Page 17 of Sereis
"Property," he said, and the word came out sharp enough to cut glass. "He dares—" He stopped himself, took a breath that seemed to pull all the warmth from the air. When he turned back to me, his expression was carved from glacier ice. "We have hours at most. Perhaps less."
"Hours until what?" But I already knew. Could feel it in the way my fingernails were turning blue, in the way each heartbeat felt sluggish and wrong.
"Until your human body fails completely." He returned to the bed, studying me with those impossible eyes that saw too much. "The transformation cannot wait for proper courtship or gentle acclimation. We must begin now, or—"
"Or I die." The words should have terrified me. Instead, they just felt inevitable, like a bill finally coming due. I'd escaped one prison only to find myself dying in another, more beautiful cage.
"Not die." His hand found my face through the blankets, thumb brushing my cheekbone with surprising gentleness."Never die. I would burn the realm to glass before allowing that. But Caelus will come for you, and if you're still human when he does, I won't be able to protect you. Dragon law is absolute—a human servant belongs to their master unless properly claimed by higher magic."
Higher magic.
Transformation.
The words spun in my cold-dulled mind, but I couldn't quite grasp their full meaning. All I knew was that I couldn't stop shaking, couldn't feel my feet, couldn't remember what warmth felt like.
"The Genesis Grotto," he said, standing with sudden decision. "It's the only place with enough concentrated power to ensure the transformation takes properly." He looked down at me, and for the first time since I'd known him, I saw genuine fear flicker across his features. "The process will be . . . intense. But I swear to you, little one, I will not let you suffer more than necessary."
Necessary suffering. The phrase would have made me laugh if I'd had the breath for it. My whole life had been necessary suffering—necessary to save the family business, necessary to pay debts, necessary to survive. What was one more necessary agony?
But through the bond, beneath his controlled exterior and clinical words, I felt something else. Possession, yes, but also desperate protection. Rage at Caelus for daring to claim me, but also self-directed fury for not anticipating this rejection of my mortality. And underneath it all, barely acknowledged, a tenderness that made my frozen heart skip a beat.
“Is this . . . what happened to Kara? Davoren’s mate?”
His eyes narrowed. “No. Our magic is different. All the dragon lords have their own secrets, their own ways. This—what’s happening to you—is uniquely yours.”
I didn’t know whether to be proud or scared.
"We must go now," he said, already moving to gather me up, blankets and all. "Every moment we delay, the cold gets deeper into your bones."
As if to emphasize his point, another violent shiver wracked my body, and I tasted copper in my mouth. When I touched my lips, my fingers came away spotted with blood.
He didn't ask permission before wrapping me in something heavy and soft—a blanket that smelled of lavender and snow, weighted in a way that pressed down on my panicked nerves like a firm hand. The pressure helped, somehow, made my racing thoughts slow just enough to process what he was saying as he tucked the fabric around me with swift, sure movements.
"From the nursery," he explained, though I hadn't asked. "For colicky drakelings. The weight soothes their nervous systems during growth spurts." His arms slid under me, lifting me against his chest like I weighed nothing at all. "It should help with the trembling."
It did help, but not enough. My legs shook violently despite the blanket's pressure, muscles seizing and releasing in waves I couldn't control. Each breath caught in my throat like I was drowning in reverse, the air too thick and thin all at once. When I tried to speak, to ask where exactly we were going, all that emerged was a whimper that would have embarrassed me if I'd had the energy for shame.
"Don't try to talk." He adjusted his grip, cradling me closer. "Save your strength."
Then he stepped through the wall.
Not around it, not toward a door I hadn't noticed—straight through solid stone like it was morning mist. The sensation of passing through matter made my stomach flip, reality bending in ways that hurt to perceive. On the other side, we stood in a corridor made entirely of ice so clear I could see other hallways above and below us, like being inside a frozen waterfall.
"Dimensional folding," he said, feeling my confusion through the bond. "The Frost Veil doesn't follow normal spatial rules. We're taking the direct route."
The direct route involved walking through three more walls, each transition making my vision blur and sparkle at the edges. One moment we were in the ice corridor, the next we stood on a bridge made of frozen light that hummed with power. I could see through it to a drop that seemed infinite, other bridges crisscrossing above and below us in patterns that made my eyes water to follow.
My breathing grew shallower with each impossible step he took. The cold had moved from my bones into my lungs, crystallizing there like frost on window panes. I could feel each breath getting smaller, less effective, my body forgetting how to process oxygen in this place that existed outside normal reality.
"Almost there," Sereis murmured, and I realized I'd been making small, hurt sounds with each exhale—little whimpers that escaped without my permission.
Another wall, this one rippling like vertical water. We passed through and the pressure changed so suddenly my ears popped painfully. The temperature dropped at least twenty degrees, which shouldn't have been possible given how cold I already was. But this cold was different—alive somehow, aware, testing me with invisible fingers that found every gap in the weighted blanket.
Then I saw it, and forgot how to breathe entirely.
The Genesis Grotto opened before us like a god's fever dream. The space was massive, carved or grown from black ice so pure it reflected everything in infinite iterations. But it was the ceiling that stole what little breath I had—a captured Aurora Borealis, trapped somehow in a dome of compressed magic. Sheets of green light rippled and danced, shot through with veins of electric purple and blue so vivid they hurt to look at. The colorsshifted constantly, casting everything below in waves of ethereal light that made the walls seem to breathe.
"The heart of the Frost Veil," Sereis said quietly, his voice echoing strangely in the vast space. "Where I first was born three thousand years ago."
