Page 41 of Mantle (IMMORTAL FLAME #3)

~Vorzyr~

I wasn’t wearing my high-collared crimson and gold coat anymore.

In fact, I’d burned it with my dragon fire a few nights ago with my loves bearing witness to it and being there for me, understanding what it meant—my rejection of House Titanus and my parents.

My acceptance that I no longer belonged to the Dracoryn Realm and that it was better this way.

I had a different life now. A fuller life.

A life that was my own, one without brutal expectations and, instead, full of actual care and love.

I sat with the sleeves of my white henley rolled up as I listened to Professor Vaelthorne’s introduction to today’s class.

Kai was sitting to my left, Ariana on my right, and Nyx beside her.

She’d been holding onto him in some way or the other since we’d sat down.

Actually, since the shower thing that Nyx had told me and Kai about.

He had his first appointment with that special Healer today and Kai being Kai had managed to have her agree to actually come here to campus, to somewhere that Nyx was very comfortable with.

They would be meeting inside Hollowshade Hearth—he loved that place.

I glanced over at him and saw him fiddling with his Soulweld Ring.

Ariana noticed right away then shifted to wrap her arm around him.

The professor caught sight of the intimate move during class, but Kai flashed one of his dangerously fucked-up death stares and she backed down.

Yeah, things were tense as hell.

I flipped back my hair and settled in for the lesson, preparing to get typing on my tablet in front of me as I tuned back into what the professor was saying.

“As we’ve discussed in this course ever since the beginning of the year, Arcane Symbology isn’t merely about memorizing sigils, symbols, or the like. It’s understanding the complex language at their root. Every symbol, every line and shape you draw, carries intent.”

Professor Nera Vaelthorne paced at the front of the room with her razor-sharp grace in an all-black outfit that glinted as she moved around the space—a tailored blazer, fitted dress pants and a bustier beneath. Her black pixie cut was as sharp and precise as her voice.

“Intent, wielded without comprehension, is chaos waiting to happen,” she said, with the kind of quiet authority that always landed like thunder. “Which is why Arcane Symbology is not merely theory. It is responsibility. A responsibility unlike any other in truth.”

I snuck a look at Kai out of the corner of my eye.

What I saw from him had me grimacing.

Not again.

Normally, Kai would be typing furiously and taking detailed notes. Even concerning things he was already familiar with. He was all about perfecting and pushing things to the next level of understanding.

But right now he had his head held in his hand and he was staring into space while somehow managing to snap out of it just as the professor looked his way so she mistakenly believed he was actually paying attention.

Motherfucker, he was good.

Ever since he’d told us about the necromancer, Sylas Morgrave, discovering a way to snap the leash the Maven Coven had used to keep Kai under their thumb, our boy had been… off. Withdrawn.

But in spite of that, he hadn’t actually pulled away emotionally from any of us.

Him and Ariana had come to Nyx and me and told us about the death warning and the magical branding that Kai had been suffering from his awful parents.

Then they’d even both vowed to keep things open and not to treat their issues as a burden on our foursome, but something that we’d all carry together happily and supportively.

Because that was what we fucking did, what we’d all now learned to do.

When the world came for us, we stood as one—good fucking luck to it when going up against that.

I let his current state be and didn’t push it.

Because I knew now that he’d come to us if he needed to. He wouldn’t hold back this time.

And he did need time to process what was coming. I just wasn’t sure that even he knew which was heaviest to him—the fact that he’d have to die for Morgrave’s spell to work, or that he’d actually be free of an unwanted obligation he’d been saddled with since birth.

I jolted as he suddenly spoke. “I know I’m irresistible, but tone down that sexy draconic primality while we’re in class, V. I’ll let you slam me up against the wall in your dorm room if that little fantasy will calm you enough to make it through the next hour.”

“With that little spiel, it sounds like it’s you who’s having trouble keeping his gorgeous cock in his well-tailored pants.”

The corner of his mouth turned up, liking that a whole lot. He loved it when I rose to it and gave it right back to him.

He loved it with Ariana a whole lot as well.

And with Nyx. Their relationship no longer possessed the power imbalance that it had beforehand, because Kai had mellowed and Nyx had come out of his shell.

