The Price of Protection

The door broke inward.

Aurelia stood behind a wall of shields, her spear leveled at Seraphine's throat.

"Evander. Come to me."

I stepped sideways, away from both women.

"I'm not a parcel. Stop telling me where to stand."

Aurelia's gaze flicked to the blood on Seraphine's gown.

"Did she hurt you?"

"He hurt me," Seraphine said. "You can put the spear down."

"Gladly. Through your heart."

Seraphine smiled without warmth.

The room's windows burst. Seawater pressed against the palace wards beyond them, held back by gold light. Soldiers braced themselves as the ancient dragon defenses awakened.

Nine spectral dragons curled around the chamber.

Their jaws opened together.

Seraphine lifted one hand.

Black fire struck the first dragon, passed through it, and caught the others along their joined magic. The gold shapes broke like glass. The shields flew backward, taking the soldiers with them.

I threw foxfire into the ceiling before the falling stone could crush a guard.

Seraphine glanced at me. Something almost tender crossed her face.

I hated that she found reassurance in a kindness that had nothing to do with her.

Aurelia remained standing, though blood ran from one ear.

"This palace shelters him," she said.

"Does it?" Seraphine asked. "Or does it keep your remedy close to the wound?"

Aurelia went still.

I looked between them.

"Explain."

Seraphine pointed her sword toward the floor.

"The prison reef is failing because the ancestral current is poisoned. A pure fox soul can absorb the blight and refine it. A marriage bond lets the dragons draw on that soul without breaking their own laws."

I remembered the warm broth, the offered space, the careful promise that no bed would be required.

"Is that true?" I asked Aurelia.

She did not answer quickly enough.

Seraphine laughed.

"There is your gentle rescuer."

"You don't get to enjoy this," I told her.

The laughter stopped.

Aurelia laid her spear down.

"It is true that your power could help the reef. It is not true that I intended to drain you to death. The bond could share the burden. My kingdom would protect you, and you would help protect it."

"You didn't tell me about my half."

"No."

I had heard that word too many times tonight.

"Why?"

"Because you were frightened, and I wanted you to see us as sanctuary before asking what you could give."

"So you planned to ask after I depended on you."

Her shoulders lowered.

"Yes. That was wrong."

The apology did not restore the open door she had promised. I saw the palace differently now: a beautiful room built around an expectation.

"Do you want me," I asked, "or the thing I can do?"

Aurelia's eyes filled, though she kept her voice steady.

"Both. I won't insult you by pretending the first desire arrived without the second."

Seraphine reached toward me.

I moved away before she could touch my sleeve.

"Neither of you gets to decide that an affection makes the rest acceptable."

A tremor rolled through the palace.

The ruined defenses had disturbed the reef. Black water rose beyond the broken windows, carrying dead fish and a smell of rust.

Aurelia turned toward her wounded soldiers.

"Evacuate the inner streets. Open the southern gates."

Seraphine looked down, measuring the depths beneath us.

"The old dragon source is still intact."

Aurelia seized her spear.

"You will not touch it."

"You were going to offer him a spoonful and charge him a lifetime."

"It holds the kingdom together."

"Then learn to hold your kingdom another way."

Seraphine vanished through the floor in black light.

I knelt beside a fallen guard, helping him free his leg from a broken bench. I could hear Aurelia ordering her people to brace the channels. The queen's power moved beneath us like a blade sawing through a root.

"Can you stop her?" Aurelia asked me.

I looked up.

"You overestimate my influence."

The ground split.

Seraphine rose carrying a blue sphere that contained something enormous folded into a small space. A dragon's ancient outline moved within it. Her arms were burned to the bone in places, though shadow already crawled over the wounds.

She held the sphere toward me.

My fifth seal strained open just from its presence.

"This can break the next barrier," she said.

"And what do you expect in return?"

Her mouth opened. Closed.

"Take it."

"That wasn't my question."

She looked at me for a long moment.

"I want you to stay. I know you won't promise. Take it anyway."

I examined the power. It carried a corrosive darkness beneath its clear surface.

"It would tear me apart."

"I'll take the backlash."

"Then explain how before you start."

She showed me where to guide the current, how to hold my soul apart from the blight while foxfire refined the source. For once, she waited while I considered it.

I wanted to live. I wanted enough power to stop fleeing every offered kindness.

I took the sphere.

Blue light entered my chest. Seraphine caught the poison streaming back through my hand, drawing it into herself. Her knees buckled. I kept working, turning the source within my fire, refusing to lose myself in its strength.

The fifth seal opened.

She fell against me, and I caught her because allowing her to hit the floor seemed needlessly cruel.

Her forehead touched my shoulder.

"Don't mistake this," I said.

"I won't."

But her fingers closed on my coat as though she already had.

A bell rang above the sea, deeper than the dragon bells.

White light descended through the water. Armored figures appeared beyond the broken windows, carrying blades that made my new power recoil.

Their commander unfolded a golden decree.

"By order of High King Alaric, the Shadow Queen and the foreign-blooded fox are condemned for violating the sovereign source."

His blade pointed at my heart.

"No sanctuary shall shelter them. No oath shall stay their execution."

Aurelia stepped in front of me.

Seraphine lifted her bloody head.

For the first time that night, they faced the same direction.