1
Cold has a way of making time impossible to measure.
I know I have been awake for hours because the green flame set into the far wall has burned low twice, shrinking until the room is almost completely dark before inexplicably flaring back to life without anyone entering to tend it. I know I have slept at least once because I remember opening my eyes and forgetting where I was. For three beautiful, disorienting seconds, I thought the silence inside my head meant Nyxar was sleeping. I thought I was back in my room at Varyn with dawn creeping through the narrow window and my dragon somewhere beyond the eastern roosts, deliberately ignoring me because I had annoyed him.
Then I moved my wrists.
Iron scraped against stone.
The sound brought everything back at once.
The northern ridge. Green fire burning between the trees. Men stepping out of the darkness. Kaelen’s hand around my wrist before I could draw my knife. Black blood smeared beneath his broken nose.
I’ve been Nethren since before you knew my name.
I sit with my back against the wall and stare at the locked door across from me.
I’ve spent enough time studying this room that I could probably draw it from memory if someone gave me parchment. There isn’t much to draw. Four stone walls. One heavy wooden door reinforced with iron. A narrow cot shoved against the wall opposite me. A basin filled with water that was already here when I woke. A bucket in the far corner that I’ve stubbornly refused to acknowledge except when absolutely necessary. There are no windows, no furniture substantial enough to break apart for a weapon, and nothing hanging from the walls except that strange green flame burning inside an iron bracket.
Whoever prepared this room didn’t care whether I was comfortable.
They cared whether I could escape.
I can’t.
I’ve checked.
Every stone within reach has been pushed, kicked, scraped and tested. I’ve run my fingers along the mortar until my nails split. I’ve examined the hinges on the door from every angle available to me and discovered that they sit on the other side. I’ve pulled against the chains until my shoulders burned and my wrists became raw enough that dried blood now circles the edges of the cuffs.
Nothing has moved.
The cuffs are worse.
Black iron circles both wrists, carved with markings I recognize from the binding station. The symbols aren’t identical, but the magic is. Whenever I pull too hard, faint green light fills the grooves and pain travels beneath my skin like something alive.
I hate them.
Not because they hurt.
Pain I understand.
Pain has edges. It has limits. Eventually, the body either adapts to it or becomes too exhausted to care.
The silence is worse.
I close my eyes and reach automatically for the enormous presence that has lived at the edge of my consciousness since Claiming.
Nyxar.
Nothing.
I already know there won’t be an answer.
I try anyway.
Nyxar.
Silence stretches through the place where my dragon should be.
It is not like when he closes our connection. Nyxar has done that before, usually when he’s irritated with me or believes I need to learn something without relying on him. Even then, I can feel that he exists. There is a door between us, perhaps, but I know what waits on the other side.
This is different.
There is no door.
There is nothing.
Sometimes my mind invents him because it cannot tolerate the absence. I’ll feel what seems like a flash of irritation or imagine silver-white wings passing across my thoughts. Once, shortly after waking, I could have sworn I heard his dry voice informing me that allowing myself to be captured was further evidence that humans shouldn’t be trusted with important decisions.
I almost laughed.
Then I reached for him.
Nothing.
My throat tightens now.
I open my eyes before the fear can become something larger.
“He’s alive.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
Kaelen’s voice comes from the other side of the door.
I say nothing.
A lock turns.
Then another.
Then a third.
The door opens, and Kaelen steps into the room carrying a wooden tray.
He’s alone.
Either he’s arrogant enough to believe I can’t hurt him while I’m chained or stupid enough to give me the opportunity.
I hope it’s the second.
He looks different.
Not dramatically, which somehow makes everything worse. There should be something obvious now that I know. His face should have changed. His eyes should be wrong. There should be some visible divide between the man who sat beside me in the archives at Varyn and the Nethren who arranged my murder before I ever bonded Nyxar.
There isn’t.
He’s still Kaelen.
His dark hair is slightly disordered. A deep bruise has formed beneath his left eye where I hit him during the fight, and his nose is swollen from when I slammed my forehead into his face. There is a faint healing cut along his jaw.
Good.
He’s traded Varyn blue for fitted black leathers without a single insignia on them. The absence of the uniform makes me realize how much of my understanding of him came from seeing him inside it.
Second-year rider.
First Flight.
Saeryn’s rider.
My friend.
Every one of those things had made him feel safe.
Now I don’t know which of them were ever true.
Kaelen sets the tray on the floor several feet from me. Bread. Cheese. A cup of water. Something wrapped in cloth that smells faintly of roasted meat.
