Serena stepped into a vast library chamber with a domed ceiling painted like the night sky.
Opposite the entrance, a massive white-marble fireplace anchored the room, towering multiple stories.
"You found it," Hyran said, greeting her at the door.
"This is beautiful," she said, her voice full of awe.
He inclined his head. "Fire makes legends. Libraries make empires."
"Thank you for showing me," she said with a warm smile.
"Can you read?" Hyran blurted out the question without any tact whatsoever.
Serena glanced at him, lips twitching. "Yes."
Hyran held up both hands. "Hey, it's a fair question. Are you fluent in more than one language?"
"Yes," Serena answered, face neutral.
She followed him up a few floors to a table scattered with books and scrolls, his cloak draped over a nearby chair.
He threw a book at her carelessly, and she caught it out of reflex.
"Show me."
He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, clearly thinking she was full of shit.
She opened the book, then glanced back at him, intrigued. "You have texts written in High Morbian."
She began to read fluently in High Morbian, unfazed. He listened for less than thirty seconds before cutting in.
"Translate."
Serena didn't look up.
"All magic diminishes with time. No enchantment..."
He took the book out of her hands mid-sentence and replaced it with another in the same motion.
"Translate."
She recognized the language as Aetherian, and read aloud, translating with ease.
"Aether Fabrication is the art of creating physical objects through magic."
Hyran didn't stop.
He threw four more books at her in succession. Sylvarae, Cinder-speak lexicon, Vellumic, and Old Elvinth.
He grabbed the book from her hands and replaced it with another written in High Orosic.
Her face fell, but not for the reason Hyran thought. It wasn't because she didn't know this language. She knew High Orosic very well. It stirred unwanted memories.
She schooled her expression and read without looking at him.
"Magical coloration is reflective of the caster's essence. Magic fueled by soul sacrifice absorbs rather than reflects, and thus manifests as black."
He cut her off, taking the book from her hand.
"How does one who speaks seven tongues, eight if we count the common tongue, end up in chains?" He tilted his head. "That is not an academic question. That is an economic one."
Serena's face flushed. "That is very kind of you, Hyran."
"The only possible answer is ignorance. No one knew." His eyes sharpened. "Because if anyone in Viremont had known, questions would be asked. Is that a fair conclusion?"
She did not like the direction of the conversation, but met his gaze head on. "Fair."
"You fell from nobility," Hyran continued. "Not gently."
He paused, watching her face blanch.
"You are fiercely protective," he added. "And if the wrong people knew who you were, they would follow the trail straight to Elara. So you are silent."
Her eyes widened sharp with alarm.
"You are terrible at lying." Hyran raised a hand. "So please do not insult me. I will not press."
His gaze flicked to her neck, where a faint rash had begun to climb. Stress-induced.
A reminder, he thought, that brilliance did not preclude fragility.
His hand hovered over a final scroll. This one was darkened with age. He glanced at her again, calculating. There was no rational reason she should be able to read it.
Then he tossed it.
"Humor me."
"This overlaps with Glac—" She cut herself off mid-word. If he knew of that language, he'd know exactly where she was from.
She focused instead on the text in her hands.
Immediately, her eyes lit, then her hair and skin followed. The words came without effort, older than thought; she was vaguely aware of what was happening, but not in control.
The room shifted. Chairs scraped back.
Mage-librarians stepped from every shadowed corner, at least fifty of them, all wearing the same stunned expression.
"She speaks Draken-Vorah?"
"That tongue is sealed."
"Forbidden to outsiders."
"Who is she?"
Hyran did not move. His gaze locked on Serena, intrigue sharpening into something dangerous.
"Well." His mouth curved faintly. "This just became interesting."
Serena looked up from the scroll, still glowing.
"Something is calling for you," Hyran said calmly. "Go to it."
She gave no response, but seemed to have heard him, vanishing down the stairs in a blur.
A handful of mage-librarians gasped. One clapped.
"And she moves at alpha speed," Hyran muttered, striding after her. "You are showing far too many of your cards."
Serena stopped at the gate to the restricted section, staring it down with impatience.
"Do you have permission to be in there?" asked the Master Mage-Librarian, Thalen.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Hyran snapped. "Yes. She has permission."
At his words, thirty mage-librarians turned as one and shushed him in unison.
Hyran stared at them flatly. Unimpressed.
Master Thalen fumbled through his keys. Metal clicked. The gate finally swung open.
She blurred inside, stopping at a massive rug laid before a fireplace, dragons coiled through the pattern.
She moved it without caution, as if it were not a centuries-old relic in a royal library.
Beneath it, the marble floor held gold-runes. As soon as she spoke, the runes flared to life and a circular altar rose from the floor, stone scraping stone.
A golden lever crowned its surface. She pulled it.
The library responded. Shelves rattled. Books shuddered. A drink tipped and shattered on the floor.
Hyran glanced up at the ceiling, then at the walls, then back at her.
"Do you plan on warning me before you tear down the oldest arcane library on the continent?" he asked dryly. "Because if we are remodeling, I would like a significantly larger office."
