For one moment, I felt them connect. Felt his mark flare in response, that familiar pull—
Then he tore a heavy iron disk from its latch on his hip—the King's Brand. It was etched deep with the Quell-Rune, that brutal mark suppressor every Shadowmarked child learned to fear.
The metal hissed, heating instantly to a furious red.
I understood a second too late.
"No—"
Eryndor moved. Fast. Clinical. He pressed the Brand to my chest, just below my collarbone.
The pain was beyond screaming. Beyond sound. White-hot iron searing through fabric, through flesh, burning the runeintome. I smelled my own skin cooking. Felt the Quell-Rune take root like a hook sinking into my bones.
My marksscreamed—thrashing, clawing, trying to fight the invasion.
I felt my power drain out of me like blood from a wound, leaving nothing but emptiness and agony. I dropped to my knees. Everything blurred. My lungs refused to work. But when a soldier clamped a hand onto my collar to haul me up, I bit his hand hard enough to taste blood. He screamed.
The next one was smarter—kept his hands out of range of my teeth. He grabbed a fistful of my hair instead, yanking my head back. The smirk lasted until the razors opened his fingers. He didn't let go though—just squeezed harder, blood running warm down my neck—and snarled down at me like I was already beaten.
I spat blood in his eye.
He backhanded me so hard my head snapped sideways, stars exploding across my eyes.
"Enough," he growled, dragging me up by the arm. "I’ll escort this one."
I laughed. The sound bubbled up from somewhere broken—high and jagged and descending into madness. I couldn't stop.
He definitely didn't like that.
They hauled us toward the eastern passage—the one that led up, out, toward the world we'd been hiding from.
I caught flashes through the bedlam—glimpses stolen between the ranks of Black Talons. They'd flooded the passage, three lines deep at least, a barricade of armor and blades cutting us off from the others.
Maxx, a frenzy of steel and fury, cutting through Black Talons like they were made of paper. His glamours flickered wildaround him—phantom soldiers, false walls, anything to buy a few more seconds.
"SERENYA!"
His voice broke on her name—wild, desperate, fear stripped him of anything but frenzied determination. He cut down one soldier, then another, inching closer with every swing, every snarl, every glamour he threw.
But for every Talon that fell, two more stepped into the gap. The black tide kept coming.
He screamed her name again. Kept fighting. Kept trying.
It wasn't enough.
And Dreadscale.
For one suspended breath, the crowd parted and I saw him.
Primordial and immovable, a force of nature wrapped in scarred flesh.
His dragon tattoo blazed like molten iron, radiating with a power that made the air around himbend. Soldiers didn't fight him—they slid off him like water from stone. Blades turned before they could land. Soldiers stumbled back, faces slack with sudden terror, as if their bodies had decided to flee before their minds caught up.
He strode through the melee untouched. Unhurried. Inevitable.
For one mad, desperate moment, I thought—maybe. Maybe by some miracle, he was going to carve through all of them. Maybe he was going to get us out of this.
Then Eryndor's grip wrenched me upward, hauling me through the Flame Gate.
