Passed down through death and resurrection, over and over. The weight of that truth settles heavy in the room. Outside, the windpicks up, rattling the windowpanes. Storm clouds gather on the horizon, turning the sky bruised and purple.
He looks up, offering a half-smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s something haunted in his expression, something that speaks of losses I can only imagine.
I make a quick note in my worn notebook, the scratch of my pen against paper the only sound between us. The nib catches on the rough texture, leaving small ink blots like drops of blood. My chest tightens as I move to my next question, the one that still haunts my nights, that wakes me gasping and clawing at sheets that feel too much like the suffocating darkness of my prison.
“Do you know what the binding on the eggs is?” My voice roughens despite my attempt at neutrality. The words scraped raw against my throat. “Why, when I escaped years ago, I was pulled back into the egg after a short period of time?”
The memory claws through me with vicious precision, the taste of freedom turning to ash on my tongue. The sky I’d barely glimpsed. The air I’d breathed for mere hours before invisible chains yanked me back. The suffocating darkness swallowing me whole again, crushing down until I couldn’t tell where the egg ended, and I began. My freedom was stolen for a second time. A waking nightmare I can’t escape even now, years later, standing in this office with the sun still shining outside.
Finlay closes his eyes and leans back in the chair, tilting his head toward the ceiling. The column of his throat works as he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. Silence stretches between us, heavy and oppressive, broken only by the distant sound of students laughing somewhere on the grounds below. Their joy feels obscene against the darkness we’re discussing.
The room grows colder despite Finlay’s inherent heat. Shadows lengthen across the floor as the sun sinks lower, painting everything in shades of amber and rust. “A mage surrenders their life and power to create the binding.” His voice drops to barely above a whisper, rough with the weight of knowledge he wishes he didn’t carry. “Only a true mate can break the curse forever.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.Only a true mate.Solaris... he’s still trapped. Still waiting. But Raven is his mate. She’ll free him. The pattern forms in my mind with brutal clarity.Mates. It always comes back to mates.
He huffs out a sad laugh that sounds more like a broken exhale and sits up. The weight of ancient sorrow hangs in his expression, carving lines into his ageless face. “It is like the curse on all phoenixes.”
He stands slowly, movements deliberate as he crosses to the window. Each step is measured, controlled, as if he doesn’t trust himself to move faster. He leans against the frame, looking out over the campus grounds below. The dying sunlight catches his profile in sharp relief, all harsh angles and barely contained fire. His reflection in the glass wavers, distorted, showing glimpses of feathers and flame beneath the human veneer.
“Oh?.” The word falls soft between us, carried on an exhale that sounds like defeat.
He turns, and the raw pain in his gaze stops my breath. It’s the look of someone who’s lived too long, seen too much, lost everything that mattered repeatedly. “We’re cursed with eternal life. To be reborn repeatedly, never knowing a true death.” His focus drops to the faded rug beneath his feet, as if the pattern there holds answers he’s searched lifetimes to find. Theburgundy and gold threads are worn thin in places, a testament to decades of footsteps pacing back and forth across this same spot.
Empathy twists in my gut, sharp and unwelcome. I know what it’s like to be trapped. My prison was an egg; his is his own immortal body. Different cages. Same suffocation.
“What will break your curse?” I’ve heard the rumors. They range from true love’s first kiss to the claiming of a mate, whispered in shadowed corners and late-night conversations. Tales spun by those who’ve never felt the weight of an unbreakable curse.
When he looks up, his eyes burn with molten fire once more. The heat intensifies, making the air shimmer between us. Sweat beads along my spine despite my dragonic nature. The glass in the window behind him starts to fog up from the temperature change.
“Claiming our mate in the lake of eternity.” His breath comes rough, ragged, each word forced past something lodged in his throat. “And the water burns.”
Part of my daughter’s memories flashes through my mind: a lake of fire, flames dancing across liquid surface. The vision she shared with me confused and frightened by its intensity. She’d felt the pull of water burning, hadn’t understood why.
Because it’s meant for her.
The realization solidifies in my bones.Finlay is Raven’s mate.His shift knows it even if his conscious mind hasn’t connected the pieces yet. The tether she feels, the pull toward the dormitories, the way his control fractures when she’s near.
My heart hammers against my ribs. The protective father in me wants to roar, to demand answers, to know every detail of how he plans to protect her, provide for her, cherish her the way she deserves. The war drake in me wants to test him, to see if he’s truly worthy of my daughter.
But the strategic part of my mind, the part that survived a thousand years of isolation by learning patience urges caution.
I glance down at my desk, at the scattered notes and diagrams, at the desperate scrawl of a father trying to protect his daughter from threats he’s only beginning to understand. A drop of ink has spread across one page, obscuring words I can no longer read. Somehow, it feels symbolic.
If I tell him now, before he’s realized it himself, will it taint the bond? Will he feel forced, obligated? Will he resent the knowledge, or worse, reject it outright because an outsider named it first?
And what of Solaris? When Raven frees him, when she claims both mates, will Finlay accept sharing her? She already has three mates in her nest. Phoenix culture, from what little I know, can be territorial. Possessive. The thought makes my jaw clench, teeth grinding together.
But Raven needs all of them. Needs the immortality Finlay offers and the dragonic strength Solaris will provide. Together, they’ll all keep her safe when I’m gone. Together, they’ll weather whatever darkness the mages throw at our kind. The words hover on my tongue.She’s yours. My daughter is your mate. My mouth opens. The confession sits there, heavy and waiting.
I swallow them back. The taste is bitter, like ashes and regret, but I force it down. Let fate do its work. Let the bond pullthem together naturally. I’ll watch. I’ll wait. And if Finlay proves himself worthy, if he shows even a fraction of the devotion a mate should have, then I’ll welcome him into our family.
If he doesn’t... well. I’ve survived worse than dealing with an unworthy phoenix.
The temperature in the room has stabilized, no longer fluctuating with Finlay’s emotions. The shadows have stopped dancing. Everything feels still, suspended, like the moment before a blade falls.
I arch a brow, forcing my expression into careful neutrality, watching him with the careful assessment of a father who’s already made his judgments but won’t show his hand. “Will the water only burn with a mate?” The question tastes bitter on my tongue, testing him without revealing what I know. “Or can you set water aflame on a whim? And is it only the lake you speak of, or will any water work?”
The corner of his eye twitched. A muscle jumped in his jaw, working beneath skin that’s gone pale with strain. He looks like a man standing on the edge of a precipice, staring down at a fall he both fears and craves.
