Page 171 of The Bond That Burns

Kage turned his head and I shivered. The wolf’s pale eyes shone with fury. Then he growled—and I knew he’d understood.

I turned and sprinted towards Lunaya who was standing frozen where Marcus had left her. I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away. “Come on. You don’t have to stay here.”

Slowly, she met my gaze. But her eyes were cold and distant.

“Lunaya, please,” I urged. “Let’s get you back to your brother.”

Without a word, she jerked her arm free and ran—not out of the courtyard towards safety but over to the golden dragon of stone at the edge of the court.

I froze for a split second before following her.

As I came around the statue, my stomach dropped.

Catherine Mortis stood there. She had one hand pressed against the dragon’s flank, her fingers smeared with blood. Her lips moved silently, chanting words too quietly for me to make out.

Her eyes snapped open as I approached and I shivered. They were filled with something I’d only ever thought I'd see in my uncle’s–a righteous zeal. “You’re too late,” she crowed, sounding gleeful and triumphant.

Catherine grabbed Lunaya, pulling her close. Then, with a quick motion she lifted a knife and ran the blade over Lunaya’s hand. As blood welled up from the cut, Catherine shoved the girl’s hand against the stone dragon’s flank.

“Blood of a rider, blood of a master,” the House Mortis leader chanted. “Blood of a rider, blood of a master. Let them be one. Blood of a rider, blood of a master. Bound by blood, rise to serve.”

I fell back as the air around the two women seemed to shimmer and split with heat. The stone scales covering the golden dragon began to crack and splinter, revealing something that looked like tarnished gold beneath.

I was reliving the nightmare of Nyxaris’s awakening. Stones began to rain down around me, each fragment falling with a baleful hiss, like the sounds of a trapped, angry spirit.

“Catherine, stop this!” I shouted, taking another step forward and stumbling as the courtyard shook. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

The Mortis leader’s eye snapped to mine, alight with fervent determination. “I know exactly what I’m doing, Drakharrow. You just aren’t going to like it very much.”

My gaze shifted to Lunaya. Her face was pale, her face twisted as if with pain. But she stayed where Catherine was holding her hand to the dragon’s side, not even trying to resist.

“Lunaya, fight her! You don’t have to do this!” I tried to press forward, to get to her, but the stones of the courtyard were shaking. I swayed as beside me, the Luminthar of House Orphos began to stir.

I looked up at the golden creature as her head shifted, sending chunks of crumbling marble cascading to the ground. The dragon’s once-regal features were emerging from beneath the stone. But something was wrong. They were twisted and misshapen—a cruel parody of the wisdom and serenity she had once been known for. Her scales, which should have been bright and golden, were tarnished and uneven, too–streaked with sickly black veins that pulsed like a corrupt infection. Her jaws parted, unleashing a sound harsh and guttural, nothing like Nyxaris’s glorious, terrifying roar.

My heart twisted. This wasn’t Molindra. Not as she had been. This was a perversion. A monstrosity.

Catherine and Marcus weren’t just using blood magic to bring the dragon back. They were using necromancy.

The Luminthar’s eyes opened and her head swiveled towards me, her eyes unfocused and full of rage. For a moment, I froze. Then Molindra’s gaze swept past me.

I turned to see Marcus and Kage in the center of the courtyard. The wolf’s snowy fur was streaked with crimson as he lunged and snapped, forcing Marcus to dodge and stumble. My brother had blood running down his temple and across his jaw. His once-pristine black and red armor was now ripped and smeared with dirt. He’d regained his crossbow but couldn’t seem to aim it quickly enough to shoot the wolf.

Tanaka snarled, circling him, claws scraping, teeth bared.

As they fought, something about the way Marcus moved—his stance, the way he dodged the wolf’s snarling jaws—triggered a memory. Recognition struck. My breath caught as fragments of the day of the carriage attack rushed back. One of the attackers had moved just as Marcus was moving now.

It had been Marcus all along. He and Catherine must have staged the attack. Not Viktor. Not a rival from another house. Them.

I felt sick as it all came together. That was how Catherine was doing it.Pendragon’s blood was the key. They’d gotten it from the knife she’d been stabbed with that day. They hadn’t been trying to kill her—though I was sure they wouldn’t have minded if she’d died. What they’d been after was her blood. Blended with Lunaya’s Orphos blood it had allowed them to somehow bring the Luminthar back to a semblance of life.

But they still didn’t have a dragon rider. They couldn’t control Molindra. My heart sank. Or could they? If Molindra wasn’t truly alive but simply...reanimated... then could Catherine control her with necromancy?

Why awaken Molindra at all? Why not the Drakharrow Inferni? Or House Mortis’s own Silvrayne?

I thought of Lunaya. She was soft, pliable, easy to control. She’d been susceptible to Marcus’s seduction. No doubt he’d begun to control her with sanguimancy early on. If Marcus and Catherine weren’t using their own house dragons there had to be a reason. And I knew it couldn’t be a good one.

I started to move towards Tanaka to support him, but movement from the gold dragon made me pause. Molindra’s immense headbegan to lower, and I realized with a jolt what Catherine must be commanding her to do.

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