Page 35 of Sereis
"She survived Caelus's household," Sereis replied with a tone dry as winter wind. "That speaks to both her resilience and her intelligence."
Caelus actually laughed—a sound like wind chimes in a hurricane. "She was wasted as a servant. Too much fire in her for proper submission. Or ice, should I say? Better suited to standing beside a Dragon Lord than serving one."
The compliment was so unexpected I had to focus on not showing my shock. Caelus, who'd treated me like furniture that occasionally needed discipline, was acknowledging me as worthy of more?
"The point," Zephyron said, bringing them back to focus, "is that Solmar must be stopped. His network dismantled. His weapons destroyed or claimed. And it will take all of us working together—something that hasn't happened in five hundred years."
"Six hundred," Garruk corrected. "Not since the Meridian Uprising."
They all fell silent at that, remembering something I had no context for, some event that had required their combined might. The silence stretched until Kara broke it with practicality that cut through nostalgia.
"We know his routes now. His methods. His goals." She stood despite Davoren's protective gesture, her hand still on her belly but her spine straight with determination. "He wants to spark war between dragons and humans, to use that chaos to seize power. Instead, we give him the opposite—Dragon Lords united, working with bonded pairs to show that cooperation is possible."
"A public alliance," Morgrith mused, shadows gathering around him as he thought. "Visible, undeniable. Every human settlement would see that we stand together."
"And Solmar would see his life's work destroyed," Davoren added with deep satisfaction. "His revolution would die before it could properly begin."
"Then we're agreed?" Sereis asked, looking at each Dragon Lord in turn. "We stand together against this threat?"
One by one, they nodded. No formal oaths or blood pacts—when Dragon Lords gave their word, reality itself bore witness. The alliance was sealed by intention, by will, by the simple act of five beings who hadn't agreed on anything in centuries finding common cause.
Chapter 8
Thefrostpatternsonmy arms pulsed with their own light as I climbed the spiral stairs, each step taking me higher into the palace's rebuilt towers.
The destruction from the Dragon Lords' battle had forced the Frost Veil to remake itself, and in its rebirth, it had become something more—a living thing that breathed winter through corridors that shifted when no one was watching.
Three days since the alliance. Three days of tending Sereis while his shoulder healed from Kara’s spear, changing aurora-stained bandages that froze to my fingers, bringing him broths he pretended to drink for my sake. He'd been precise in his recovery, measuring each improvement against some internal schedule only he understood. This morning, he'd declared himself sufficiently healed. Tonight, the twin moons would go dark and our pact would finally be signed.
The dress whispered against my thighs with each step, white silk that Sereis had manifested from winter moonlight or some equally impossible source. It clung to my breasts and waistbefore flowing loose, the hem short enough that I felt every drift of cold air against my legs.
But I wasn't cold—couldn't be cold anymore, not with the transformation singing through my veins. The dress had been cut to display what I'd become: ice-blue patterns that had spread up my arms entirely, delicate as lace but raised slightly from the skin, creating natural armor that caught light and threw it back in rainbow refractions. The patterns had crept up my throat too, forming a living choker that pulsed with my heartbeat.
I'd left my hair loose because he'd asked me to. The weight of it down my back felt strange after months of severe braids, years of binding it for service. Vulnerable, like I'd removed armor I hadn't known I was wearing. The aurora threads that had appeared after my first transformation caught the palace's inner light, making my dark hair shimmer with colors that shouldn't exist.
The chamber door was already open when I reached it—of course it was. Sereis never made me knock, never required the formality of entrance. I was expected, awaited, wanted. The knowledge sent warmth pooling low in my belly despite everything else we had to accomplish tonight.
He'd transformed the space with obsessive precision. Arctic fox furs covered the floor so thick my bare feet sank into them, each pelt perfectly white, perfectly placed to create a sea of warmth that contradicted the ice walls. Cushions that I recognized as temperature-responsive were arranged in careful clusters. They'd adjust to whoever sat on them, becoming exactly as warm or cool as the body required.
At the chamber's heart sat a low table of black ice that would never melt, carved with patterns so intricate they hurt to follow with human eyes. The star-light from above—the chamber had been positioned to have a perfect view through a ceiling of clear ice—made the table's surface gleam like frozen void.
But it was what rested on that table that stole my breath.
The contract wasn't parchment. The dragon vellum was translucent, letting candlelight pass through it like stained glass, creating patterns on the furs that shifted with each flicker of flame. I knew without being told that this was wing membrane, preserved and prepared through methods that probably required centuries of knowledge. An ancient dragon had gifted this for exactly such purposes—the binding of souls across species, the creation of bonds that transcended mortal understanding.
Beside it sat the ink, silver-white in a crystal vessel that looked carved from a single frozen star. Not ink at all, I realized, but Sereis's own scales ground to powder and mixed with liquid starlight. The combination glowed with its own light, swirling in the vessel though nothing stirred it.
"You came," Sereis said from where he stood by the window, his back to me as he watched the moons' progression. He wore white robes that matched my dress, the fabric flowing like water over his lean frame. His white hair was bound in a simple tail that left the elegant line of his neck exposed.
"Did you think I wouldn't?" I moved into the room, letting the door seal behind me with a whisper of ice meeting ice.
"I thought you might reconsider." He turned finally, and his eyes—those pale depths that held winter itself—tracked over me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "Now that you understand what this means. What you're binding yourself to. A Dragon Lord who hoards control like others hoard gold. Who will dictate your bedtimes and meals, who will discipline you for disobedience, who will never let you go."
The words should have been a warning. Instead, they sounded like promises.
"I know who you are," I said, moving closer until only the table separated us. "I've tended your wounds, heard your silences, feltyour need for control that comes from centuries of everything being out of control. I know you, Sereis. And I still came."
Something shifted in his expression—surprise, perhaps, or recognition. He moved around the table with that liquid grace that marked him as never fully human, stopping close enough that I could feel the cold radiating from his skin. Not unpleasant cold anymore, not since my transformation. Just the presence of winter, eternal and patient.