“You haven’t eaten.”
I continue staring at him.
His jaw shifts.
“Veyra.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The words come out quieter than I expect, but they stop him more effectively than if I’d shouted.
Something passes across his face before he hides it.
I plant one hand against the wall and push myself to my feet. The chain drags behind me, iron grinding against stone. Kaelen’s gaze drops automatically toward my wrists.
He sees the blood.
His expression hardens.
“You need to stop pulling against those cuffs. They’re designed to tighten when you fight the restraint.”
I laugh once, without humor. “Thank you. I hadn’t figured that out after the first several hours of them cutting into my skin.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Take them off.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“No.” I take another step toward him. “You won’t.”
His eyes meet mine and stay there. “Both.”
I stop when there are only several feet between us. The chain won’t allow much more.
“You said Nyxar is alive.”
“He is.”
“Prove it.”
Kaelen’s expression doesn’t change. “I can’t.”
“Then don’t tell me things you can’t prove.”
“I saw him after we took you.”
My heart gives one violent beat before I can stop it.
Kaelen notices.
Of course he notices.
I hate him for that too.
“Where?”
“At Varyn.”
“What happened?”
He hesitates, and fear slides cold beneath my ribs.
“What happened to him, Kaelen?”
He exhales slowly. “After we got you through the northern pass, the suppression around the ridge dropped. Nyxar reached the gate before anyone else understood what had happened.”
My mouth goes dry.
“And?”
“He nearly tore it down.”
The image arrives instantly.
Silver-white scales.
Ancient fury.
Nyxar’s roar shaking Mount Vaelor.
Something painful and fiercely warm moves through my chest.
Of course he did.
I look away before Kaelen can see how close that knowledge comes to breaking me.
“Rhydan?”
The silence behind me lasts too long.
I turn.
“What happened to Rhydan?”
“He’s alive.”
“You said that on the ridge.”
“It was true then. It’s true now.”
“How do you know?”
Kaelen studies me for a moment before answering. “Because Corvane has spent the last two days making it extremely difficult for anyone involved in taking you to forget that he’s alive.”
Two days.
The words take a moment to register.
“What?”
Kaelen’s expression changes.
“How long have I been here?”
“Veyra—”
“How long?”
“Two days.”
The floor seems to move beneath my feet.
I stare at him. “I’ve been gone for two days?”
“You were unconscious for most of the first.”
“Because you drugged me.”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t soften it.
I don’t know whether that makes me hate him more or less.
“Where am I?”
“No.”
For a moment, I think I misheard him.
“No?”
“I’m not telling you where you are.”
“Why?”
His eyes narrow slightly. “Because you managed to send Rhydan my face through a suppression field strong enough to cut you off from an ancient dragon. I’m not giving you a location to send him next.”
The memory comes back so sharply that I almost feel the needle entering my neck again.
The Bloodbound tearing open for one impossible second.
My desperation.
Kaelen’s face.
And Rhydan’s response.
Kaelen.
There had been nothing uncontrolled about his rage.
That was what made it terrifying.
For the first time since waking, satisfaction cuts through the fear.
“He knows.”
Kaelen gives me a flat look. “I am painfully aware.”
“He’ll find me.”
“I know.”
The answer is immediate.
Not he’ll try.
Not maybe.
I know.
I study him.
“You’re afraid of him.”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I’ve never denied being one.”
“You’re afraid.”
Kaelen looks toward the ceiling for a second, as if searching for patience. “I have a healthy appreciation for the fact that Rhydan Corvane currently wants to remove my spine through my throat.”
Despite myself, my eyebrows rise. “That’s surprisingly specific.”
“He sent a message.”
I go still.
“What?”
Kaelen looks as though he regrets speaking.
“He sent several.”
“To you?”
“To anyone who might know how to reach us.”
“What did they say?”
“Eat.”
“Kaelen.”
“Veyra.”
“What did Rhydan say?”
His mouth presses into a thin line.
I wait.
Finally he says, “The first message offered safe passage to anyone willing to return you to Varyn unharmed.”
My heart pounds harder.
“And the others?”
Kaelen glances at the tray.
“The second clarified what would happen if you weren’t returned unharmed.”
“What did it say?”
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“You’d enjoy it too much.”
He’s right.
I almost smile.
Kaelen notices and shakes his head. “There. That’s exactly why I’m not telling you.”
“He’s going to kill you.”
