CHAPTER SIX
Ronan
OUTSIDE THE SKY DIMMED TO CHARCOAL, night pressing in as Ronan stepped through smoke-laced dusk, into the amber-tinted room hidden between cedar and the curved shard of moonlight.
“Well, isn’t this unexpected?”
His eyes cut through the space with surgical precision, landing directly where Callum stood. Each echo of his steps across the floorboards struck without asking permission.
“Obrann’s commander and the Dragon Prince of Ryuu,” he mused. “Someone, fetch a scribe.” A low, dark chuckle. “Might as well etch it into the archives now.”
Above them, thick wooden arches bowed, bent under secrets. A bare round table sat below, and that’s where they stood, waited.
Mirrors and opposites. Forged by different fires.
They were not allies. Not rivals. But something more volatile. Two forces with nothing binding them except necessity and history.
Callum smirked, fingers tightening on the chairs back. “I hear they call you the Wraith now. Perhaps we make sure the scribes get the legends right this time.”
“Do they?” Ronan’s mouth drew into a half smile. “Then at last, they’ve finally learned to see me clearly.”
Behind him, Elysian leaned patiently in the doorway, winter wrapped in skin. He said nothing, but the silence was its own blade: Choose your next words carefully, guardian.
Callum’s stare shot toward him anyway. “They also say the pale hound walks beside him,” he murmured. “But no one ever hears his paws, only feels the breath of frost right before they die.”
Ronan’s smirk deepened, the kind not born of humor but warning. “Careful. You’ll start sounding like one of our admirers.”
A twitch ghosted across Elysian’s mouth. Approval, or something close to it.
“Ah.” Callum stepped closer. “No admiration lives here. After all—” he stood tall, his stare sliding over Ronan, “I see you’re still without a crown. Heavy thing, I imagine, for Ryuu not to trust its own prince. Or is it the prince who doesn’t trust himself?”
The air thinned.
Elysian moved then, silent as snowfall, slipping from Ronan’s shadow. Callum’s hand twitched toward his sword, glare snapping between them.
Ronan’s arms spread out in a slow, careless sweep, as though brushing aside Callum’s jab, halting Elysian beside him.
“Charming place you’ve hidden.” His eyes skimmed over the worn timbers; the table scarred with age.
Then snagged on a child’s sketch nailed crooked to the wall—a family, simple but smiling.
The falsity of normalcy. Of a life he never had.
“It’s an impressive little life you’ve built here. It’s almost convincing.”
Callum’s jaw twitched, barely, tension amplifying between them, leaking warmth throughout the room as he gestured to the chair before Ronan.
Elysian returned to the dim of the doorway as Ronan’s palm dragged along the chair’s spine, the wood cracking beneath his touch.
Too small for him, too fragile. He didn’t plan to sit anyway.
The table between them lay empty, save for the map sprawled across its center. Its edges were charred, corners curling like old scars. Across the top a name was sprawled in neat ink:
CSOLENIA.
Callum nodded his chin to Elysian, a request to join them.
Elysian didn’t move, only leaned into the doorframe, a blade dancing idly between his fingers as he feigned boredom.
Callum’s lip curled. “Your pet lacks manners. Do you feed him better with scraps or fear?”
The air warmed, just enough to warn as Ronan’s voice dropped. “Careful. He’s no pet, but a free man. And I don’t keep mine leashed.”
Elysian didn’t dignify the insult, only folded his arms, eyes fixed on Callum, a mastered, predatory stillness named after terror.
For a heartbeat, the room stood suspended.
Callum broke first, dismissing away the tension with one flick of his wrist. He lowered into his seat; the chair sighing soundlessly beneath him.
Ronan remained standing where smoke had begun drifting near his boots. Not threatening, not yet, but not restrained, either. Simply watching.
“If you’ve come seeking dragons, our fire is rather exclusive,” he drawled. “Consider us unavailable. There is no alliance to be made between Ryuu and the rot festering under Luamis’ gilded wards.”
Callum laced his fingers together. “We need your help.”
A humorless breath escaped Ronan. “You’d have better luck begging the Gods.”
Shifting, Callum looked briefly to Elysian before returning to Ronan. “Not we as in the king.” He paused. “We as in—”
Ronan’s brow lifted smoothly. “Oh, this is rich.” Leaning forward, his grin turned amused, a spark he didn’t bother to smother. “Have you finally burned off your collar, commander?”
“I am leashed to the throne, yes.” Callum settled back, arrogance softening any margin. “But don’t mistake leash for loyalty. Our Order only needs one thing.” A beat. “Distract the king long enough to delay his hunt for Nyctom’s heir.”
Ronan’s frown cut in hard, a vein ticking sharp against his neck. “You want dragons unleashed?”
