Page 13

Of course, I should have known I wouldn’t have a chance to get far. Still, stupidly, I tried rifling through the cupboards and drawers of Ulric’s study, desperate for any kind of intelligence, consumed with a suffocating and frantic desire to know. To understand.

And as the door creaks open behind me, my hands full of useless papers I can barely decipher, I know I have made a dire mistake.

"Find anything interesting?"

My blood turns to ice at his voice. I turn slowly, letting the parchment fall from nerveless fingers.

Ulric stands in the doorway, golden hair catching the firelight. His smile is knife-sharp, but his eyes are cold as midwinter frost. He looks more than ever like a twisted reflection of his brother—all of Arvoren's predatory grace but none of his fire, none of his heart.

"I was looking for a book," I lie, though we both know better. My voice sounds weak even to my own ears, slurred slightly from whatever poison still lingers in my blood. "One of the histories you mentioned—"

"Come now, Calliope of Essenborn." He steps into the room, closing the door with a soft click that sounds like a tomb being sealed. Each step is measured, deliberate, a hunter stalking wounded prey. "Haven't we moved past such childish deceptions? I've welcomed you into my home, shared my table, offered you freedom from my brother's tyranny. And this is how you repay my hospitality? By sneaking about like a common thief?"

I back away as he advances, but my heel hits his desk. There's nowhere left to retreat. The room suddenly feels smaller, the shadows in the corners writhing like living things. Or perhaps that's just the poison making the world shift and blur. My head spins with each movement, and my magic feels distant, muffled, like trying to hear through deep water.

"Your hospitality?" A bitter laugh escapes me. "Is that what you call drugging me? Keeping me weak? Having your men terrorize me? Some host you've been, Ulric."

"I protect you from yourself." He's closer now, too close. His hand comes up to brush my cheek in a mockery of tenderness. His skin burns like fever against mine. "From the magic that would destroy you if left unchecked. You have no idea of your true potential, of what we could accomplish together.”

"I know exactly what you want to accomplish." I jerk away from his touch, my back pressing harder against the desk. "Ulric, I know precisely what you want. What you are. You want to use my child as a weapon. Or kill them, if you can't control them. I have never doubted it. I never will.”

Something darkens in Ulric’s expression. His fingers catch my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. The gesture is so similar to how Arvoren used to touch me, yet utterly wrong. Where my husband's grip always held a careful restraint, Ulric's fingers dig in hard enough to bruise.

"Such an uncharitable interpretation." His voice drops lower, honey-sweet but laced with poison. "I want to ensure that child becomes everything it's meant to be, free from my brother's influence, free from the chains of tradition. Can't you see? Kaldoria destroyed you, Calliope, just as it was built to. It ruined you. Your dear husband stripped you of your very soul when he locked you in that castle, you know it as well as I do. He took something from you you’ll never get back. We could have built a better world, a world where you might have been able to be free. But perhaps he rendered you too weak to dare.”

" Better ?" The word tastes like ash. "You murdered innocent people to find me. Tortured them. You’re the reason my friend is dead, the reason my child is in danger. You kill, you lie, you steal, you betray. It’s all you know. And I know you well enough to know my child will die at your hand eventually, one way or another, if I stay in this wretched place.”

"Only if necessary." Ulric’s thumb traces my lower lip, and it takes everything in me not to bite it off. His eyes track the movement, something hungry entering his expression. "But it doesn't have to come to that. Not if you’re smart, Calliope, as I know you can be. Stay with me willingly. Let me guide you, teach you. We could be extraordinary together. We could bring down the very walls of Kaldoria and build something glorious from its ashes."

He leans closer, his breath hot against my face.

When he moves to kiss me, something inside me snaps.

The magic comes without warning, surging up from that deep well inside me that even Ulric's poisons couldn't quite reach. Power explodes outward in a wave of killing frost, throwing him across the room. He hits the far wall with a satisfying crack, ice spreading across his fine clothes in tiny, intricate patterns. The temperature plummets until the very air seems to crystallize, frost coating every surface in patterns that glow with an eerie blue light.

"Don't touch me," I snarl, my voice raw with fury and fear. The words emerge in clouds of frozen breath. "Don't ever touch me again."

For a moment, Ulric just stares at me, genuine shock written across his features. Then his smile returns, sharper than ever. Blood trickles from a cut on his forehead, freezing before it can drip from his chin. "There she is. There's the queen I've been waiting for. Such power, such potential. You see? This is why I had to keep you contained. Why I had to wait until you were ready."

I don't wait to hear more. Staggering slightly—even that small burst of magic has left me dizzy—I flee into the corridor beyond. Behind me, I hear him laughing, the sound echoing off ancient stones like breaking glass.

"Run all you like, little bird! There's nowhere left to fly!"

The tower's maze-like passages twist and blur around me as I run. Left or right? Up or down? The geometry makes no sense, and the poison in my blood makes everything shift and dance. Shadows seem to move in my peripheral vision, and the worn carvings on the walls appear to writhe when viewed directly. Sometimes I swear I pass the same window three times, though I know I've been running straight ahead.

My child's presence pulses within me, responding to my fear. Their magic mingles with mine, lending me strength I didn't know I had left. But it's not enough. It will never be enough, not with whatever drug Ulric has been feeding me still coursing through my veins.

A horn blast echoes through the corridors, deep and resonant. Then another answers, and another. The sound seems to come from all directions at once, bouncing off stone until it becomes a physical pressure against my skull.

