Chapter 32 #2
I looked at Garanth. Really looked, past the fire.
He was bigger. Not taller—denser. His shoulders had filled out. His claws were longer. His next blast hit my shield and the force was twice what it had been thirty seconds ago. The one after that drove me back three feet and my boots left skid marks on the tile.
Oh god.
Every time I blocked, every impact my shield absorbed—he was drinking it. Storing it. Getting stronger with each hit. My Golden Shield, Thalon's gift, the magic I'd relied on since the day I bonded with my dragon—
It was feeding him.
My stomach dropped through the floor.
I couldn't attack. My Shadow Fire couldn't punch through. I couldn't defend. My shield was making him stronger with every impact.
Through the bond, Thalon felt it the moment I did. His fury sharpened into a blade—pressing against the connection between us, straining, as if he could reach through the walls of this building by sheer force of will.
He couldn't.
I dropped the shield.
Garanth paused. Just for a beat—surprised, maybe. Then his eyes narrowed and his grin spread wider. "Figured it out, did you? Most people don't. Not until it's too late."
He threw fire and I dove. Hit the metal cart, sent monitoring equipment crashing. The fire scorched the wall where I'd been—paint blistering, plaster glowing orange.
I pulled the Invisibility Shroud around me.
Garanth went still. His red eyes scanned the room—restraint chair, overturned cart, charred plaster. Searching.
Then he smiled. And flooded the room with fire.
Not aimed. Just everywhere. Greenish-yellow licking along every wall, the ceiling, the floor, the chair. The Shroud made me invisible, not fireproof, and there was nowhere left to stand.
I dropped it and threw myself into the far corner, where the cart blocked the worst of the flames. My jacket was smoking. My burned shoulder hit the corner and I tasted blood.
He'd known exactly where I'd end up. The only spot with enough distance from the worst of the fire.
"I designed these rooms too." He stepped closer. The fire dimmed around him, but the walls still radiated heat and the restraint chair's leather was blackened and curling. "Small. Contained. Easy to fill." His claws flexed. "You know what I like about humans? You always run out of tricks."
My back was against the wall. The cart beside me. The restraint chair three feet to my left, its cuffs melted and smoking, bolts anchoring it through the floor.
Through the observation window, I could see Draven fighting across the lab. Getting closer. Not close enough.
The earpiece crackled. "Tess." Just my name. Draven's voice, and underneath the control, something ragged that tore at me. "I'm coming to you."
"Focus on me, human." Garanth's voice filled the small room. He was close now. Close enough that the heat from his skin pressed against my face. "Your friends can watch. That's what the windows are for."
His fire swelled. The greenish-yellow glow brightened, washing out the clinical white lighting, washing out everything except his slate-gray face and his red eyes and his cruel, satisfied smile.
"You came here to save people." He said it like a joke. Like the funniest thing he'd heard all day. "Came running down the stairs, kicked in the door, thought you'd—what? Be enough?" He shook his head. "You wore the collar better."
My shield flickered at my fingertips. Instinct—my magic reaching for the thing that had always kept me alive.
I held it there. Flickering. Not raising it, not killing it. My back against the wall and my hands full of gold light that would only make him stronger.
I chose this.
I chose to come down those stairs. I chose to kick in that door. I chose to be a Rider when every voice in every room told me I didn't belong—too human, too fragile, too late. I chose to believe that what I carried inside me mattered, even when the evidence said otherwise.
And now I was here. Cornered. Burned. Out of tricks, just like he said.
The golden light guttered in my palms, and the truth I'd been outrunning since the day I bonded with my dragon finally caught me, choosing wasn't the same as being enough.
I had chosen every hard thing. Every impossible thing. And I still ended up with my back against a wall, bleeding, watching my own magic betray me.
Not enough in the trials. Not enough against the collar. Not enough to keep the people I loved from getting hurt trying to save me. And not enough now.
My choices led to me being in this room. And I wasn't enough.
I killed the shield. Let the gold die in my hands. Because raising it would only make him stronger, and I was done feeding the man who built this place.
If this was the end, then I got to choose how I met it.
Not on my knees. Not begging. Not wearing his collar.
I straightened against the wall.
My spine pressed flat against the scorched plaster. I lifted my chin. Let my hands fall open at my sides—empty, steady, mine.
Garanth's fire surged.
The room went bright—greenish-yellow swallowing the white lights, the observation window, the walls, everything. Heat and sulfur and melted leather.
I faced him without my shield. Without my fire. Without anywhere left to go.
His red eyes through the flames. His claws flexing. His voice, low and satisfied.
"There's the look I remember."
Hellfire filled my vision.