Chapter 21 #2
Dreadscale stepped directly in front of me. His face inches from mine. Close enough that I could see the faint pulse of his dragon tattoo, the ember-glow glinting beneath his skin.
"Name. The. Lie."
The pyre popped. A coal split and hissed. The sound was small and ordinary yet it jolted a part of me loose.
He pushed with his Mirrorheart—harder—and the resistance inside me cracked.
The pyre roared at my back. Heat crawled up my spine, licked across my scalp. My knees hit the ground and I barely felt the impact—just the stone biting through my trousers, the dirt pressing into my kneecaps.
"Now," he demanded.
"If I'm loved, I'll destroy them."
The words tore out of me. I heard them hit the air and wanted to claw them back. Shove them down. Swallow them whole the way I'd swallowed everything else.
But they were out now. The pyre's heat dried the tears before they made it past my lashes. The wood shifted and settled—a soft, collapsing sound, like something giving up.
My parents. My brother. Everyone who'd ever stood close enough to love me had been torn apart for the proximity. I'd spent every year after the river making sure no one got that close again. Building walls so thick nothing could breach them.
My palms were flat on the floor. Dreadscale's boots stood at the edge of my vision. He hadn't moved. Hadn't crouched down. Hadn't tried to soften this.
But Serenya had walked straight through those walls like they weren't there. Stubborn, relentless, impossible girl—she hadn't asked permission and she hadn't taken no for an answer and now she was in.
All the way in. The one person I couldn't cut loose, couldn't push back to a safe distance, couldn't survive losing.
Which meant she was exactly the kind of weapon the world could use against me.
That was the lie. Not that love destroyed. That I could protect anyone by keeping them close enough. I'd kill for Serenya without blinking. I'd burn a city for her. But I'd felt the same way about my mother—and she'd still ended up on the wrong end of a blade while I swallowed river water.
Love didn't save people. It just told the world where to aim—and made damn sure you felt every blow you couldn't stop.
"You are still withholding," Dreadscale accused.
Desperation clawed at me. How could I fail now? After everything—after naming the thing I'd spent years refusing to see—
A tendril of pure Shadow uncoiled from my core—cold and dense, seeping from my fingertips in dark filaments. It writhed with its own hunger, eager to consume. The strain was immediate—a twisting pain in my gut, pressure behind my eyes that threatened to split my skull.
Pain is the ink your shadow writes in.
"Now, pull it in," Dreadscale commanded.
I willed the Shadow to coalesce. To obey. To form something solid with my will instead of lashing out wild and formless. It fought me—bucked against my control like a living thing that didn't want to be tamed.
This was harder than any brawl. More agonizing than any wound. This was trying to stab the dark and hoping it bled.
After what felt like an eternity, the Shadow held. Bursting from my heart—a void that drank the torchlight.
Dreadscale nodded. "Now, combine."
I drew on my Luminar—familiar warmth blooming above my core, silver threads unfurling outward. They met the weight of the Shadow, and for a heartbeat they clashed. A silent, internal scream of discord. My body convulsed. A dry retch tore from my lungs.
But I pushed through.
Wrenched the two currents together. To spiral into fragile harmony. The Light wrapped around the Shadow—not consuming it, not denying it, but embracing it. A shimmering dark blade humming with resonant power.
One heartbeat. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
Ten.
The torch on the wall flared twice its height. Dreadscale's dragon tattoo unfurled ember-bright in answer. My breath hitched, triumphant and agonized at once.
I had done it.
Dreadscale moved without warning—a flick of his wrist sending an ember from the pyre straight at my face. Instinct took over before thought could catch up. Shadow coiled and snapped outward, binding with fierce light, forming a blade of smoky brilliance that extinguished the ember mid-flight.
The fusion held, then shattered.
Sweat dripped from my brow, my entire body quivering—spent and euphoric all at once.
Dreadscale crouched beside me. He stripped away his tunic in silence and twisted to reveal his spine. I sucked in a breath at what I saw.
I'd seen the dragon before—glimpses of it stirring beneath his skin, scales catching the torchlight, that living tattoo that seemed to breathe when he did. But I'd never seen it like this.
The dragon coiled across his spine, ink-black and ember-edged, every scale rendered in brutal detail.
Except the eyes.
Where the dragon's eyes should have been, there were two pale voids. Smooth, scarred skin—a perfect face ruined by an internal scouring. The fire had gutted them from the inside, leaving only a memory of sight.
"The first time I faced Mirrorheart," he said, his voice softer now, though still edged with gravel, "I lasted fifteen heartbeats.
Saw every terror I'd ever hidden." A pause.
His gaze went distant, haunted by ghosts I couldn't see.
"When I broke, the backlash seared my sight. Three days blind. Three comrades dead."
The air grew heavy between us. Thick with shared understanding.
"The Mark isn't merciful," he finished.
I studied the scarring around his dragon's eyes. Representing the price he'd paid for the power he wielded.
"Your lie is kinder than mine was." Almost gentle now. "Don't carry it forever."
Emotion surged—hot, unexpected, too wild to be contained. I lifted my finger. Touched the ragged edge of his scar with trembling fingers.
"We forge in the same fire," I murmured.
For a long moment, Dreadscale didn't move. Didn't push my hand away. The gesture hung between us—a bridge between master and apprentice.
Then he stood. Extended his arm to pull me to my feet.
"Thirty by Codex day."
I met his gaze. Pain-bright eyes mirroring mine.
"And fifty to heal the veil."
I jolted awake to the sensation of someone shaking my shoulder.
My hand found the blade stashed under my pillow before my eyes found anything else. Then Brannick's grin swam into focus. Wide. Blindingly cheerful. A smile that had no business existing at whatever ungodly hour this was. One day that grin was going to get him killed. Probably by me.
"Amaria." He was practically bouncing on his heels. "Kaelen's gathering everyone for the Veil-Masque."
He didn't wait for me to answer. Just tugged at my wrist with the contagious excitement of a child who'd been promised sweets.
I got upright and my left hip locked. My knees popped loud enough that Brannick winced. The wool blanket had creased a welt into my cheek and my training clothes had fused to my skin with dried sweat—I peeled the collar off my neck and it left a rough stripe.
But Brannick was already halfway down the passage, and the stronghold sounded different tonight. Voices layered over each other, pitched high and loose. Laughter—loud and bright. Music threaded underneath it, drums and a frantic lute, the bass vibrating through the soles of my bare feet.
I shoved my boots on and followed him.