Page 16

Blood freezes black on snow in the gathering dark.

I settle us upon the snow. We cannot afford the risk of a fire, not yet, and so I clean Calliope's wounds with hands that want to tremble, though I force them steady despite the bitter cold. I know I shall not freeze—dragons such as myself cannot, our fire too intense. I’ll have to keep her warm tonight, somehow. The gash on her arm from the spirit's touch has turned an ugly purple, the flesh around it crystallized as if touched by deep frost.

She winces when I probe the edges, but doesn't pull away. Doesn't look at me, either.

The ancient pines loom above us like sentinels, their branches heavy with ice. No birds call, no creatures stir in the underbrush. Even the wind seems muffled, as if the forest itself holds its breath.

We've been running for hours, putting miles between us and Ulric's stronghold, though every shadow still feels like a threat.

"This needs proper healing," I say, the words coming out rougher than intended. Smoke curls from between my teeth—I can't quite keep my dragon nature contained, not with her sitting so close, not with the memory of her in my brother's fortress still burning in my mind. "I don't have the right supplies—"

"It's fine." My wife’s voice is flat, exhausted. "I've had worse."

The implication—that she's suffered worse injuries during her months of running and then captivity—makes my blood boil. I want to demand answers, to shake the truth from her about what happened in that cursed place, in her months alone. But I remember how she looked at me when I accused her of betrayal, and something in my chest twists painfully.

I finish binding her arm in silence, using strips torn from my cloak. It’s painful even now to see her so frail. She shouldn’t look so weak. When my fingers brush her skin, I feel her shiver. From cold or fear or something else, I can't tell.

Nonetheless, I cannot bear how cold she is, how blue her lips are turning. I start a fire in silence as she watches me with dull, strange eyes. Neither of us speaks.

When I sit back down at her side, the fire I've built casts strange shadows through the trees. She's still weak from whatever Ulric did to her, and the temperature drops with every passing hour. She needs it, I tell myself. Anything she needs, despite it all, I shall do. Through our bond, fresh as an open wound, I feel echoes of her exhaustion, her pain.

"Why didn't you find a way to send word?" The question burns in my throat like acid, like bile. I have no choice but to spit it out. "If he was truly keeping you prisoner, surely there was some way to—"

"To what?" Calliope looks at me finally, and the bitterness in her voice cuts deep. "To beg the mighty Dragon King for rescue? To throw myself on the mercy of the man who kept me in chains? I left you, Arvoren. Surely you have not forgotten that.”

"Those chains were to protect you—"

"I can’t argue with you about this now. Not now. And you know I can’t. They were to control me." Her dry, unkind laugh is sharp as breaking ice. "Just like everything else. The guards, the rules, the constant watching. You never trusted me to stay of my own will."

"Because you ran." The words emerge in a growl that's barely human. "I gave you everything—"

But Calliope is shaking her head back and forth steadfastly, firmly, as if the answer is clear, as if she can’t bear to listen. "A prettier cage than this one, maybe, but still a cage. Even now, you can't see it. Can't understand why I had to leave. I should have known nothing would have changed."

When I shuffle toward her, she moves away sharply. Blood burning, bones settling with a deep and heavy ache, I stand and begin to move, unable to stay at her level, desperate for something to do, staring off into the dark forest around us.

Steam rises where my boots touch snow as I pace. "What I understand is that my wife fled in the night like a thief. That she hid from me for months while my kingdom fell apart. That I found her in my brother's fortress—"

"After he saved me from freezing to death, from dying alone, from murder ! What choice did I have?" Calliope runs shaking hands through her tangled hair. "I would have died out there. The gods know I came close. The entire kingdom was hunting me. Your soldiers were everywhere. I couldn't—" She breaks off. "I did what I had to do to survive."

"What was I supposed to think?" Smoke rises thicker as my control slips. "I found you in his fortress, unchained, while my kingdom falls apart—"

"I was playing his game!" The words burst from her like she's been holding them back for hours. "I was trying to survive, to protect—" She breaks off, one hand pressing briefly to her stomach before falling away. "I did what I had to do. Just like I did with you."

The comparison stings more than it should. "So I'm no better than him? Is that what you're saying?"

