I glanced back to see the remaining shadow dragons regrouping, their formation tighter now, more cautious. In the distance, I could just make out Thessarian’s golden form streaking toward the horizon, Varyth and Darian safe aboard.

  The relief that crashed through me was so intense it nearly stole my breath. They’d made it. Whatever happened to me now, they’d made it.

  “Touching. But perhaps we should focus on not dying before we reach safety?”

  “Right.” I straightened on his back, the black fire dancing along my skin like eager serpents. “Any brilliant ideas, or are we winging it? No pun intended.”

  “Oh, I like you.” The dragon’s voice was warm with approval. “Hold tight, wildfire. Let’s show them what real fire can do.”

  His wings tucking close to his body as we dove toward the pursuing dragons like a green arrow shot from some god’s bow. The wind screamed past us, tearing at my hair and clothes, but I pressed myself flat against his neck and held on.

  The shadow dragons scattered as we plummeted toward them, clearly not expecting such an aggressive manoeuvre. But my dragon wasn’t aiming for them.

  He was aiming for the space between them.

  At the last second, his wings snapped open and we pulled out of the dive in a move that should have torn us both apart. Instead, we shot upward through the centre of their formation, close enough that I could see the shocked expressions on the riders’ faces.

  “Now would be good.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. The black fire poured from me in all directions—not the wild bursts from before, but more focused. More deliberate. It flowed around the green dragon like he was the eye of a storm, leaving him untouched while everything else in range became fuel for hungry shadows.

  One shadow dragon simply... disappeared. Its rider had enough time to scream before both dragon and human were consumed by flames.

  The second dragon managed to bank away, but not quickly enough. My fire caught its tail, racing up the length of its body like spilled oil ignited. The creature’s death throes sent it spiralling toward the earth in a comet of shadow and screaming.

  “Impressive,” the dragon beneath me rumbled. “Messy, but impressive.”

  “Messy gets results.” I was breathing hard, the exertion of wielding that much power leaving me shaky and drained. But alive.

  “Indeed, it does.” He began a lazy turn, following the distant speck that was Thessarian’s retreating form. “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain why shadow dragons were hunting you with such enthusiasm?”

  I considered lying. Considered deflecting. Considered all the half-truths I’d been telling since arriving in this realm.

  Then I decided I was too tired for bullshit.

  “Because I wield shadow fire, and apparently that makes me either very valuable or very dangerous to certain parties.”

  “Both, I’d imagine.” His tone thoughtful now. “Shadow fire hasn’t been seen in these skies for centuries. The old stories say it could burn through the world itself.”

  “The old stories aren’t wrong.”

  “No. I don’t suppose they are.” A pause, filled with the steady rhythm of wings and wind. “I’m Kaelen, by the way. Since we’re apparently being honest with each other.”

  “Isara.” The name felt strange on my lips, not because it wasn’t mine, but because it had been so long since I’d introduced myself to someone without calculating how much truth I could afford to reveal. “And... thank you. For catching me. For helping.”

  “Thank you for the entertainment. It’s been a dull few decades.”

  The next wave hit before I had time to catch my breath.

  Six shadow dragons this time, rising from below like nightmares birthed from the earth itself. Their scales absorbed light, their eyes burning with that sickly green infection that marked them as Nyxarian war beasts.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, and felt Kaelen’s muscles bunch beneath me.

  “Hold on, wildfire. This is going to get rough.”

  The black fire answered my call like a lover, eager and hungry and absolutely devastating. It poured from my hands in twin streams of cold flame, reaching for the nearest shadow dragon with malicious intent.

  The creature shrieked as my fire found it, scales blackening and crumbling like ash. But the moment the flames left my body, white-hot agony tore through my skull.

  Pain erupted at the base of my neck and raked down my spine like claws dragged along bone. I gasped, nearly losing my grip on Kaelen’s scales as the sensation threatened to split me open from the inside.