"Find her!" Ulric's voice carries clearly, amplified by the tower's strange acoustics. "Bring her back alive!"

Boots thunder on stone as guards mobilize. I hear them shouting to each other, coordinating their search. They know these twisted passages far better than I do. It's only a matter of time before they corner me.

I duck into a servant's passage, barely more than a crack in the wall. The space is tight enough that I have to turn sideways to squeeze through, my breath coming in sharp gasps that echo too loudly in the confined space. After what feels like an eternity, the passage opens into a wider corridor lit by guttering torches.

But I've barely taken three steps when voices echo from ahead—more guards, coming this way. I press myself into an alcove, holding my breath as armored footsteps thunder past. My heart hammers so hard I'm sure they must hear it, but they pass without stopping.

I can feel my lips moving as I whisper to my child, one hand pressed protectively over my stomach. Their presence feels stronger suddenly, more defined. As if they know we're in danger. I have no idea what I’m saying. My head spins with terror and fury.

I break from the corridor out into a broad, high-ceilinged chamber I don’t recognise. Across the space, three guards race in my direction, and I raise my hands in front of me, preparing to fight, preparing to freeze them alive—

Then, the world explodes.

The ornate ceiling above me shatters with a deafening roar, showering stone and ice and ancient timber. Dust curls high into the air all around. The ground shakes and I peel my gaze toward the sky with fierce desperation.

I see them.

Through the gap, silhouetted against the night sky, massive shapes descend. Dragons, their scales gleaming like black glass in the moonlight. They move with deadly grace, all coiled power and barely contained fury. Steam rises where snow touches their heated scales, and their eyes burn like blackened coals in the darkness.

And I know whose dragons those are.

The king's warriors have found us at last.

Chaos erupts in the fort. Guards pour in from all directions, scrambling across and over and under still-falling rubble, shouting orders and drawing weapons. The dragons land with earth-shaking force in the cold, dusty light, their wings spreading to block any escape. They’re huge. They’re terrible.

My ears ring, and my eyes burn, and I hold in my heart a relief so strong and desperate it almost brings me to my knees.

Battle breaks out mere moments later. I press myself against the wall. The first clash of steel on steel rings out like a bell, echoing off ancient stones. One of Ulric's men charges forward, sword raised, only to be caught by massive talons and torn nearly in half. Blood sprays across ice-covered walls as more guards rush to engage. Dragon-fire fills the air, turning the chamber into an inferno. The heat is so intense that the frozen stones crack and shatter.

And there, in the center of it all, a humanoid figure drops from the ruined ceiling like death given form.

Arvoren.

He lands in a crouch, snow swirling around him like a cloak. When he rises, his movements are pure predator—all lethal grace and contained violence. His formal clothes have been replaced by worn leather and steel, and his crown is missing, but he's never looked more like a king than he does in this moment. Steam rises from his skin where snow touches him, and his eyes burn with an inner fire that marks his bloodline.

"Find her," he snarls to his men, his voice more dragon than human. Smoke curls from between his teeth as he speaks. "Kill anyone who stands in your way."

The battle explodes around us like a storm breaking. Steel rings against steel, dragon-fire casting strange shadows on ancient walls. The air fills with smoke and steam and the copper tang of blood. Screams echo off stone as Ulric's men fall to tooth and claw and blade. Through it all, I remain frozen in my alcove, unable to look away from my husband's terrible fury.

Then his head turns, and his eyes lock with mine.

Time seems to stop. The sounds of combat fade to a distant roar as we stare at each other across the chaos. His expression is dark with rage, but there's something else there, too. Fear, maybe. Uncertainty. The same desperate longing I've felt in our shared dreams.

For a moment, I see him as I did that first night in Millrath: the Dragon King in all his terrible glory, beautiful and deadly and alien. The connection between us flares stronger than ever, cutting through whatever drugs Ulric has used to keep me weak, cutting through my fear and sorrow. I feel his fury, his peril, his bone-deep need to protect me.

I see his lips form the shape of my name.

Before either of us can move, a familiar laugh cuts through the din, over the sounds of battle.

"Welcome home, brother." Ulric's voice carries easily over the combat. He stands at the end of the corridor I just emerged from, hair catching the firelight from the burning tapestries. Blood still stains his face where my magic threw him, but his smile is triumphant. "I was wondering when you'd finally find us. Though I must say, your timing is…inconvenient."

I stagger backward blindly, hands raised before me, tripping and scrambling over the rubble at my feet.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Arvoren's expression goes cold as winter itself. He begins to stalk toward us—Ulric sweeps forward, planting himself between me and my husband, standing in the rubble with his arms raised, a false prophet. A tyrant through and through.

"I've been taking good care of your wife." Ulric's smile is sharp as broken glass. "Though I'm not sure she wants to leave. Do you, little bird? You can’t truly wish to return to Millrath. Not when you fought so very hard to escape.”

My husband's gaze snaps to me, uncertainty flickering in those dark eyes I have dreamed of for so long. Despite everything we've shared through our dreams, through our connection, doubt creeps in. Did he truly believe I might choose Ulric over him?

The fighting continues around us, but it feels distant, unreal. In this moment, there are only the three of us—husband, wife, and the serpent who came between them. The ancient tower groans around us, magic crackling through its stones like lightning through storm clouds.

And in that frozen moment of choice, everything changes.