Chapter 6 #2
Three more vessels' worth.
Three more girls.
I pressed my hand against my mouth to keep from crying out. Through the bond, I felt Valdris's reaction—a flicker of something that might have been disgust, quickly suppressed, buried beneath the cold mask he wore.
He accepted the vials.
His fingers closed around them with an expression I couldn't read, and he placed them somewhere I couldn't see—a pocket, a dimensional fold, some storage space that existed only for him.
"The cult remains loyal to your ascension," Solmar continued, his voice dripping with reverent eagerness. "As it has always been. As it will always be."
"Your loyalty is noted."
Flat. Cold. Giving nothing.
Solmar seemed not to notice—or perhaps he was too confident in his own importance to recognize dismissal. "The equinox approaches, my lord. Two days." He paused, and something shifted in his expression—calculation beneath the devotion. "Will the ritual proceed as planned?"
The silence stretched.
I stopped breathing.
Through the bond, I felt Valdris's hesitation like a physical thing. The monster knew the answer. The monster had been planning this for ten millennia, had orchestrated every detail, had prepared for this moment with the patience of an immortal being who had nothing left to lose.
But the man—
The man who had held me in his arms this morning, who had called me little one with such devastating tenderness, who had prepared a nursery and written happy endings and spent six days caring for me like I was precious—
"Leave." Valdris's voice cut through the throne room like a blade. "Before I remember how much I despise sycophants."
Solmar's eyes widened slightly—surprise quickly masked by that oily deference. He bowed again, deeper this time, and began to dissolve back into the shadows from which he'd come.
"As my lord commands."
The darkness swallowed him whole.
I pressed myself harder against the crystal pillar, heart pounding so loudly I was certain Valdris would hear it. But his attention was fixed on the space where Solmar had stood, his expression unreadable, his hands clenched at his sides.
He hadn't confirmed the plan.
Solmar had asked directly—will the ritual proceed?—and Valdris had dismissed him without answering. Had changed the subject. Had thrown the cult leader out of his domain rather than speak the words that should have come easily after ten thousand years of planning.
He couldn't say it.
The realization hit me like a wave, warm and terrifying and bright with desperate hope.
The monster wanted to say yes. The monster had been preparing for this moment since the day I died. But the man—the Daddy who had carried me through corridors and called me his good girl—the man couldn't confirm my death.
Not anymore.
My hands shook as I settled onto the bed, the velvet dragon abandoned beside me. Valdris was still in the throne room—I could feel his attention turned away, dealing with the aftermath of Solmar's intrusion. I had minutes at most.
I closed my eyes and reached.
The blood-link was easier to find now than it had been that first time, days ago. I knew the frequency, the particular resonance that connected origin to descendant. Lena's presence existed at the edge of my awareness like a familiar note waiting to be struck.
Lena.
The call went out through channels of inherited memory and cellular recognition.
Lena, I need you. Now.
The connection flared immediately—bright and urgent, her consciousness flooding toward mine like she'd been waiting at the threshold of the link for days. Which, I realized with a pang of guilt, she probably had.
Evara! Her relief crashed over me in waves. Thank the gods. We've been trying to reach you for two days. What happened? Are you hurt? Davoren says we can breach the palace tomorrow if we combine—
No!
I pushed the word through with every scrap of force I possessed, feeling her presence recoil slightly at the intensity.
You can't attack. Lena, listen to me—Solmar was just here.
A pause. I felt her processing, felt the information spreading outward to others gathered around her—the Dragon Lords and their mates, united in their war council, preparing to storm the Sunken Palace.
The cult leader? He came to Valdris directly?
He brought tribute. Harvested bonding magic from three more girls. The memory of those glowing vials made my stomach turn even through the blood-link. And he asked about the equinox. Asked if the ritual would proceed.
And?
Valdris threw him out without answering.
I let her feel what I had felt—the devastating pause, the silence that stretched too long, the way Valdris had deflected instead of confirming. The hope that had bloomed in my chest like a flower finding sunlight.
He couldn't say it, Lena. He couldn't tell Solmar the plan was still on.