"That's not—" Calliope makes a sound of frustration, running her hands through her tangled hair. "You're twisting my words, just like you always do. You hear what you expect to hear, what confirms your worst fears—"

"And what should I hear?" I rise, pacing the small clearing. Steam rises where my boots touch snow. "That you didn't choose to stay with him? That you didn't—"

"I didn't choose any of this!" My wife stands too, swaying slightly. Through our bond, I feel her exhaustion warring with her fury. I quash the urge to steady her, to guide her back down. "I didn't choose to be taken from my home, to be made your prisoner, to discover I had magic that made me valuable to men like you and your brother—"

"I am nothing like him." The words come out in a snarl that's more dragon than human. "Everything I did was to protect you."

"To protect me?" Her eyes flash. "Or to protect your claim on me? Your precious bloodline? That's all I ever was to you—a vessel for your heir, a tool to secure your throne. Maybe you loved me, Arvoren, and maybe you still do. But you did not love me nearly enough."

"You know that's not true." But even as I say it, I feel sick.

"Do I?" Despite her weakened state, there's still that fierce defiance that drew me to her from the start. She steps closer, close enough that I can smell the crisp sweetness of her skin beneath the lingering taint of Ulric's fortress. "You say you're nothing like him, but you both speak of protection while meaning possession. At least he never pretended it was respect. He knew I knew the rules of the game."

The accusation hits like a physical blow. "Is that what you think? That I never—" I break off, smoke curling thick between my teeth. How can I make her understand what she means to me when I barely understand it myself?

"Arvoren," she says softly, and somehow that hurts worse than anger would have. I cannot bear the shape of my name on her lips. "You didn’t know how to love without consuming—without consuming me. My greatest fear has been, all this time…that you would never learn.” And, unspoken: and you haven’t.

"You don't know how to trust," I snap back. "How to stay and fight instead of running at the first sign of conflict. You talk of freedom, but you're just as trapped by your fears as I am by mine. Millrath was your home, I am your husband —”

"My husband?" Her laugh is bitter as the cold wind around us. "You don’t know anything, my king. My fears kept me alive these past months. Running kept me safe—"

"Safe?" I gesture to her wounds, to the purple-black bruises visible at her throat. "You call this safe? Whatever game you were playing with Ulric, you lost —"

"Don't." Calliope looks truly angry for the first time, some of that hollowness cracking and melting. She glares up at me from the other side of the fire. "Don't you dare judge what I did to survive when you're the reason I had to run in the first place. When you still can't see—" She breaks off, pressing her hands to her face. Through our bond, I feel her exhaustion, her frustration, but also something else—a desperate longing that mirrors my own.

"What?" I step closer, close enough to feel the magic radiating from her skin like heat. "What can't I see, Calliope?"

"That I wanted to stay!" The words burst from Calliope like she's been holding them back for months. "That I wanted to believe in you, in us, in everything you promised. But how could I? How could I trust you with—" She catches herself. "How could I trust you when you never truly trusted me?"

The silence that follows feels like a physical weight. We stare at each other across the small space, both breathing hard, both unable to bridge the chasm of hurt and fear between us. Snow falls thicker around our small camp, as if responding to her turbulent emotions.

"I searched for you." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "Every day since you fled. Every report, every rumor, every whisper of your whereabouts. I left my Kingdom on the brink of civil war to find you."

"Because you needed your queen." The bitterness in her voice makes my chest ache. "Your symbol of power. Your—"

"Because I needed you !" The words emerge in a roar that shakes snow from the branches above.

Calliope flinches at my outburst, but doesn't back down.

After a silent moment, she rises to her feet, her movements slow and deliberate despite her exhaustion. The firelight catches in her hair, turning it to molten copper, and for a moment I'm struck breathless by her beauty, her fierceness. Even wounded and weary, she stands before me like a queen—no, like a goddess of old, terrible and magnificent.

"You needed me," she repeats, her voice low and dangerous. "And what of what I needed, Arvoren? What of my choices, my desires?"

She takes a step forward, and I feel the air thicken with magic—hers and mine, intertwining, pushing against each other like storm fronts. The snow falling around us begins to steam and hiss where it touches our skin. The fire flares higher, casting wild shadows across her face. The tension between us crackles like lightning, electric and dangerous. Calliope's eyes flash with defiance, with hurt, with something else I can't quite name. The air grows thick with magic, snow hissing as it melts against our skin. Her hair whips around her face, caught in a wind that seems to emanate from her very being.

