Page 126 of The Bond That Burns

A muffled yip cut through the silence.

I followed the noise towards a bookshelf that lined the far wall, a monolithic slab crammed full of stacks of ancient scrolls. Neville’s yip came again. It was coming from behind the shelf.

I peered behind the bookshelf and saw it. A narrow opening, just wide enough for the fluffin to have slipped through. I grabbed the edge of the shelf and pulled. The opening grew wider.

Then I spotted it. I crouched down. “Clever little bastard.”

A tiny latch, hidden low to the ground and nearly invisible beneath a layer of dust. The fluffin must have brushed against it and accidentally opened up the panel.

Neville appeared in the passage, giving a soft, triumphant bark.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t try to tell me you did that on purpose. You were stuck, weren’t you?”

I ducked through the opening, making sure to leave the gap behind me wide enough for Neville to slip out when he wanted to, and stepped into a hidden room, only large enough for a desk and chair and a single floor-to-ceiling bookshelf along the opposite wall. I hurriedly lit the lamp that sat on the desk and the room burst into light. It looked as if someone had used the space fairly recently.

Two books lay on top of the desk. I reached for the first one, my heart pounding a little harder than I’d have liked to admit.

Bound in Blood and Flameread the title. It seemed to have been written by a House Drakharrow historian.

Suddenly grateful that my father had made us learn Classical Sangrathan, I scanned the first page. The faded ink and archaic script made for slow going, but the contents were immediately promising.

The power of the dragon is not limited to flesh but rather is woven into the very...The ink was smudged. I frowned, straining to make sense of the next word. Bloodline? Spirit? Both seemed plausible.

I turned the page, only to find it jagged at the edges, the paper violently torn away. I flipped forward. Another page missing. Then another. My heart sank. Entire sections had been excised,leaving only uneven scars where the answers I sought should have been.

Neville was sniffing around a corner of the shelves. Now he let out a cheerful bark and wagged his fluffy tail as if to say, “All good here!”

“Yeah, thanks, Nev,” I said bitterly. “Glad at least one of us is having a good time.”

The fluffin bounded up onto the desk and sat down. I gave him a half-hearted smile as I turned the page, finding little more than scattered words and fragmented phrases.

...flesh and flame intertwined...

...the blood must remain unbroken...

...bond is the dragon’s curse or its salvation...

That was it. No context, no explanation. Just maddening little hints.

“This doesn’t tell me anything,” I muttered. “Nothing useful. Nothing I couldn’t have guessed already.”

I pulled out the wooden chair and sank into it, forcing myself to take slow, steady breaths. But it didn’t help. My mind was a pounding hailstorm. Nothing I’d read had served to reassure me. There was no denying something was happening to me. But whether it was a curse or a gift, I had no way of knowing. I felt more terrified now than ever.

Neville nudged the book with his nose, his tail swishing across the desk. I gave him a wry smile. “You want me to read it to you? Do you understand Classical Sangrathan? Maybe you’ll make more sense of it than I can.”

I looked down at the desk, my gaze drifting to the second book. I picked it up. The leather-bound tome seemed innocuous enough. Then I opened it. The handwriting was small, precise—and startlingly familiar.

I was holding one of Viktor Drakharrow’s diaries.

I looked around the room, half-expecting my uncle to materialize from the shadows. Neville had jumped down off the table and was patrolling the room again, as if resuming his guard.

I turned my attention back to the diary, forcing myself to focus.

As I read, the familiar story of the Dragon Wars unraveled before me. Not as a blood conflict between the great houses—but as something far darker.

The wars hadn’t just been a civil conflict. They’d been a rebellion. A dragon uprising.

Some dragons had wanted more power. Others had been pushed too far by the highbloods’ brutality—towards blightborn, towards the dragons, towards each other.

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