A long moment of consideration filtered through the link. I felt her consulting with Morgrith, felt his shadow-touched wisdom threading through her thoughts. Felt the other Lords—Davoren's volcanic impatience, Sereis's careful calculation, Zephyron's electric urgency.
Evara. Lena's mental voice was gentle now. Too gentle. The voice of someone delivering a kindness that was really a blade. He still says he's going to kill you. You told me that yourself. His plan hasn't changed.
His plan was made ten thousand years ago by a being who had nothing left to lose.
I pushed certainty through the link even as my hands trembled in the physical world.
But that's not who he is anymore. Every time he cares for me—every time he feeds me, holds me, calls me his good girl—the man wins more ground from the monster.
Or the monster is playing a longer game. Making you love you. Tricking you.
The counter-argument hit me like ice water. I couldn't deny the possibility. Couldn't pretend it hadn't occurred to me in the dark hours of the night, lying in his arms and wondering if every tender touch was just another manipulation.
But I had felt him through the bond. Had felt the peace that settled over him when he held me this morning. Had felt his hesitation—his inability—to confirm my death when Solmar asked directly.
I can feel him, Lena. The bond doesn't lie. His resolve is crumbling.
And if you're wrong?
The question hung between us like a blade suspended over a thread.
If you're wrong, and in two days he murders you at the moment of climax and becomes a god of ending—what then? He'll be unstoppable. The corruption will spread. Everything we've been fighting for will be lost.
I sat in the silence of my borrowed chamber and faced the truth of what I was asking them to risk.
Everything.
I was asking them to bet everything—the safety of the Isles, the future of dragonkind, the lives of everyone they loved—on my instinct.
On my hope. On my belief that the man who had built a nursery for children we never had was still in there, still fighting, still capable of choosing love over godhood.
Then you'll have to stop him.
The words were hard to push through. Hard to form, even in thought.
If I'm wrong—if he kills me and completes the transformation—you'll have to find a way to end him. All of you together. Whatever it takes.
I felt Lena's anguish through the link—the horror of being asked to plan for my death, to prepare for a world where I had died and Valdris had become something unstoppable.
But I don't think I'm wrong.
I filled the link with everything I couldn't say aloud.
The way he'd held me this morning, trembling with the effort of being gentle.
The story he'd written where I stayed, where we had children, where love won.
The nursery he'd maintained for ten thousand years, hoping against hope that I would need it someday.
I think he's falling in love with me again. Or remembering that he never stopped.
A long, terrible pause.
Then: Two days.
Lena's agreement came wrapped in fear and desperate hope and the particular fierce protectiveness I was learning to recognize as her essential nature.
We hold for two days. No attack. But Evara—
A flash of something through the link: fire and shadow and the combined fury of seven Dragon Lords united in grief.
If you die, we're burning that palace to the ground. We're tearing that monster apart piece by piece until there's nothing left. Do you understand?
I understand.
The connection began to fade, blood-link stretching thin as the effort of maintaining it took its toll.
But I caught one last fragment before she was gone entirely—not words, just feeling.
Love and terror and the desperate prayer of a woman who had inherited my soul and didn't want to lose it again.
Then silence.
I sat alone in the chamber that had become my prison and my sanctuary, the velvet dragon clutched to my chest, and let myself feel the full weight of what I was attempting.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
He found me still trembling, the velvet dragon crushed against my chest, and he didn't ask what was wrong. Didn't demand explanations or probe for information about what had shaken me. He simply crossed the room in three strides and lifted me into his arms like I was something breakable.
“Sorry I had to deal with that, Baby girl. Now, let me take care of you.”
He carried me through the nursery’s dragon-carved door, and I saw what he'd done.
The dust was gone. Every surface gleamed with care—the white wood crib, the shelves of picture books, the rocking chair that had held my grief when I first discovered this room. The mobiles spun gently overhead, tiny stars casting fractured light across the walls in slow, hypnotic patterns.
He'd been preparing this.
He set me on a cushioned bench before the wardrobe, and I watched through half-closed eyes as he selected something from within. Pale pink fabric, soft as clouds, flowing rather than structured. A gown made for comfort rather than display.
"Arms up, little one."
I raised my arms.