  “What the⁠—”

  No time. Another dragon was diving at us from above, its rider’s spear already drawn back to throw.

  I shoved the pain aside—compartmentalised it the way I’d learned to compartmentalise everything else—and unleashed another torrent of shadow flame.

  The dragon dissolved into screaming darkness, but the pain came again. Worse this time. Like someone had wrapped barbed wire around my spine and pulled tight, then set the whole thing on fire for good measure.

  “Isara.” Kaelen’s voice cut through my mental haze. “Your magic, something’s wrong.”

  “I’m fine,” I snarled through gritted teeth, already gathering the fire again. Because three more shadow dragons were closing in, and fine or not, we needed them dead.

  The flames erupted from me in a blast that should have incinerated everything in a fifty-foot radius. Should have. Instead, they sputtered and flickered, reaching half the distance before guttering out like candles in a storm.

  What the fuck?

  I reached for the power again, felt it coiling beneath my skin like always. But when I tried to pull it forward, it resisted. Not the magic itself, but my body, like there was a barrier between the fire and my ability to wield it.

  “Wildfire, stop.” Kaelen banked hard to avoid a spear that came too close to his wing membrane. “You’re burning out.”

  “I said I’m fine.” But even as I shouted it, I could feel the lie. The world was starting to tilt at the edges, going soft and blurry like I was looking at it through water. My hands trembled where they gripped Kaelen’s scales, and there was a persistent ringing in my ears that had nothing to do with wind or altitude.

  Another shadow dragon dove at us from the side. I raised my hand, felt the fire gather⁠—

  The pain exploded through my skull like a thunderclap, so intense my vision whited out. For a heartbeat I couldn’t see, couldn’t think, could only feel the agony racing through every nerve ending like liquid lightning.

  The fire answered anyway. Weak, flickering, but enough to make the dragon veer away.

  Not enough to kill it.

  “Stop,” Kaelen’s command cracked like a whip. “Stop before you tear yourself apart.”

  “Can’t.” The word came out slurred, my tongue thick and clumsy in my mouth. “They’ll—we’ll⁠—”

  A shadow dragon materialised directly in front of us, its jaws open wide enough to swallow us whole. I didn’t think. Didn’t calculate. Just reached for the fire one more time and let it loose.

  The explosion of shadow flame was pathetic, a guttering burst that barely singed the creature’s scales. But the pain that followed wasn’t pathetic at all.

  It was annihilation.

  My spine became a column of white-hot agony, every vertebra screaming in protest as something fundamental tore inside me. The world spun violently, sky and earth trading places while my vision tunnelled down to a pinpoint of grey static.

  Lightheaded didn’t begin to cover it. I felt hollow, scooped out, like someone had reached inside my chest and removed everything that made me solid. Real.

  My hands loosened on Kaelen’s scales.

  “No.” His voice was sharp with alarm. “Isara, hold on!”

  But I couldn’t. My fingers wouldn’t obey, wouldn’t close, wouldn’t do anything except slip uselessly across emerald scales made slick with speed and altitude.

  I was falling.

  Again.

  The sky wheeled above me in shades of grey and black, the shadow dragons circling like carrion birds. I should have been terrified. Should have been fighting, clawing for survival, doing anything except floating through the air like a leaf torn from a tree.

  But all I felt was tired.

  So fucking tired.

  Then something closed around my body—massive, scaled, impossibly gentle. Kaelen’s claw, wrapping around my torso like a cage of emerald and ancient strength.

  “I’ve got you, wildfire. Just... stay with me.”

  His voice was the last thing I heard before the grey static swallowed everything whole, and the world dissolved into merciful darkness.

  19

  The soldiers came in the dark. Not through doors or windows—they materialised from shadow itself, their armour drinking light like hungry mouths. I could smell them before I saw them: death and ash and something sickeningly sweet, like flowers blooming in a graveyard.

  Mireth screamed.

