Page 32 of The Bond That Burns (Bloodwing Academy #2)

Wintermark Term

The cold weather had arrived with a vengeance. The icy wind whipped at the windows of the Black Keep, howling like a tormented ghost. I pulled my black cloak more closely around me, suddenly wondering whether I should have come.

Every logical part of me screamed to turn back. But logic had lost its grip on me long ago.

Pendragon wasn’t just slipping away. She was being pulled into something that would destroy her, and I couldn’t just stand by and watch. I couldn’t lose her. Not like this. Not to them.

Maybe it was insane. But insanity and resolve had started to feel like the same thing.

So, I had a plan. And this—breaking into the Black Keep in the dead of the night and sneaking through my uncle’s office into the House Drakharrow archives—was all part of it.

It wasn’t a good plan. Hell, it might not even have qualified as a plan. But I’d see it through.

I’d been watching the Keep for weeks, memorizing the guard rotation, arriving unannounced for “visits” so I could check the times when the corridors were the least patrolled.

I wasn’t even sure all the subterfuge was necessary. Maybe Viktor would have let me take a peek into the archives if I’d simply asked. But I couldn’t risk it. Firstly, because he could say no. Secondly, because there was no way in hell I wanted to tell him what I was looking for.

And thirdly...because of Theo.

My jaw tightened. Theo was finally out of the infirmary. He’d agreed to feed from Vaughn, but it had taken hours of both myself and the blightborn boy working to convince him with everything we had. The healers said it could be weeks before he was back at full strength—if he didn’t catch some other sickness first. Apparently, being drained to the brink of death had a way of leaving your body vulnerable to just about everything.

The guilt ate at me. Every time I thought of Theo and of what Aenia had done to him, I felt the edge of my control fraying.

Aenia had been a part of my family longer than she’d been part of her own blightborn one. I wasn’t just her older brother. In a terrible sense, I was her maker, too. The weight of responsibility that came with that knowledge was crushing.

She was out of control. Losing herself more and more every day. And the worst part was knowing there was a way to end her misery and make sure she never hurt anyone ever again–and knowing it was probably inevitable.

I just couldn’t bear to face it yet.

As for Theo, it wasn’t his poor health that Viktor would care about. It was the fact he was once again associating with Vaughn Sabino. I knew it was only a matter of time before my uncle found out. And what then?

This couldn’t go on forever. Rebellion was slowly taking hold of my heart. Viktor had led our family long enough. Maybe it was time for a change. I didn’t know how I could overthrow him—just that at some point recently, the seed of the idea had become a sprout and now the sprout was becoming a tree taking root.

I would bring Viktor down. Marcus, too, if that was what it took. House Drakharrow didn’t have to become what Viktor wanted it to be. We could rise again like a phoenix from the ash—led not by a man like Viktor but by someone else.

Me? I’d been raised to lead, yet in some ways that made me the least suitable candidate. What we needed was someone more like Theo. Someone who wouldn’t be so easily consumed by power and greed.

Speaking of greed, here I was–creeping through the halls like a thief breaking into a dragon’s den.

I was playing with fire. Viktor probably wouldn’t kill me for sneaking into the archives. But if he wanted to punish me, I could think of many possibilities that would be almost as bad.

Yet here I was. Did I have some kind of death wish?

The answer, irritatingly, was no. I wanted to live. Needed to live. Not just for Aenia, but for Pendragon. She might have left my tower, but she was still my anchor. My reason for not burning this whole place to the damn ground.

Because the more time that went on, the less I seemed to care about the things a typical highblood should care about. Status. Privilege. Wealth. Power.

I’d been floating through my life, like an actor saying lines. Never really meaning them.

Until she came along.

I reached the tall doors leading to Viktor’s office and hesitated for a moment, pressing my ear against the wood. Silence. Guards weren’t permitted inside. I knew my uncle was absent. He was off attending a gala hosted by some of his allies in a very posh inn somewhere in Veilmar. I’d snuck a look at his agenda the other day when I’d come to give him an update–leaving out everything that really mattered, of course.

I pushed open the doors. Viktor’s desk sat like a throne off at the far end of the room. I skirted the edge of the chamber, moving towards the smaller door hidden in shadows along the opposite wall.

With a deep breath, I pulled out a thin knife and knelt down outside the door. My fingers were shaking as I worked the lock. The tool felt clumsy in my hand. Ask me to break some bones and I’d have no problem. But this was delicate work. My hands still felt wrong—too hot, too tight, as if my skin didn’t belong to me anymore. It wasn’t just physical pain. This was like an itch at the back of my mind, as if something or someone lurked there, waiting for my acknowledgement.

