"Where is the girl?" Aldric set a tray of vials on the war chamber table. "She has missed both of her healing tonics today."

Sterling did not look up from the map he was annotating. "Since when did she require healing tonics?"

"Since the dark magic, Sterling. Blair too. Tissue damage from the dark magic extraction."

Sterling continued writing.

Blair entered next, her boots sharp on the stone. "Where is Gwen? I have been looking for her since this morning. Her chambers are empty. The training field is empty. Ryker’s quarters are empty, which I checked out of sheer desperation, and I am now standing in the war chamber asking the Third of Drakencrest where my brother’s wife is, which should concern everyone in this room."

Sterling set his pen down. He looked at Aldric. Then at Blair.

"She is merging with Maddox’s flame today." He delivered the information with the emotional weight of a weather report.

The silence that followed had texture.

Aldric’s hand opened. The glass vial of Gwen’s tonic slipped from his fingers and shattered on the stone floor. Green liquid pooled around his boots. He did not look down.

"She is what."

"You heard me."

Aldric’s voice dropped to a register Sterling had never heard from him. "You do realize that there is no surviving female in forty years."

Sterling considered that. Then shrugged. One shoulder. Minimal effort. "She carries more than dragon blood."

"How long has she been gone?" Aldric’s voice was climbing.

"Since yesterday."

Blair’s hand went to the bridge of her nose. She pressed hard enough to leave a mark. Her gold eyes, identical to her brother’s, burned with a fury that was half terror.

"Sterling. I swear to every god we have. If she is dead." Blair’s voice was low and even and carried more threat per syllable than Ryker at his worst. "When Maddox comes back, every ounce of blame lands on you."

Sterling stood, and rolled his eyes. He rolled the map unhurried.

"I will go check on her." He tucked the map under his arm. "Everyone in this room needs to relax."

✦✦✦

On the mountain, the dark mage materialized beside Kael in a whisper of black smoke.

He reached for the girl.

Kael’s hand caught his wrist before the fingers made contact. The grip was fast enough to blur. The dark mage froze. His hooded face turned toward Kael slowly.

"No." One word. Quiet. Final.

The dark mage withdrew his hand. Kael released the wrist without looking at him. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

He bent and picked Gwen up off the snow. One arm under her knees, the other behind her back, forehead in the crook of his neck. The motion carried a familiarity that should not have existed between a man and a woman who had met twice under violent circumstances.

More heat poured into him through the contact, and his body absorbed it with effortless recognition. The same that had shattered his composure sixty seconds ago.

Her breathing steadied and muscles unclenched by degrees.

Even barely conscious, her wolf bristled at the wrongness of it, at the fact that relief was coming from hands that had choked her in a forest. She tried to pull away, a small, weak motion that moved nothing.

"Really? You want me to put you down," Kael said flatly.

Her eyes were too heavy. The relief was too total. The tipping point between consciousness and unconsciousness had been the burning, and now the burning was leaving, and her body surrendered to the absence of pain with the gratitude of a system that had been pushed past every limit it had.

She went under.

Kael looked down at her.

"Much easier when she is unconscious."

His dark mage said nothing. The man had survived twelve years in Kael’s service by knowing exactly when silence was the only correct response.

A shadow passed over the snow. Wings. Large. The ground shook when the dragon landed, and boots hit the snowfield two seconds later.

Tormund Embervale stood in the snow.

"Kael Ashenvale." The old man’s voice carried across the snow without effort. "Never thought I would see you on my mountain again. The last time you were here, you had manners and a pulse. One of those seems to have survived."

Kael’s expression did not change. "Old man. You are still alive. I assumed the volcano would have swallowed you by now."

"The volcano likes me. I feed it the occasional prince who disappoints me."

Kael lifted his free hand, the one not holding Gwen, palm out. Bored. Swatting a fly. Black fire erupted from his palm.

It crossed the distance between them in a stream of dark flame that turned the snow to steam and the air to ash. Tormund planted his feet. Green flame roared from both of his hands, meeting the black fire at the midpoint between them. The collision shook the mountain. Snow cracked and slid from the ledges above.

The two pillars of fire, black and green, ground against each other with a sound like tearing metal.

In his arms, Gwen stiffened.

The heat that had been flowing out of her and into him stopped. The Drakencrest flame inside her recoiled from his dark fire so violently that it reversed direction, slamming back into her body in a wave that made her whimper even unconscious. Her back arched against his arms.

Kael looked down.

His palm was still extended and black fire was still pouring towards Tormund’s green pillar. But his eyes were on the girl he was holding, on the gold light that had just rejected him the moment his dark magic surfaced.

His jaw shifted.

"You are lucky I am in a generous mood."

The fire in his palm changed.

Black bled to gold. The dark flame peeled away and the Drakencrest family fire replaced it, pushing Tormund’s back three feet. The old man’s boots slid in the snow. His teeth bared.

The gold flame inside Gwen settled. The recoil eased. The heat resumed its flow out of her and into Kael, steady and willing, as if the interruption had never happened.

The dark mage opened a portal behind him. The gold fire extinguished. His hand lowered.

Black edges. Swirling dark. The same doorway he had used to escape the throne room eight days ago with the blood of eight elders still drying on the floor.

Kael carried Gwen towards it.

Sterling landed on the mountain with a thud.

"Drop her."

"How about no."

Sterling moved in a blur. Kael was faster.

He was through the portal with Gwen in his arms before Sterling knew what happened.

The dark closed behind him.

"MOTHERFUCKER."