Sometimes he seemed to think it was because of the Soulweld Ring we’d made for him, but in other times he recognized that it was actually down to him, his work with Crossborn, what he brought to our foursome.

As Professor Vaelthorne began drawing magical symbols for us to decipher on the projection screen at the front of the room, I was about to give Kai a little something more to chew on, when an ice-cold sensation shooting through my left arm pulled me up short.

I grunted as it evolved to a freezer-burn type of sensation, before then become raging flames—or at least feeling like it. The irony wasn’t lost on me for a motherfucking moment.

As I swung my head to get a look at what the hell was going on, Kai was already snapping into action, his hand on me, holding my arm. “Your tattoos,” he breathed.

My eyes shot wide as I looked to see several of my black and crimson dragon scale tattoos being burned off me where I fucking sat.

Ariana and Nyx were off their seats in the next moment rounding me right next to Kai.

“What is that?” Nyx asked, frantic for me, stroking my hair, doing whatever he could to soothe me. He eyed Ariana. “Is it… you know?”

Celestial was what he was asking, but keeping the secret about that side of me.

Although, it wouldn’t be secret for that much longer, given that I’d displayed one of those abilities during that battle with Ketheron and dozens of Guardian members had been around when I had. Not to mention, what would spread from the Dracoryn Realm as well.

“No,” Ariana confirmed. “It’s definitely not that.”

“Look,” Kai said, gesturing at my arm. “These draconic symbols… the only ones burning away are those connected to royalty, House Titanus, his parents.”

We locked eyes. “The revolution has begun.”

I failed to suppress a roar as the burning attacked my other arm, part of my chest, becoming absolutely fucking blistering.

All eyes in the class were on me in a second.

The professor came rushing over, but my loves around me refused to move, forming a sort of non-magical shield around me.

She managed to get a look in spite of that. “Head to the Infirmary immediately. It can’t be stopped, but the horrific pain can be muted with a special Light Fae salve we have in stock.”

“Thank you,” Nyx managed to offer for me.

And then the three of them were helping me out, Nyx guarding me, Kai literally ripping the door open with a forceful bolt of his magic, and Ariana supporting my growing dead weight with her angelic strength.

As soon as we got away from the classroom and further down the corridor, I dragged my feet, making them all pull up short.

“Not the Infirmary. Take me to Cornelius. He’s Inter-Realm Ambassador.

He has the means to see into the situation.

I need to know… I need to see it. And my baby brother… I have to see that he’s okay.”

They all exchanged a nod of agreement.

“I’ll get the salve and meet you there,” Nyx told Kai and Ariana.

“I’ll go ahead and prepare Cornelius, get an Inter-Realm Holoscreen up and running,” Kai said.

“Sounds good. Go,” Ariana encouraged them.

In a blink, they both teleported out.

And then Ariana shifted her grip on me to a more comfortable hold for me, worry and distress for my pain clouding her gorgeous face. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.” She smiled. “My dragon.”

I managed a weak smile. “Forevermore, goddess.”

And then she was enveloping us in a cloud of teleportation.

That salve had worked wonders.

Nyx had gone a little overkill with it, spreading it places where there weren’t even tattoos, and even over the ones that had nothing to do with House Titanus specifically and thus wouldn’t burn as my parents’ tyrannical rule did.

It had just finally dried and Ariana walked back to me after helping Cornelius to activate a massive holoscreen in his living room, currently replacing a huge flatscreen that Warlow had made him conjure.

Warlow wasn’t here right now. He was working with Ryker and Aegis Watch in the aftermath of the complete takedown of Chimera Circle—accommodating and assisting the hybrids who’d been found in those awful labs.

Some were being sheltered and stabilized.

Others had run for their lives when certain sites were abandoned after word spread that Chimera Circle had been fully and irreversibly compromised.

They were also analyzing the retrieved research data, trying to understand the extent of the damage done—and to use that knowledge to better grasp each hybrid’s unique physiology.

Once that stage was complete, Crossborn would take the lead.

I pulled from my thoughts as Ariana handed me my shirt and I slipped it back on.