  The sound tore through me like a blade finding bone, sharp and desperate and wrong. She was pressed against the far wall of our chamber, Eryx clutched in her small arms, both trembling as the Nyxarian soldiers closed in.

  “Mama!” Mireth’s voice cracked on the word, high and terrified. “Mama, help!”

  I tried to move—tried to run to them, to fight, to do something—but my body was lead, my limbs refusing to obey. The harder I struggled, the heavier I became, sinking into quicksand that tasted of copper and despair.

  The lead soldier reached for Mireth with gauntleted hands, and I could see his face beneath the helm. It was beautiful in that terrible fae way, with eyes like infected wounds and a smile that promised pain.

  “Such lovely children,” he purred, the words silk over broken glass. “Lord Ashterion will be so pleased.”

  “No!” The scream ripped from my throat, but it came out as nothing—less than a whisper, less than breath. I was drowning in my own helplessness, watching as those metal fingers closed around my daughter’s wrist.

  Mireth’s amber eyes found mine across the room, wide with terror and confusion. Why wasn’t I saving them? Why wasn’t I fighting?

  Why wasn’t I enough?

  The soldier lifted her easily, ignoring her struggles, her small fists beating uselessly against his armour. Eryx began to wail, that heartbroken sound that meant the world was ending and nothing would ever be safe again.

  They were taking them. Taking my babies. And I was frozen, useless, failing them when they needed me most.

  The darkness began to eat the edges of my vision, creeping inward like smoke. The last thing I heard was Mireth calling my name, growing fainter and fainter until⁠—

  “ISARA!”

  The voice crashed through the nightmare like lightning splitting stone. My eyes snapped open to find silver fire burning above me, pale and furious and achingly familiar.

  Varyth.

  He was shouting my name, but the sound seemed to come from very far away. The room was chaos, black flames lashing across the walls, hungry and wild and mine. They poured from me in torrents, turning the air thick with shadow and impossible cold.

  Everything they touched withered. The wooden nightstand crumbled to ash. Tapestries disintegrated. The stone walls themselves began to crack and blacken under the onslaught.

  And I couldn’t stop it.

  The power roared through me like a dam bursting, all the terror and helplessness from the dream transmuted into something that could burn. It wanted to devour everything. The room, the castle, the entire fucking realm if that’s what it took to keep my children safe.

  “Isara!” Varyth’s hands were on my shoulders now, his fingers burning against my skin. Mist flowed from him, trying to quell the inferno raging from my skin. “Look at me. Look at me.”

  I tried to focus on his face, on those silver eyes that reflected my flames like mirrors. But the power kept pulling at me, begging to be unleashed, whispering promises of what it could do to anyone who dared threaten what was mine.

  Burn them all. Turn them to ash and memory. Make them pay for even thinking⁠—

  “They’re safe.” Varyth’s words cut through the whispers. “Your children are safe, Isara. They’re sleeping down the hall. Lira is with them. No one has touched them.”

  The flames faltered, just for a moment.

  “It was a dream,” he continued, his grip on my shoulders steady and sure. “A nightmare. But it wasn’t real.”

  The black fire began to recede, pulling back from the walls like a tide in reverse. The room looked like a battlefield. Furniture reduced to charcoal, scorch marks carved deep into stone, the air thick with the scent of destruction.

  I was shaking. Violent tremors that I couldn’t control, my body trying to process the aftermath of that much power flowing through it. Sweat slicked my skin despite the cold fire, and I could taste copper in my mouth.

  “I—” My voice came out as a croak. “The children—I need to see⁠—”

  “They’re safe,” Varyth repeated, but he was already moving, his hands sliding from my shoulders to help me sit up. “But yes. We’ll go see them.”

  I tried to stand and nearly collapsed. Whatever the shadow fire had taken from me, it had left me hollow, wrung out. Varyth caught me before I could hit the floor.

