Page 89 of Lost in Fire

“I felt your grief through our bond.” Her voice cracks like thin ice. “It nearly broke me. Standing in the shadows, watching you from a distance.”

My grief.The words don’t seem strong enough to encompass the anguish. The months spent barely functioning. The yearsspent moving through life like a ghost. The blade I held to my own throat one night before duty to our kind stopped me.

“Why didn’t you reach out?” The question isn’t accusatory—it’s raw need. “Let me know somehow?”

“I wanted to. God, Hargen, there were nights I almost—” She shakes her head, eyes bright with unshed tears. “But they were watching you too closely. Any contact would have exposed everything. Would have gotten both of us killed.”

I pull her back against me, needing the contact, needing to feel her solid and real in my arms. “How long were you hidden?”

“Five years. Cassia had safe houses, allies who could be trusted.” She relaxes into my embrace, her back against my chest, my arms encircling her waist. “When we found out I was pregnant, they closed ranks. Protected me.”

Pregnant.Our daughter growing inside her while her own family was ready to kill her. The miracle of Ember’s existence suddenly seems even more impossible.

“Motherfuckers,” I spit out, the fury suddenly overwhelming. My arms tighten around her protectively, decades too late.

The cell feels colder now, the shadows deeper. A guard passes outside, boots heavy on concrete. A reminder that our enemies still surround us, that dawn brings either salvation or death.

“The Syndicate wasn’t always like this,” she continues, her voice low enough that only I can hear her. “It began as protection for the clanless, the last of dying bloodlines. Dragons who’d lost everything and needed shelter.”

“What changed?” I press my lips to her temple, tasting salt and prison soap.

“Radical elements gradually took control. Purists led by families like the Vex.” Her fingers find mine, interlacing. “They dream of dragons ruling as they once did, no matter the cost to anyone else.”

Including their own people, apparently.

The thought must show on my face because she nods in grim agreement.

“The previous Shadowhand died under mysterious circumstances,” Vanya says, her tone suggesting those circumstances weren’t mysterious to her. “Cassia saw an opportunity.”

“She suggested you take the position?” I find myself tracing the outline of her spine through the thin fabric of her shirt.

“The Shadowhand conducts the most sensitive assignments for the Ivory League. It comes with autonomy, access to classified information.” A bitter smile curves her lips. “And the masks—the Ivory League’s signature—meant no one would know who I really was.”

The audacity takes my breath away. “You became the most vocally purist member to hide what you were really doing.”

“The safest place to hide was at the very top of the organization hunting us.” She turns in my arms, her eyes meeting mine with an intensity that burns. “For all these years, I’ve walked among the people who want me dead. Signed orders I hated. Watched atrocities I couldn’t prevent.”

Her hands come up to frame my face, fingers trembling slightly. “Do you understand what that does to someone, Hargen? How it hollows you out from the inside?”

“But you prevented others,” I say, catching her wrists gently. I can feel her pulse racing beneath my thumbs.

“Some. Not enough.” The weight of those years shows in her eyes, in the fine lines etched at their corners that weren’t there before. “Every compromise felt like losing another piece of myself. Until I wasn’t sure who was left beneath the mask.”

I understand that feeling. The slow erosion of principle in service to survival. The way you wake up one day to find yourself a stranger in your own skin.

A distant alarm sounds somewhere in the facility, then goes silent. We both tense, listening for approaching footsteps, for any sign our time has been cut short. Nothing comes.

“The Craven clan,” I say when the silence returns, the name landing between us with weight. “They’re a particular obsession for the Syndicate.”

“The Syndicate sees them as everything they hate. Dragons who’ve thrived by adapting instead of demanding submission.” She pauses, eyes darting to the door again. “They’re planning to seize Craven territory, eventually. After they deal with more immediate concerns.”

“I’ve met them recently.” I lift a hand to brush a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “They’re nothing like what the Syndicate believes.”

Her eyebrows lift, curiosity momentarily replacing the haunted look in her eyes. “Oh?”

“They’re building something sustainable. Community rather than empire.” I think of Viktor’s measured approach, his careful balance of idealism and pragmatism. The way he’s created a sanctuary for outcasts and misfits. “And the Aurora Collective operates differently than either the Syndicate or traditional clans.”

Something shifts in her expression. Hope, maybe. Or recognition of a possibility she’d never considered.

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