“Yes, you’ve both made your position on that remarkably clear.”
Something about hearing Rhydan has been searching for me for two days loosens the knot inside my chest enough that I can breathe around it.
He’s alive.
He’s looking.
He hasn’t given up.
Of course he hasn’t.
Kaelen crouches beside the tray and lifts the cup of water. He drinks from it, sets it down, then tears off a piece of bread and eats that too.
“Not poisoned.”
“I wasn’t worried about poison.”
“You should be.”
The answer comes too quickly.
Silence settles between us.
Kaelen’s expression shifts as he realizes what he said.
My stomach turns.
“Good to know.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You’re right. You’ve only tried to kill me once. I’m being unreasonable.”
His face closes.
There.
That bothers him.
Good.
I want it to.
I want every reminder of what he did to hurt.
I move closer until the chain begins to pull taut behind me.
“You changed my map.”
His eyes remain on mine. “Yes.”
“You deliberately sent me into the eastern forest.”
“Yes.”
“You knew there was an injured dragon there.”
“No.”
That answer makes me pause.
Kaelen doesn’t look away.
“I knew the route would take you through restricted territory,” he says. “I knew the terrain was dangerous. I knew you were a first-year who hadn’t been trained to survive alone beyond the marked paths. The intention was for the route to kill you. I didn’t know the dragon would be there.”
My stomach turns as I remember gray scales beneath leaves. Blood. Pain. The first dragon outside the academy who ever reached for me.
“If she hadn’t been there, I might have died.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what you wanted.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s what I was ordered to make happen.”
“Don’t say that.”
His brow furrows. “Say what?”
“That you were ordered, like it changes anything.”
“It changes something.”
“Not to me.”
“It does to me.”
Anger surges through me so quickly that I forget the chain. I step forward, iron snapping taut behind me. The cuffs bite viciously into the already damaged skin around my wrists.
I suck in a breath.
Kaelen moves instinctively toward me.
I recoil.
“Don’t touch me.”
He stops immediately.
“You don’t get to care now.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” My voice rises despite my attempt to control it. “You tried to kill me, Kaelen.”
“I know.”
“You became my friend afterward.”
His expression shifts.
“I know.”
“I trusted you.”
That one lands.
His eyes close for a moment.
When he opens them, there is no easy expression waiting for me. No teasing smile. No version of Kaelen designed to make people comfortable.
Just him.
“I’m sorry.”
I stare at him.
For one second, I’m too stunned to answer.
Then a broken laugh leaves me.
“Fuck you.”
“I know that doesn’t fix anything.”
“It doesn’t fix anything? You think that’s the problem with saying you’re sorry?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I kick the tray.
The cup hits the wall and water spills across the stone. Bread rolls beneath the cot. Kaelen doesn’t flinch.
Neither do I.
The room becomes silent except for my breathing.
Then I ask the question I’ve been avoiding since the northern ridge.
“Was any of it real?”
Kaelen’s eyes lift to mine.
I hate how badly I need the answer.
“The map wasn’t,” he says after a moment. “The note wasn’t. The reason I originally approached you wasn’t.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
“Then answer me.”
He looks at me for so long that I almost tell him not to bother.
Finally, he says, “Yes.”
My throat tightens.
“Which parts?”
“More than there should have been.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I’m not asking you to believe me.”
“Good.”
“And I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“That’s even better.”
His expression doesn’t change. “But I’m not going to tell you that every conversation we had was manufactured. It wasn’t. I had orders when I came to Varyn. I had a reason for getting close to you. Somewhere along the way, those stopped being the only reasons I was there.”
I stare at him.
“You’ve lied about everything else.”
“Not everything.”
“Your name?”
“Mine.”
“Your age?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Saeryn?”
Something changes immediately.
His face becomes guarded in a different way.
“She’s mine.”
“Does she know what you are?”
His eyes harden. “She knows me.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the answer I’m giving.”
I let out a slow breath.
“Your family?”
“Mostly lies.”
“Varyn?”
“I was a cadet.”
“Nethren?”
His gaze stays on mine.
“Also true.”
I hate the way those things sit beside one another.
Varyn taught us that Nethren were the enemy beyond the border. Hollowed humans. People who stole dragon heartfire and traded away whatever remained of their humanity for power.
Kaelen trained and taught beside us.
Ate beside us.
Bonded a dragon.
Passed instructors and healers and commanders who should have known what he was.
“How long?”
He knows exactly what I mean.
“Four years.”
