut her free.
Fire-Bringers protect each other.
I grab Zyphon’s face and kiss him—hard and fast and full of everything I don’t have time to say. His shadows surge around us for a heartbeat, wrapping us in darkness that feels more like home than anywhere I’ve ever been.
“Don’t you dare die,” I growl against his mouth.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His thumb brushes my cheekbone, a gesture so tender it hurts. “Now go save our Fire-Bringer.”
Our Fire-Bringer. As if Selene belongs to both of us. As if we’re already a family, bound by something deeper than blood or magic.
Maybe we are.
I tear myself away from him and run toward the altar, toward Selene, toward the future we’re going to build once Lakhu is dead and the Relic is sealed and this nightmare is finally over.
Behind me, Zyphon’s shadows surge toward the prince. Lakhu’s magic rises to meet them, cold darkness clashing with cursed darkness in a battle that’s been centuries in the making.
The real fight begins.