Even speaking the words tasted wrong. There wasn’t a soul in Selvarra who didn’t fear the dragons. Not after what had happened when the world split.
Callum nodded once. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Elysian pushed from the wall, blade loose in his grip as he drifted to Ronan’s side.
Callum swallowed. “If dragons cross into our borders, Obrann’s eyes will turn there.”
On you, prince. The truth Callum didn’t have the spine to say out loud.
It wasn’t unknown that Obrann was yearning after more power. Obsessed with the stones, obsessed with finding the heir he’d been hunting for years.
But there were whispers, faded scraps of rumor, that that heir carried more. Something ancient.
Something Obrann meant to claim before they even knew how to wield it.
The candelabra in the corner of the room sputtered, its flame flaring gold, then bleeding into an eerie cerulean. Heat warped the air, sweat sliding down the nape of Ronan’s neck, beneath his leathers. Even Elysian’s temple shone with it.
“Explain,” Ronan demanded. “Why would I risk my dragons, my family, for you. For this?” His finger sliced toward Callum. “By your own words, you’re a traitor. Give me one reason I shouldn’t gut you where you stand?”
Callum shot upright, fists slamming the table, map crumpling beneath the blow. His golden irises brightened, the fire behind them spilling unrestrained.
“I didn’t come for your opinion—”
“No.” The muscles in Ronan’s forearm went taut beneath the ink. “You came for my power.”
Flames erupted from Callum’s knuckles, swallowing his hands until they were nothing but blazing spires. “And by the same fate, aren’t you already a traitor, dragon heir?”
The words hung, more dangerous than any sword drawn. Elysian’s lips peeled back, canines flashing, pupils thinned and honed.
“Empty threats,” he snarled, spit flecking the air.
Ronan lifted a hand, holding him back. “But not empty truth.”
Callum pulled back, the flare dulling to flesh, revealing the two scorched handprints seared into the grain of the table. With deliberate calm, he smoothed his jacket, every line, every wrinkle, pressed into place.
“You demand reason, fine. I have something you want. The only question is whether you’ve the courage to claim it.”
Ronan sighed, a long, smoke-laced and irritated exhale. “Doesn’t everyone these days.”
He dragged two fingers down the bridge of his nose, then tapped the table once. Twice. The silence stretched, he let it stretch further. Letting the weight of it decide for him.
So, when his voice came, it was final. “No.”
Callum’s head snapped, eyes narrowing, gold catching a dangerous glint. “No?”
Ronan’s jaw shifted once before he spoke. “If you enjoy the sound of your own begging, I can carve the word into your bones as well.”
Callum pivoted sharply, shoulders taut, muttering under his breath that sounded like dust breaking apart. His chest rose and fell once, twice, three times, before he faced them again.
“You refuse without even hearing what I have to offer?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Ronan was already walking for the door, heat rolling off him in steady waves as flame-shadow crawled along the walls. “I don’t trust you.” He didn’t spare Callum a glance. “It’s been a pleasure. Do not pursue me again.”
Callum’s reply dropped like an executioner’s blade. “King Obrann has the sword of Ryuu.”
Ronan stopped. Entirely. A single breath locked in his lungs.
Because Callum had just admitted he had—
“Your lost heirloom,” Callum continued, quietly.
Ronan turned, fists clenched until the bones strained. The green in his eyes held for a beat, then burned into a molten gold. “How…did he come by that?”
An unwanted ache grew in his gut, betrayal flaying him raw at the memory of feeling it vanish. That invisible tug against his soul, that screamed to be followed. And now, that same pull again.
Calling to him like a beacon.
His sword waking and warning, promising a war.
Callum held his stare, saying nothing.
Elysian moved first, charging forward with a snarl, a blur of winter’s fury. “Thief.”
Callum only lifted a hand to the back of his neck, calm as he eased back to the table, fingers resting on the chair’s rail. “I know where it’s kept. I can get past the wards.”
Ronan’s lip curled, a slow, dangerous thing. “Prove it.”
Callum stepped around the chair cautiously.
“What is it?” Ronan asked, arching a scarred brow. “Afraid I’ll bite?”
“Let’s not pretend this is about teeth,” Callum’s throat bobbed. “If I was afraid of you, I wouldn’t have come alone.”
“Men who come alone usually have a reason.”
His jaw flexed, tongue pressing briefly to the inside of his cheek. “Some reasons don’t belong in other’s mouths.”
Ronan rolled his sleeves past his forearms, the movement slow, unhurried, showcasing the heir mark vivid against the faded ink along his skin.
“Whatever you’re guarding,” grinning, he crept forward, “it’s already loud.”
Color drained from Callum’s face, freckles standing out like spilled embers across snow.