So that’s what I’m going to do.
I bow my head, letting out one long breath and drawing in another, and I begin to make a plan. With more determination than I've felt in hours, I again focus my thoughts toward Sesca.
Malachi told me you understand the magic of a Flamebound mark.
No reply, but I feel a shift in the bond—a sudden weight settling in my chest, as if her ancient, heavy gaze is turning straight toward my heart.
I keep going.
Is there any way to rid myself of it?I ask.
Her silence stretches for a few more beats, until finally:Something burns brighter, more deeply, and more true underneath that mark, and though he can try to stifle it, he cannot put it out.
Not exactly a clear response, in true dragon fashion.
But at least she’s talking to me.
I move on to my next question:What sort of power can he truly exert through this binding?
He can share your control of magic and lesser dragons,she says after a thoughtful pause.He can sense you, read you in ways beyond the norm. Draw strength from you, perhaps. But he cannot control you.
Those last words are the ones I needed most—a tiny bit of hope to clasp in my hands, small and fragile but still bright enough to see by.
I felt pain in this mark earlier, but pain is not control. I can push through pain and not let it reign over me; I've been doing that all my life. The only question is whether I can step into my true power while he's interfering. Whether I can burn brightly enough to overcome his parasitic hold on things.
It will mean fully embracing whatever the embers of me might be destined to flare into. The fear of that is still there, rooted deep in my chest, but fear is not going to change my mind. It never has.
Something almost like calm settles over me as I picture Sesca's face and say,Do you remember when you told me you could break your chains, if only I could break my own?
A prickling attentiveness—eagerness, almost—moves through the bond, urging me to continue.
Is that true this time, too?
Warmth floods through me, vivid and immediate.Yes.
Good.I let out a slow breath.Because I’m going to need your help for this.
Her reply comes as a surge of emotions, most of which I can’t name, but one word, one thought, eventually floats above every tangled thing I still can’t make sense of:Together.
Whatever mess we’re about to dive into, at least we’ll be facing it together.
I spend another hour sitting with my plans, turning them over, trying not to think about all the ways they could go wrong.
Malachi isn’t alone when he returns the second time. Soldiers flank him on either side, but they wait at the mouth of the cave while he makes his way in, stopping directly in front of me. He doesn’t bother to bend down to my level, this time. He only watches me in silence for a moment, as if waiting for me to speak. To bow my head in surrender.
I do neither.
“This ends with you in my kingdom, either way,” he says.
“You will have to bring me there in chains.”
“I was afraid you'd say that.”
A dragon roars in the distance—close enough that I can’t help my sharp intake of breath.
Malachi doesn't flinch at the sound, only lowers his voice to something cruelly intimate, just between us, as he says, “I hope you had a chance to tell him goodbye.”
I hold his gaze and say nothing at all.