Eventually, however, there was a satisfying click. The door swung open.

I was in.

A blast of cold air hit me from inside the archives, carrying the scent of old paper. Shelves stretched in every direction, crammed with scrolls and books that looked older than I was.

I lit one of the lamps on the wall, then froze as I took it all in. So, I was here. Now what? It was quickly obvious someone could spend days in the room without turning up the information they were looking for. I wasn’t an archivist or a librarian. What hope did I have?

The faintest scuffle broke the silence.

I whirled around, my hand already on the sword sheathed at my hip. “Who’s there?”

Nothing.

Then, from behind the shadows of a nearby shelf, a furry head emerged.

“Neville!” I let out the breath I’d been holding as the fluffin padded into the torchlight, his huge glowing eyes fixed on me with an expression that looked almost smug. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were with Florence.”

Not to mention Pendragon. I’d heard Kage had put the two girls together. I felt a pang in my chest. Pendragon must have loved that. Kage had done something to make her truly happy. So why did that make me want to punch his lights out?

The fluffin hopped closer to me, his large tail flicking back and forth. He looked far too pleased with himself, as if sneaking into the Black Keep was all part of some grand adventure that he’d planned.

“You were following me the entire time, weren’t you?” I muttered. “Some stealthy thief I am. Unbelievable.”

Neville gave a soft little yip, his wide eyes still fixed on mine. I couldn’t if he was here to mock me or to offer moral support.

I crouched down and rubbed his head. “You’re lucky you’re so fucking cute. Fine. Stay quiet and don’t touch anything. If Viktor finds us here, he’ll probably eat you.”

Neville cocked his head, clearly unimpressed by my threat.

I started working my way methodically through the shelves, running my fingers over the spines of volume after volume, scanning their titles in the feeble light. After an hour, I had a tall stack of books piled on a table. But when I flipped through them, none contained what I was looking for.

I told myself it didn’t matter. I’d come back. Again and again if I had to. The answers were here. I’d find them even if it killed me.

I went back to the stacks. The hours dragged on. Dust coated my hands and stuck to my palms. My head ached from reading snippets of ancient Drakharrow genealogies–endless records of deaths, marriages, births, and tedious disputes over bloodlines and borders.

Nothing on dragons. Nothing about what was happening to me.

I rubbed my temples, sighing with frustration, and reached for another dusty volume. The sound of small claws skittering on stone made me pause. I looked around and realized the fluffin was gone.

“Neville?”

I walked up and down the rows of shelves, scanning for any sign of the little creature. “Now is not the time for hide-and-seek, you little...”

A muffled yip cut through the silence.

I followed the noise towards a bookshelf that lined the far wall, a monolithic slab crammed full of stacks of ancient scrolls. Neville’s yip came again. It was coming from behind the shelf.

I peered behind the bookshelf and saw it. A narrow opening, just wide enough for the fluffin to have slipped through. I grabbed the edge of the shelf and pulled. The opening grew wider.

Then I spotted it. I crouched down. “Clever little bastard.”

A tiny latch, hidden low to the ground and nearly invisible beneath a layer of dust. The fluffin must have brushed against it and accidentally opened up the panel.

Neville appeared in the passage, giving a soft, triumphant bark.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t try to tell me you did that on purpose. You were stuck, weren’t you?”

I ducked through the opening, making sure to leave the gap behind me wide enough for Neville to slip out when he wanted to, and stepped into a hidden room, only large enough for a desk and chair and a single floor-to-ceiling bookshelf along the opposite wall. I hurriedly lit the lamp that sat on the desk and the room burst into light. It looked as if someone had used the space fairly recently.

Two books lay on top of the desk. I reached for the first one, my heart pounding a little harder than I’d have liked to admit.

Bound in Blood and Flame read the title. It seemed to have been written by a House Drakharrow historian.

Suddenly grateful that my father had made us learn Classical Sangrathan, I scanned the first page. The faded ink and archaic script made for slow going, but the contents were immediately promising.

The power of the dragon is not limited to flesh but rather is woven into the very... The ink was smudged. I frowned, straining to make sense of the next word. Bloodline? Spirit? Both seemed plausible.

I turned the page, only to find it jagged at the edges, the paper violently torn away. I flipped forward. Another page missing. Then another. My heart sank. Entire sections had been excised, leaving only uneven scars where the answers I sought should have been.