  “Easy,” he murmured, his tone almost gentle. “The power took a lot from you. You need to⁠—”

  “Now.” The word came out sharper than I’d intended. “I need to see them now.”

  He studied my face for a moment, searching. Whatever he found there must have convinced him, because he nodded once.

  “Alright. But you’re leaning on me whether you like it or not.”

  I wanted to argue, to insist I could walk on my own, but my legs had other ideas. They shook like a newborn foal’s, barely able to support my weight. So I swallowed my pride and let Varyth guide me from the ruined chamber into the hallway beyond.

  The corridor was chaos. Guards ran back and forth, their faces tight with panic. Servants pressed themselves against the walls as we passed, their eyes wide as they took in the destruction that followed in our wake.

  Because it wasn’t just my room. Black scorch marks traced along the walls wherever we walked, as if the shadow fire was still bleeding from me in thin streams. The very air seemed to darken in my presence, reality bending slightly at the edges like heat shimmer.

  “How far did it spread?” I asked, leaning heavily against Varyth’s solid warmth.

  “Three floors.” His voice was neutral. “Most of the east wing. We’re assessing the damage.”

  Three floors. Gods.

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “Minor injuries. Some of the guards closest to your room were knocked unconscious by the initial surge, but they’ll recover. For whatever reason, it didn’t harm anyone.” He glanced down at me, something unreadable flickering across his features. “But if I hadn’t reached you when I did⁠—”

  “But you did.” I didn’t want to think about what might have happened. Couldn’t bear the thought of my uncontrolled power hurting innocent people. “How did you know?”

  “The wards.” Varyth’s grip tightened slightly around my waist as we turned a corner. “They reacted when your power spiked. Felt like the world was tearing itself apart from the inside out.”

  We reached the children’s chambers, and I practically tore myself from Varyth’s arms in my desperation to get to the door. My hands shook as I pushed it open, my heart hammering against my ribs as I stepped inside.

  Relief crashed over me so hard it nearly knocked me to my knees.

  They were there. Both of them. Mireth curled up in her bed with Eryx tucked against her side, his tiny fist tangled in her dark hair. Eryx’s own bed lay empty, abandoned whenever he’d climb in to join her. They were breathing deep and even, faces soft with sleep, completely unaware of the chaos their mother had just unleashed.

  Lira sat in a chair beside the bed, her kind eyes reflecting the lamplight. She looked tired but alert, clearly having been woken by whatever alarms my power had triggered.

  “They never stirred,” she said, rising from her chair to meet me halfway across the room. “Whatever happened, the wards around this room held. They felt nothing.”

  Behind me, I could hear Varyth speaking in low, urgent tones with someone. Probably giving orders about damage control, about explanations that would have to be made. But I couldn’t focus on anything except my children’s sleeping faces.

  I wanted nothing more than to crawl into that bed beside them, to wrap them in my arms and never let go. To press my face against their hair and breathe in their warmth until the nightmare dissolved completely.

  But I couldn’t. Not with shadow fire licking at the edges of my consciousness, not with power that had just carved through three floors of stone like it was parchment. What if I lost control again? What if the flames came back while I was holding them?

  The thought of accidentally hurting them, of being the monster in their nightmares instead of the one protecting them from it, made bile rise in my throat.

  “They need their rest,” Varyth said quietly from behind me, cutting through my spiral of terror. “And so do you.”

  I wanted to argue. Wanted to plant myself in that chair and keep guard until dawn, until I was absolutely certain nothing would come for them in the dark. But my legs chose that moment to give out entirely, my knees buckling as the last of my strength finally crashed.

  Varyth caught me, his arm sliding around my waist. “That’s what I thought.”

  “I can’t leave them,” I whispered, even as I let him guide me toward the door. “What if⁠—”

  “What if you collapse from exhaustion and can’t protect them at all?” His voice was gentle but implacable. “Lira will watch over them. The guards will be doubled. Nothing will reach this room.”