Chapter 1
Thauglor
Twenty-one years of research,and I finally have someone before me who holds the answers to my questions. The knock echoes through my office: sharp, deliberate. It cuts through the musty silence that’s settled between the leather-bound tomes stacked on every available surface. Dust motes dance in the fading afternoon light streaming through the tall windows, casting long shadows across the worn Persian rug.
The door swings open, and the scent of aged parchment and something burning like smoldering embers barely contained beneath ash wafts into the room. It mingles with the smell of old wood and the faint metallic tang that always clings to this place, a reminder of the iron reinforcements built into the academy’s bones.
Finlay Boaz stands in the doorway. He’s one of the oldest living being on this continent. His presence fills the space with an almost suffocating weight of centuries, pressing against my skin like a physical force. The temperature rises several degrees just from his proximity.
“You called for me?” His accent carries the formal cadence of a Victorian era long dead, each syllable precisely enunciated. The sound is almost musical, cultured in a way that speaks of ballrooms and formal dinners, of a world that no longer exists.
“Yes. Your knowledge of the continent is invaluable.” I recline back in my chair, the leather creaking beneath my weight. The sound is familiar, comforting in its normalcy. I force my posture to appear relaxed, even as tension coils through my spine like a sleeping serpent ready to strike. “May I ask you several questions?”
The surrounding office tells stories in its details: maps pinned to the walls with locations circled in red ink, bookshelves groaning under the weight of ancient tomes whose spines are cracked and faded, a globe in the corner that shows borders from centuries past. My research has consumed this space, turning it into a war room where the enemy is ignorance and the casualties are years of my life.
“But of course. Ask away.”
His eyes suddenly flare, molten orbs of liquid fire that illuminated his face with an eerie orange glow. The flames danced and swirled like miniature infernos contained within his skull. Heat radiates from him in waves, prickling against my skin, making the air between us shimmer and distort. His features shift, bones restructuring beneath flesh with audible clicks and pops as his face takes on a distinctly avian quality. Sharp. Predatory. Magnificent. The transformation lasts only a heartbeat before he closes his eyes, jaw clenching so hard I hear his teeth grind together.
The papers on my desk flutter from the burst of heat. The temperature in the room spikes, oppressive and thick. “Forgiveme. My shift is being rather unruly.” His voice strains with the effort of control, each word forced through a throat that wants to release a cry instead. “He senses his mate and...”
He turns toward the window with jerky, barely controlled movements. The afternoon light catches the last vestiges of inhuman features as they recede beneath human skin feathers dissolving back into flesh, talons retracting into fingers.
My chest tightens. The direction he’s facing leads straight towards Malivore. Toward where Raven would be at this hour, likely in her room or the courtyard beyond. The tether she mentioned, feeling the pull she couldn’t explain. It makes perfect, terrifying sense now.
A phoenix.
My daughter’s mate is a phoenix.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. Relief and dread tangle together in my gut, writhing like serpents. A phoenix would be nearly impossible to kill, would live as long as she does. He could protect her when I cannot. The thought should comfort me, but all I feel is the sharp edge of paternal fear cutting deeper.
I watch the way his shoulders rise and fall with each measured breath, fighting for composure. The rigid line of his spine. The white-knuckled grip he has on the window frame, wood groaning beneath his fingers. Does he know? Does he realize my daughter is the one calling to his shift?
“Understood.” My own dragonic nature stirs in recognition, a rumble building in my chest that I force down. “The drive to claim a mate sometimes goes beyond logic and reason.”
The words taste like ash on my tongue. I want to tell him. Want to say,She’s my daughter. She’s twenty-one and powerful and still so damn young. She needs you. She needs protection I can no longer provide.
But the words stick in my throat, trapped behind a wall of uncertainty. What if I’m wrong? What if pushing this destroys something fragile before it can form? What if Finlay rejects the bond, and it breaks something vital in Raven?
I tilt my head, studying him with the careful assessment of a father weighing potential mates for his daughter. He’s ancient. Powerful. Carries himself with honor and restraint despite the beast raging beneath his skin. And if Solaris joins them once he’s freed from that cursed egg...
The image forms unbidden in my mind. Raven safe in her nest, flanked by a phoenix who cannot die and a dragon strong enough to have survived a thousand years of imprisonment. Two mates who would burn the world for her. That’s not counting the other three mates she already has. The knot in my chest loosens fractionally.
She would be safe. As safe as anyone can be in this world, the mages have poisoned.
The tension in Finlay’s frame eased at my words, muscles loosening beneath his tailored suit. He seems pleased that I comprehend the battle he wages against instinct. He doesn’t turn to look at me, but his grip on the window frame relaxes.
I swallow the confession, trying to claw its way free. Not yet. Not until I’m certain. Not until I know he won’t reject what fate is offering.
“Please ask your questions.” He straightens, raising his chin in that aristocratic manner I’ve observed occasionally. The gesture is pure nobility, centuries of breeding and power condensed into a single movement. “I still have lesson plans to review before the start of classes tomorrow.”
I lean forward, elbows resting on the desk’s cool surface. The wood is scarred from decades of use, marked with burns and scratches that tell stories I’ll never know. My notebook sits open, pages covered in my cramped handwriting, questions upon questions, theories that lead nowhere, dead ends that haunt my sleep. “How did the cursed eggs come to be held here in Malivore?”
His head snaps toward me with predatory precision, eyes narrowing to slits. The air between us thickens, becoming harder to breathe. The shadows in the corners of the room seem to deepen, stretching toward us like grasping fingers.
“The chamber sits over a series of ley line intersections.” His words come carefully, as if he’s weighing each syllable before releasing it. “That’s what keeps the eggs in suspended animation until they’re chosen. Elves stole them from the mages and entrusted the dragons who came after the academy’s completion to guard the eggs.”
He bites his bottom lip, a rare show of uncertainty that makes him look younger despite his ageless face. His gaze drops to his hands, fingers curling against his palms until the knuckles turn white. “That’s according to memories from my bloodline. I’m not that old; its ancestral knowledge passed down through fire and rebirth.”
