Page 32 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

THE DRAGON’S DISAPPOINTMENT

Kali’s Emotional State: Kali is battle-wired and bleeding, haunted by the bond, the betrayal, and the brutal cost of power. Her shadows obey, but barely. Her flare is spiking. And her soul? Held together with vengeance and a whisper of loyalty, she’s terrified to lose.

T

hey barely made it back to the compound. The moment the teleport sigils flickered off, Kali hit her knees. Not from weakness. From overload.

Beneath the screaming magic and roaring blood, something else brushed her mind, soft, relentless.

A thread.

Silver-hot. Familiar. Inescapable.

Thorne.

Watching. Waiting. His magic curled against her fractures like a silent vow she hadn't meant to summon.

A pulse of silver-threaded magic brushed her mind—hot, ancient, inexorable.

And across the tether, barely a whisper, she heard him:

"The Thread always knew you would awaken. I just hoped I’d be strong enough when you did. Because your soul called to mine before you even had a name. "

For one raw heartbeat, Kali forgot the pain, forgot the blood, and forgot the war clawing at her gates.

Because the part of her that was ancient, the part she hadn’t dared to understand, heard him and it hurt.

It hurt worse than any wound she’d ever survived.

Then the world roared back to life.

Far across the bond, Astraeus felt it. Not just her pain, or just her magic breaking, he felt the Thread wrapping tighter around her soul.

A claim not born of blood.

A call he hadn't been fast enough to stop.

Across the bond, Astraeus snarled her true name—

"Kalythra."

The sound wasn’t a whisper. It was a war cry.

A name only spoken when there was nothing left to lose, and no forgiveness left to give.

Magic cracked across the compound like a thunderclap. Wardstones buckled.

The very shadows recoiled from the force of it.

And Kali….

Kali stood up through it. Her knees buckled briefly. One hand gripped the wall. Her nose was bleeding again…sharp, red drops like broken magic .

Bleeding. Shaking. Unbroken.

His roar cracked the veil before his body did.

Astraeus materialized in the chamber, full shadow-dragon form, tearing through the veil like a god with no patience left for mortals.

His voice cracked the stone itself:

“You took it,” he growled. “You took the conduit into your body. Are you insane?”

Kali didn’t lift her head. Her hands were pressed to the stone floor, still scorched from the backlash of what she’d stolen from Spiral Mouth’s lab.

“I had to.”

“You had me,” Astraeus snapped. “You had us. You didn’t need to play martyr.”

The shadows in the room hissed. Irina froze mid-step. Even Lev backed up, jaw tight.

But Kali stood. Wobbled.

And met her dragon’s fury with a stare that could’ve ended wars.

“ You think I don’t know what I’m doing? I am the gate now, Astraeus. That conduit was laced with a Spiral splice. If we’d left it, Silas would be dead. I chose the pain.”

“You chose to bleed without telling us,” he snapped. “You let yourself fracture. And now? ”

He circled her.

Her mark, his mark, glowed dark along her collarbone. It pulsed like a bruise lit from the inside.

“Your magic is tainted. Your flare’s worsening. And the tether between us? It’s screaming.”

Kali’s fingers twitched. “I’ll survive.”

“But will Silas? ” he said coldly.

Silence.

That hit harder than any spell ever could.

Because behind them, inside the isolation chamber, Silas was convulsing again.

Even from the hall, Kali could hear the wet crack of bones refusing to settle. The Spiral infection had nested too deep.

Her grandfather’s once-fierce protector. Her once-safe place. Now breaking.

Irina came up beside her, quieter than usual.

“We need a solution. Not a sacrifice.”

Kali turned back toward the chamber, eyes hollow. Then whispered, “What if we give the Spiral Mouth what they want?”

Lev snapped, “No.”

“Listen— ”

“No, Kali.” Lev stepped in front of her, fierce now. “ You don’t feed the wolves and expect them not to bite. We take this fight to them. But you? You stay here.”

She shoved past him. “ I’m not staying behind while they tear through my city.”

“You’re not the same, Kali.” Lev’s voice cracked—not from weakness, but from desperation. “You’re burning out.”

“I’m igniting,” she said coldly. “There’s a difference.”

Astraeus bared his teeth, voice low and merciless.

"Even flames burn out, little sovereign. Especially the ones that try to carry a world."

From the chamber, a groan echoed…..Silas.

The infection was crawling toward his brainstem. Time was almost out.

Astraeus stepped forward, his dragon form fading into the tall, lean shadow of his human form. He was bare-chested, furious, and godlike.

“You’re going to lose us all,” he said. “If you keep trying to win alone.” Kali didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her heart stuttered, one beat off, one beat late. Just long enough for silence to scream.

Kali clenched her jaw.

But this time, she didn’t argue. She just turned away .

And as the door to Silas’s room opened, Kali whispered a vow, not in common tongue, but in Zarokian. The first tongue. The blood-bound tongue.

"Va'reth kai drak'vorn, mor'tai sar'veth. Korr'tai ven drak'shal ven mor'dakar, ven thral mor'dari." (If one among us falls, let my soul bear the fall. But not before I scorch their bones for daring to touch what is mine.)

The air itself shuddered.

Astraeus froze, pupils narrowing into ancient slits.

His voice was a rasp across her mind:

"Little shadow... You spoke the blood vow. The world will hear you now."

Because Kali Alani Branche de Lune was never just born to survive, she was born to reign.

Meanwhile — Across the Threads

The ripple of Kali’s vow tore through the ley lines like a blade dragged across silk.

Far from the compound, hidden between veils of magic and shadow, Thorne staggered.

He caught himself against a stone pillar, silver eyes flashing wide with recognition, and pain .

The bond between them, still fragile, still half-awake, ignited under his skin, burning silver and raw.

He pressed a hand against his chest, right over the scar that had never fully healed.

She spoke the blood-tongue.

The name curled in the marrow of his memory, a name she had yet to claim.

Not yet.

Thorne closed his eyes against the rising tide of ancient magic and whispered into the breach between them:

"The Thread always knew you would awaken. I just hoped I’d be strong enough when you did. Your soul touched mine before the stars gave you a name.”

The Threads shivered around him, and the world tilted toward war.

Magic, old and brutal, rolled off her skin in waves.

She didn't care.

Kali’s breath steamed in the cold light. Her magic surged again, raw and loud.

Let them hear her name.

Let them bleed for it.