The eyes did not blink.
They held me there, molten and unbroken, as if weighing my worth and finding… something. I didn't know what. I didn't know what.
"You are not afraid."
The voice rolled through the cavern like thunder muffled behind stone. Deep. Smooth. The kind of sound that didn't just reach the ears but slid into the ribs and stayed there.
I swallowed. "Should I be?"
A pause. The gold in his gaze flared. "Yes."
The Firebearers hadn't moved. They knelt with their heads bowed, as if even lifting their eyes would be a death sentence. The silk at my wrists grew warm.
I stepped back.
A shadow shifted , not toward me, but around me. The slow arc of something circling prey.
"I know your blood," he said. "I remember the taste of it."
"You remember… my bloodline?"
A low sound, almost a laugh. "Blood is never just blood. It is memory. And yours carries betrayal like a scent."
The silk pulsed again, a faint tug toward the darkness.
"What do you want from me?" I asked, hating the tremor in my voice.
Another step in the dark. The molten eyes lowered, closing the space between us without touching. "Want?" he repeated, as if tasting the word. "Bride…you have been given to me. I will take what is mine."
Heat curled along my throat , unseen, but there all the same.
"Then take it," I said before I could stop myself.
The pause this time was longer. When he spoke again, the voice had shifted , quieter, but sharper.
"Oh…I will. But not yet."
Something vast moved in the dark. A glint of scale caught the light, and the cavern shook as whatever lay coiled in the depths began to unspool.
The ground shuddered beneath my boots.
From the shadows came the slow drag of something vast over stone, a scraping that rattled through the cavern walls. The molten eyes vanished…then reappeared closer, far too quickly for something that size.
"Step forward," the voice said.
The Firebearers murmured in unison, their chanting swelling. The silk at my wrists burned faintly, as if the threads were alive.
"I said… step forward."
Every instinct screamed to run. My body moved anyway, each step a surrender I hadn't chosen.
The air between us thickened, heat pressing against my skin. The scent of scorched earth and storm metal filled my lungs.
A shape shifted in the dark.
The faint arc of a claw emerged, black as obsidian, tipped with a crescent of molten gold. It rested lightly on the stone, yet I felt its weight, its scale, as if the entire mountain bowed beneath it.
"Your blood will answer mine," Khaerion said. "And from this moment, no door, no wall, no god will keep you from me."
The claw scraped the floor, carving a line between us. Heat radiated from it, blistering the air , yet I didn't step back.
The chanting swelled, echoing like a tide against the cavern walls.
"Give me your hands."
I didn't move. "Why?"
His eyes flared. "Because the bond begins now."
The silk threads tightened, yanking my wrists forward. Heat poured over my skin, not burning, but seeping in, sinking deeper.
It was like swallowing lightning.
Fire laced through my veins, weaving itself into my heartbeat. The air vanished from my lungs. My vision blurred , not with blackness, but with gold, as if the world itself had been dipped in flame.
Through it all, his voice threaded through my mind.
I will take nothing from you tonight…except the path back to yourself.
Pain bloomed sharp and bright behind my eyes. I gasped and looked down.
A thin line of scales shimmered along my wrist, black edged in molten red.
The Firebearers dropped to the stone, bowing low. That was when I realized the heat was no longer coming from him.
It was coming from me.
————
That night, I did not sleep.
Not in the way a human does.
One moment, I lay on the cold stone of the cavern floor, wrists still bound in fire-silk. The next, I was standing beneath a sky so dark it felt endless.
Wind screamed in my ears, but it wasn't wind. It was air rushing past me at impossible speed.
Below…mountains, forests, rivers glinting like silver threads. The world spread out like a map beneath my gaze.
When I tilted my head, the vision shifted, too fast, too fluid. And when I looked down, my body wasn't my own.
Black scales, edged with gold.
Wings that blotted out the stars.
Hands that were no hands at all, claws slicing the wind.
You see as I see.
The voice didn't come from behind me. It coiled from within, wrapping my thoughts like smoke.
"This is your memory," I said aloud, though my voice was deeper, resonant, strange.
No, Khaerion replied. This is our present.
Below, a cluster of torches burned along the valley road. I could smell their heat, and the blood of the men carrying them. Fear rolled off them in waves I could almost taste.
And then, without thought, I dove.
Air tore past. The torches scattered , shouts, arrows, and the raw joy of their panic surged through me.
A single beat of my wings sent the arrows tumbling away like dust.
This is what it is to be beyond them, Khaerion said. No walls. No limits. Only power.
The ground rushed up to meet me. I opened my mouth , and the world went white with fire.
The dream shattered.
I woke gasping, my palms pressed to the stone. But the heat didn't leave with the dream. It lingered in my veins…in the way my fingers curled too easily, like claws.
The Firebearer on watch stared , not at my hands, but at my face.
"What?" I snapped.
His eyes widened. "Your eyes… they're glowing."
I turned toward the cavern shadows. He was there , closer than he had ever been , watching me as if I had just crossed a line I could never uncross.