She slid her hand into mine for support as the glowing silver holoscreen came to life, accessing real-time magically-generated footage of the Dracoryn Realm—the specific site where the revolution was taking place.

Nyx was perched on the arm of an ornate gold-threaded couch, while Kai was next to him, sitting forward in a rigid state.

Cornelius stood beside the holoscreen, his arms folded, as we all started to look on.

And Ariana and I were by the other side of the couch.

I tensed, my hand involuntarily tightening in Ariana’s, as I took in what was happening.

Destruction reigned.

Battle raged.

Revolution surged like a violent tidal wave of determination.

Half Titanus Castle was in ruins.

The immediate area had been razed by dragon fire.

House Titanus was falling.

There were ice dragons in full beast form clashing in the air with House Titanus enforcers—those still loyal to my parents. But the ice dragons of House Vortimer were completely trouncing them, working in impressive formation to surround and then fell them.

Off to the side, there were dozens of dragons in human form, many of whom I recognized as being of House Titanus, but they were being helped by Elyrren Vortimer—those who’d been forced under my parents’ thumb, those who’d become their victims.

And then my breath caught in my throat at what I witnessed next.

I couldn’t actually believe what I was seeing as I saw two House Vortimer dragons dragging my parents along in chains toward Draven who’d just shifted back into human form, his long hair flapping wildly in the wind and from so many dragon wings moving nearby and thereby shifting the air.

He stood looming over them in the next moment.

As he spoke and they sneered at him, earning rough tugs to their leashes from those dragons holding them, I couldn’t hear what was being said.

Inter-Realm holoscreens had their limits, especially when Cornelius was cloaking the fact that it was being used at all to avoid political fallout.

But I watched as Draven had them taken way in chains and leashes, teleporting to House Vortimer to be detained, no doubt.

He watched them go, intensity rolling over him, as he stood in the wreckage of one part of the castle, covered in the blood of his enemies.

With a jolt, he swung his head toward the entrance, and then he was bolting forward, obscuring my vision of somebody coming out of the place.

When he turned back around, he was holding a baby boy, cradling him carefully.

I choked.

I knew without it needing to be stated.

It was him.

Torvek Titanus.

My baby brother.

“Holy damn, he’s already been born,” Nyx exclaimed.

Cornelius nodded. “Yes. Dragon pregnancies typically span two years—but when Celestial blood is involved, the timeline becomes unpredictable. Some gestate in half that time, others… even sooner.”

I kept my eyes on the screen as a familiar dragon form soared toward Draven.

She eclipsed Draven’s draconic form in breadth and length. Where his scales shimmered in sapphire blues, hers were alabaster overlaid with frost. Her wings were pattered like shattered ice, and every beat of them brought snow squalls and thunder. Her eyes flowed a blinding silver.

It was Elyrren Vortimer in all her draconic glory—graceful, terrifying, commanding.

She swept down and shifted to human form as she reached the ground just a couple of feet from her son.

Her hair was thick and curling past her waist and silver-tinged with ice-blue.

She wore robes of silk draped in faux fur, weapons strapped all over her.

A long, curved blade of living ice was at her side, an infamous Vortimer heirloom.

With a spark of glacial magic, she conjured a blanket, then eased my baby brother from Draven and wrapped him in it, before taking him in her arms carefully.

Draven stepped forward and pulled the familiar bracelet from his inside coat pocket.

The bracelet.

The one Kai had reforged from my dragon’s head pendant, one that now represented connection between me and my brother, where I would be constantly aware of his wellbeing even with us needing to be apart at this point in time.

I took in the damage that had been done to Titanus Castle.

The banners being raised of House Vortimer.

My brother safe just like Draven had vowed.

And the tyranny ended.

The generational trauma had been cut to pieces.

The fucked-up way I’d been raised, then abused would never touch my brother now. He would be spared. He would be given his best chance with House Vortimer.

Despite everything, despite the carnage I was seeing, despite it being an end of an era… I smiled.

Relief rolled through me.

A better world had just been created this day.

The right people were at the helm now.

The Dracoryn Realm could now begin to heal, then thrive once more.

And me?

I looked at my loves.

I already had everything that I needed.