I can't look away from her—the curve of her neck, the set of her jaw, the way her chest rises and falls with each rapid breath. Even in her anger, even after everything, she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Calliope," I growl, her name a plea and a warning all at once.

She steps closer, close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in her eyes.

When I surge forward to kiss her, it’s as if no time has passed at all.

Our lips crash together with the force of a storm breaking. My arms encircle her waist, pulling her flush against me as if I could somehow erase the months of separation through sheer will alone. Calliope's hands tangle in my hair, nails scraping my scalp as she presses herself closer. The kiss is all teeth and tongue and desperation, a battle for dominance neither of us is willing to concede.

Steam rises around us as snow melts beneath our feet. The air crackles with magic, with the clash of fire and ice, with the raw power of our bond flaring to life once more. I taste smoke and sweetness on her tongue, feel the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath my fingers as I cup her narrow throat in my hands.

She doesn’t say she loves me, even as she kisses the breath from my lungs. I suppose I can’t expect it from her, not after everything.

Later, as the fire burns low, we curl together near the flame. We didn’t go further than kissing, not now—I’m not sure either of us could quite bear to. Calliope sleeps curled against my chest. Her breath comes slow and even, but I feel her trembling slightly even in sleep. Whether from cold or lingering fear, I'm not sure. I pull her closer, letting my warmth seep into her frozen limbs.

The forest watches us with ancient eyes. Out in the darkness, branches crack under the weight of fresh snow. Every sound makes me tense, expecting Ulric's men to materialize from the shadows. But it's not just enemies I fear now. The spirit guardians recognized something in Calliope—something that made them pause, that made their ancient magic bow to hers. Something I don't understand, for all my dragon's wisdom.

Movement in the trees makes me stiffen, but it's only Darian, limping out of the darkness. Blood has frozen in his beard, and his armor bears deep gouges from talons and steel. The sight of him alone tells me everything I need to know.

"The others?" I ask anyway, though I already know the answer.

He shakes his head once, heavily. "Ulric's men showed no mercy. I only escaped because—" He breaks off, glancing at Calliope's sleeping form. "The magic she unleashed. It gave me the opening I needed. I knew I needed to follow you.”

I close my eyes briefly, grief warring with rage. Good men died today, men who swore their lives to my service. Their blood is on my brother's hands—and on mine, for leading them into his trap.

"You need to return to Millrath," I tell Darian, keeping my voice low. "The throne stands undefended. It will not stand for long."

Darian must know some madness of mine has abated with her presence. I can see it on his face. He’s relieved, but grim.

He eyes Calliope's wounds, then the treacherous landscape around us. "My king, you cannot stay out here alone. Let me help you get her back to the city—"

"She's too weak to hold on to me, and I won't risk carrying her in this weather." The thought of trying to navigate the bitter winds with her in my talons or on my back, of dropping her into the endless white below… "No. I'll get her back on foot. But someone needs to hold the castle until we return."

"Arvoren." He uses my name rarely, and only when he needs me to really listen. "The kingdom needs its king."

"The kingdom needs its queen." The words come out fiercer than intended. Calliope stirs slightly against me but doesn't wake. "I won't lose her again, Darian. Not to Ulric, not to the storm, not to anything. Whatever she's been through, whatever lies he fed her…" I trail off, smoke curling from my mouth. "I have to make this right."

Even if she’ll never trust me. Even if this can’t be fixed. I have to try.

Darian studies me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he bows, wincing slightly at the movement. "As you command, my king. I'll return when I can, with aid."

He limps out into the darkness, and soon I hear the sound of massive wings beating against the storm through the impenetrable gloom. I pull Calliope closer, breathing in the crisp sweetness that always clings to her skin. Through our bond, I feel her magic pulse in time with that strange warmth deep inside her.

Whatever happened in that fortress, whatever game she played to survive, I know one thing with bone-deep certainty: she is still mine. My wife, my queen, my heart's greatest weakness. And I will burn the world to ash before I let anyone take her from me again.

The storm rages on, and somewhere in the endless dark, my brother plots his next move. But for now, in this small circle of firelight, I hold what matters most. Everything else—the throne, the kingdom, even vengeance—can wait.

I press my lips to Calliope's hair and settle in to watch the night, dragon-fire burning in my blood to keep her warm.