My stomach drops.
“You were eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
For the first time since entering, Kaelen looks toward the door.
Not nervously.
Carefully.
Then he crosses the room and closes it completely. The locks remain disengaged on the other side, but the heavy wood shuts out whatever faint sounds existed beyond it.
When he turns back, his voice is lower.
“That’s a longer conversation.”
I look pointedly around my cell. “I appear to have time.”
Something almost like amusement touches his face.
It disappears too quickly to become a smile.
“Why?” I ask again.
Kaelen studies me for several seconds before slowly pushing the sleeve of his left arm upward.
At first, I only see scars.
Dozens of them.
Thin white lines cross his forearm in patterns too deliberate to be accidents. Some are straight. Others curve around the muscle. Several disappear beneath his sleeve.
Then I notice the mark near his wrist.
A broken circle divided by three narrow lines.
I’ve seen it before.
Not at Varyn.
Inside the mountain.
Carved beneath the markings of the Chain.
“What is that?”
Kaelen looks down at it.
“The first thing the Crown gave me.”
My eyes snap to his.
“The Crown?”
“Before the Nethren.”
Nothing about that answer fits.
Kaelen lowers his sleeve.
“You were taught that people become Nethren because they consume dragon heartfire for power. That they choose Hollowing because they want to become stronger, faster, harder to kill.”
“That’s what Nethren are.”
“Sometimes.”
One word.
That’s all.
And somehow it destabilizes more than a lie would.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not trying to recruit you.”
“Good.”
“I’m trying to tell you that the version of this war taught at Varyn is incomplete.”
I laugh bitterly. “And I’m supposed to accept the corrected version from the man who lied his way into Varyn?”
“No.”
That stops me.
Kaelen’s voice remains calm.
“You shouldn’t believe me simply because I’m telling you. You shouldn’t believe Rourke simply because he’s Commandant. You shouldn’t believe the Crown because they wrote the history. Find proof. Decide for yourself.”
Nyxar would approve of that answer.
The thought hurts.
I turn away.
“Save it.”
Silence.
I expect Kaelen to leave.
Instead, he says, “Your mother found proof.”
My entire body stills.
There it is.
The one subject he knows I cannot ignore.
I turn slowly.
“Don’t use her to manipulate me.”
“I’m not.”
“You mentioned her before you drugged me. You knew exactly what that would do.”
“Because Seraphine is why they knew about you.”
My pulse begins accelerating.
“Who?”
Kaelen doesn’t answer.
I take another step.
“Who knew about me?”
“The people who sent me to Varyn.”
“Names.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because giving you names in this room could get you killed.”
I laugh incredulously and lift my chained wrists. “Look around, Kaelen.”
“I am.”
“I’m already a prisoner.”
“You’re alive.”
“For now.”
“Exactly.”
The seriousness in his voice quiets something inside me.
I study him.
“What happened to my mother?”
His face gives me nothing.
“Did the Nethren kill her?”
“No.”
The answer comes immediately.
My heart stops.
“Did you know her?”
“No.”
“Did your people?”
“Yes.”
“Was she Nethren?”
“No.”
“Was she working with them?”
A longer pause.
“Sometimes.”
The word feels like a door opening beneath my feet.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means Seraphine Ashbourne understood something about Eryndor that you don’t yet.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Kaelen’s eyes move toward the green flame burning against the wall.
“She understood that the war was never Crown against Nethren.”
My skin prickles.
“What was it?”
He looks back at me.
“Control against choice.”
For a moment, I am standing in the cell and beneath the binding station at the same time.
Broken iron.
Twenty-nine minds.
Seythra lifting her head.
My choice was mine.
And Nyxar’s ancient voice inside my thoughts.
Humans fought for ownership. Dragons fought to remain dragons.
Kaelen watches something change in my face.
“The Crown wants you to believe every Nethren is a monster because monsters are easy to kill,” he says. “You don’t have to ask why they exist. You don’t have to ask who made them. You don’t have to wonder whether some of them were given a choice at all.”
“I watched a Nethren put his boot on my throat.”
“Some are monsters.”
“I watched another try to kill Rhydan.”
“Some are monsters.”
“You tried to kill me.”
That silences him.
“Yes.”
“So forgive me if I’m not particularly interested in discovering the misunderstood humanity of the people holding me in chains.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive anyone.”
“Then what are you asking?”
His answer takes a moment.
“For you to survive long enough to understand what you’re standing in the middle of.”
“I survived before you.”