✦✦✦
Dexmon rushed into the library, King Tiberon behind him. Both wondering what the hell was going on.
Serena's scent hit him immediately. He followed it without thinking.
He found her, glowing gold with her eyes locked on a painting mounted at least twenty feet above where she stood.
"Serena?" Dexmon asked, brows furrowing.
"Do you need to get to that?" Hyran asked unbothered.
She gave a single nod.
A mage-librarian bolted for a ladder.
Dexmon and Tiberon exchanged a glance.
He felt her through the matebond and had just enough time to realize a ladder was irrelevant.
"Serena, don't—" He reached for her arm.
His hand closed on air.
She was already moving up the wall, stepping on stone that jutted out, not visible to the naked eye.
Gravity did not fail. It was ignored.
She spoke Draken-Vorah.
Tiberon tore his gaze away from her and looked at Hyran.
"A Truebond Veil and Draken-Vorah. Did she tell you where she originated?"
Hyran laughed darkly. Before he could respond, a dragon's roar echoed from above. Both of their eyes snapped back to Serena. The dragon in the painting seemed to have come alive momentarily. In its mouth was a golden latch.
Without slowing Serena reached it and pulled.
Every torch flared at once. The floor rumbled.
She jumped off the wall.
Dexmon moved on instinct, catching her mid-fall as if they'd rehearsed it. Her hands landed on his chest. His arms locked around her waist.
For one breath, neither moved.
Then she was looking past him again, already searching for the next target.
He set her down with caution, lips twitching.
Was he enjoying this?
No. Absolutely not. Not even a little.
Serena's head snapped toward the fourth floor.
She took off in a blur, up the stairs, Dexmon right behind her.
Then it registered. Holy shit. She was running at alpha speed.
His father's eyes met his. Alpha speed was inherited—passed only through alpha bloodlines. And she was a woman. No female had ever manifested it.
His wolf's voice filled his mind.
Aegon: I still can't sense her wolf. And she has no idea what we are to her.
Dexmon didn't comment, following Serena. She stopped in front of an ancient grandfather clock.
At that moment, Gavriel, Elara, and Hale entered the library.
"Less than twenty-four hours," she muttered, already charging for the stairs. "These rumblings had better not have anything to do with you."
Serena began speaking again in Draken-Vorah.
The grandfather clock split open and a gilded dragon emerged, golden lever within its chest.
"Serena!" Elara hissed. "Stop glowing, stop touching things, and stop moving. You have broken something historically significant every six hours since we arrived. I need a drink."
The authority in her voice was absolute. The tone of a commander scolding a first-year cadet who had managed to trigger every alarm and was still somehow alive.
A violent chorus of shushing erupted from the mage-librarians.
Serena pulled the lever. The rumbling drowned out the chorus of shushing.
Elara lunged, reaching for her and fully planning on physically removing her from whatever madness this was.
Elara's hand closed on air. Of course it did.
Serena had already vanished in a blur jumping onto the marble railing.
Dexmon did not like what he saw.
He hooked her around the waist just as she became airborne.
"Stairs, Serena."
He ignored every eye tracking him, carrying her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Elara, Hale, Gavriel, and his father watched with distinctly different reactions.
Frankly, if Dexmon had not been the one holding her, he would have been staring right along with them.
The second they reached the bottom of the stairs, Dexmon reluctantly put her down. Only for her to vanish in the restricted section, weaving between shelves, straight toward the far wall.
He followed fighting the urge to grab her again, then halted in his tracks.
"That's new." A massive dragon statue was now exposed along the wall, wings half-furled.
Serena stepped closer and whispered.
The library answered.
Ancient runes flared to life across every wall, gold script etching itself into stone in real time. All five towering levels ignited at once.
"These inscriptions on the stairs too!" a mage called out, pointing frantically. "Draken-Vorah. From the—"
"Shh!" another hissed.
Elara's head snapped up, brows drawing together. "How do you know this language?"
Hyran did not miss it.
There was something sharper than curiosity in her voice. She recognized it instantly.
The first librarian misunderstood her question. He adjusted his spectacles. "Yes. But it is forbidden to be taught to outsiders."
"She is not an outsider," Hale cut in, voice flat and final. "Neither of them are. They are pack."
The dragon statue began to blow flame. Serena stepped forward, unflinching.
Dexmon reached for her, heart lurching.
"Serena—!"
Too late.
The fire washed over her like wind. She walked straight through and placed her hand against the dragon's stone head.
The library shuddered.
A deep vibration rolled through every level as torches and fireplaces flared brighter, their flames turning molten gold, matching the ceremonial flames from the day prior.
The dragon statue groaned, marble grinding as its massive body began to move. It coiled inward, spiraling down into the floor and leaving a staircase in its wake.
King Tiberon stared at the opening for a long moment. Then he turned to Hyran, his expression perfectly even.
"I am blaming you."
Serena's eyes flickered back to green. She blinked, disoriented, and startled when she realized Dexmon was right there.
He looked at her like she had just walked through fire and refused to burn.
To be fair, she had.