Neville was sniffing around a corner of the shelves. Now he let out a cheerful bark and wagged his fluffy tail as if to say, “All good here!”

“Yeah, thanks, Nev,” I said bitterly. “Glad at least one of us is having a good time.”

The fluffin bounded up onto the desk and sat down. I gave him a half-hearted smile as I turned the page, finding little more than scattered words and fragmented phrases.

...flesh and flame intertwined...

...the blood must remain unbroken...

...bond is the dragon’s curse or its salvation...

That was it. No context, no explanation. Just maddening little hints.

“This doesn’t tell me anything,” I muttered. “Nothing useful. Nothing I couldn’t have guessed already.”

I pulled out the wooden chair and sank into it, forcing myself to take slow, steady breaths. But it didn’t help. My mind was a pounding hailstorm. Nothing I’d read had served to reassure me. There was no denying something was happening to me. But whether it was a curse or a gift, I had no way of knowing. I felt more terrified now than ever.

Neville nudged the book with his nose, his tail swishing across the desk. I gave him a wry smile. “You want me to read it to you? Do you understand Classical Sangrathan? Maybe you’ll make more sense of it than I can.”

I looked down at the desk, my gaze drifting to the second book. I picked it up. The leather-bound tome seemed innocuous enough. Then I opened it. The handwriting was small, precise—and startlingly familiar.

I was holding one of Viktor Drakharrow’s diaries.

I looked around the room, half-expecting my uncle to materialize from the shadows. Neville had jumped down off the table and was patrolling the room again, as if resuming his guard.

I turned my attention back to the diary, forcing myself to focus.

As I read, the familiar story of the Dragon Wars unraveled before me. Not as a blood conflict between the great houses—but as something far darker.

The wars hadn’t just been a civil conflict. They’d been a rebellion. A dragon uprising.

Some dragons had wanted more power. Others had been pushed too far by the highbloods’ brutality—towards blightborn, towards the dragons, towards each other.

My hands clenched around the edges of the book as I read about something called “soul-binding”—a process in which a highblood’s soul could be forcibly merged with a dragon rider’s. Highbloods had wielded this power mercilessly, using soul-bound riders as living chains, tying them to the dragons.

I felt sick. The more I read, the more horrified I felt. I could almost see it in my mind’s eye: dragons roaring in fury as they turned upon their highblood masters, dragon fire sweeping through highblood fortresses, entire armies crumbling under the might of their rebellion.

My uncle’s handwriting contemptuously detailed the fragile truce that finally ended the war. The rider bloodline had been systematically exterminated, hunted down by highbloods terrified of future rebellions—so terrified that they were willing to give up the dragons. The official story, of course—spread through more than a century of propaganda—was that the rider’s race had simply withered away naturally because of the loss of dragons. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

The dragons’ rebellion had been downplayed, rewritten into a story of noble houses clashing over petty disputes. The truth—the prevalence of soul-binding, the dragons’ betrayal, the uprising—had been carefully erased.

My stomach churned as I read about how the highbloods had done it. Viktor wrote coldly about the meticulous destruction of historical records, then of how a council had agreed to plant a deep, instinctual aversion in their own future bloodlines, ensuring future generations wouldn’t even want to dig into the history of dragons or riders. Any hint of curiosity had been suppressed before it could take root.

Until now.

I’d stumbled upon this by accident. But I wasn’t about to forget it.

“Of course,” I muttered. “Why tell us the truth when you could just condition us into ignorance and then repeat history a second time?”

Neville hopped onto my lap, nudging at the diary with his nose as if he didn’t want me to keep reading. I scratched behind his ears and he closed his eyes contentedly. “You don’t even know how to read, Nev. Are you hungry or bored? Or just here to rub in how much smarter you are than I am for not getting involved in this colossal mess?”

My throat felt dry as I pieced it all together. Pendragon. Viktor’s plan for her was crystal clear now. Soul-binding wasn’t some ancient, forgotten cruelty. Viktor must know how to perform it. And it was the exact leverage he wanted to control Nyxaris.

Pendragon was in more danger than she realized.

And the dragon... The dragons had risen before. Did Nyxaris remember? Would he rebel again if Viktor tried to soul-bind Pendragon?

If Viktor forced her into such a fate, Nyxaris might try to destroy us all.

I closed the diary slowly and put it back on the desk, in the exact position I’d found it. Pendragon had to know. She deserved to know. And so did Nyxaris.

I gave the fluffin another quick pat on the head, then scooped him up and unceremoniously stuffed him into my satchel. “Good work. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”