“I know.”
“I’ll survive after you.”
Something strange passes over his face.
“I hope so.”
Not threatening.
Not mocking.
Sad.
I hate that more than anything.
Footsteps sound outside.
Kaelen’s head turns sharply toward the door.
Three knocks.
A pause.
Two more.
Every trace of emotion disappears from his face.
“What?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Kaelen.”
He walks toward the tray, retrieves the bread from beneath the edge of the cot and places it back within my reach.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat.”
“Why?”
He straightens.
His eyes meet mine.
“Because they’re coming for you tonight.”
Cold moves slowly down my spine.
“Who?”
Kaelen crosses toward the door.
I follow until the chain pulls tight.
“Who is coming?”
His hand closes around the handle.
“Kaelen.”
He pauses.
For the first time since entering the room, I recognize the expression on his face without having to guess.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For me.
“Someone who knew your mother.”
Then he leaves.
The door closes behind him.
One lock turns.
Then the second.
Then the third.
I remain standing in the middle of the cell long after his footsteps disappear.
My mother.
Seraphine knew the Nethren.
Seraphine worked with them.
Sometimes.
The Crown marked Kaelen before he was Hollowed.
The war isn’t Crown against Nethren.
Control against choice.
I don’t know what is true anymore.
Maybe that’s the point.
I look down at the water spreading across the stone floor, then at the bread Kaelen retrieved after I kicked it away.
Survive long enough to understand.
Fine.
I crouch, pick up the bread and eat every bite.
Not because Kaelen told me to.
Because he’s right about one thing.
Someone is coming.
And when they arrive, I intend to be ready.
Time passes.
Hours, perhaps.
Without a window, I have no way to know.
I sit on the edge of the cot and turn my attention back to the cuffs.
This time, I don’t pull blindly.
I watch.
The first time I strain against the chain, the markings flare bright green and heat bites into my wrists.
I stop.
The light slowly dims.
I pull again.
Green.
Release.
Dark.
Again.
Green.
Dark.
A rhythm.
My heartbeat begins to slow as I study it.
The suppression isn’t constant.
It reacts.
Interesting.
Magic has rules.
Even ugly magic.
Especially ugly magic.
I wait until the markings fade to their weakest glow.
Then I close my eyes.
I don’t reach for Nyxar.
His presence is enormous. Ancient. Powerful. If the cuffs are designed to recognize draconic bonds, trying to force my way toward him would be like battering down a gate with my bare hands.
So I reach for something quieter.
A scarred hand closing around mine beneath a council table.
Dark eyes watching me across a training field.
A forehead resting against mine on the western battlements.
Warmth moving through a bond that never asked either of us for permission before tying our lives together.
Whatever happens next, it happens to both of us.
Rhydan.
I reach.
Nothing.
The cuff warms.
I stop immediately.
Wait.
The green light dims.
I reach again.
Rhydan.
Nothing.
Pain gathers behind my eyes.
I stop.
Wait.
Again.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Again.
My wrists throb. My head aches. Sweat gathers at the back of my neck despite the cold room.
I keep trying.
Because Rhydan found me once.
Through green fire.
Through a suppression field.
Through iron designed to silence everything I am.
My Anchor found me.
So I will find him.
I wait until the green markings fade almost completely.
Then I reach one more time.
Not with words.
Not with panic.
With him.
Rhydan laughing quietly beneath me in a broken bed.
Rhydan bleeding in the snow.
Rhydan telling me to come back.
Rhydan saying I love you as though he had spent months fighting the words and finally realized he didn’t want to anymore.
Rhydan.
Something touches me.
I freeze.
It is so faint that if I hadn’t spent months learning every shift of the Bloodbound, I would miss it.
Not a voice.
Not a thought.
Warmth.
Distant.
Familiar.
Him.
My breath catches.
I reach instinctively.
The connection disappears.
The cuffs erupt green.
Pain tears through both arms so violently that I double over, teeth clamping together to keep the scream inside.
Then the light fades.
I sit there breathing hard, staring at the markings around my wrists.
My eyes burn.
And slowly, despite the pain, I smile.
Because I didn’t imagine it.
I know Rhydan.
I know the shape of his presence better than I know my own heartbeat.
Whatever these cuffs are doing, whatever the Nethren have placed between us, it isn’t enough.
Somewhere beyond these walls, beyond the mountains, beyond every piece of iron and green fire they’ve put between us, my Anchor is still there.
And now I know how to reach for him.
