Page 7 of Sereis
"My lord—"
"No." The word rumbled through him, and suddenly he was more dragon than man, wings that were barely there wrapping around me. "Not here. Here, you call me—"
The name he gave me turned to starlight in my mouth, too beautiful and terrible to hold. I tried to say it back to him, but it came out as a moan that should have embarrassed me. Instead, it made him smile—such a small thing, but it transformed his face entirely. The ice melted to reveal warmth underneath, centuries of loneliness cracking apart.
He pressed me back against something—a wall, a tree, a sculpture, I couldn't tell and didn't care. His body covered mine, all that controlled stillness finally breaking into movement. His mouth found my throat where the collar had been, and the sensation—ice and fire, pleasure and sweet ache—made me arch against him.
"I've been waiting," he whispered against my skin, and frost patterns bloomed everywhere he touched. My arms, my chest, down my stomach. "So long. Searching the wrong places, the wrong ways. And you were there, hidden in plain sight, burning yourself away to keep others warm."
My hands tangled in his hair—black or white, I couldn't tell anymore. Everything was shifting, changing, becoming. He touched me like I was precious, like I was powerful, like I was his and he was mine and the ancient laws of the universe had written it in stone and starlight.
"Come to me," he said, or maybe I said it, or maybe we both did. The garden around us turned to bedroom turned to skyturned to the heart of winter itself. "When this ends. When the accusations are settled. Come to me."
I woke gasping, my body aching with need I'd never felt before. Sweat soaked through my thin shift, but I was shivering like I'd been touched by winter. Between my thighs, wetness that should shame me.
But I didn’t feel ashamed.
I felt alive.
Chapter 2
Thebellscamebeforedawn, bronze voices that shook volcanic glass and turned my dream-drunk body to ice. Not the gentle chimes that summoned us to daily service back at the Drift-Cloud Monastery, but a deep, grinding toll that hadn't sounded in living memory—the Judgment Bells, calling every soul in the Conclave to witness what came next.
"Get up, get up!" Tam's hands shook me properly awake, though I'd already started moving, my body responding to those bells with instinct older than thought. "Tribunal summons. Everyone. Now."
Around us, servants scrambled in controlled panic, pulling on formal serving clothes with trembling fingers. The girl I'd given my food to yesterday pressed herself against the wall, eyes wide with terror she didn't understand.
I understood. My grandmother had told me stories of the last Tribunal—stories that her grandmother had told her—of how a Dragon Lord had been executed for breaking the ancient laws. How his screams had echoed for three days as he burned from the inside out.
The tunnels to the Tribunal Hall were meant to humble us further—so narrow we had to walk single file, so low that even I had to duck in places. The volcanic stone pressed in from all sides, still warm from yesterday's heat, making every breath taste of sulfur. Ahead of me, Tam's shoulders barely fit through the passage. Behind me, someone was crying, trying to muffle the sound.
We emerged behind mesh screens, woven metal so fine it turned us into shadows. We could see out—had to see out, to serve properly—but to those in the hall proper, we were nothing. Less than furniture. Exactly as intended.
The Tribunal Hall stole what little breath I had left.
It was carved directly into the extinct volcano's heart, a perfect sphere of space that shouldn't have been possible. The walls curved up and around us, polished to mirror-black, reflecting the seven thrones arranged in judgment formation below. Each throne was carved from a single piece of volcanic stone, sized for beings who could be human or dragon as they chose. The center of the floor held a raised platform of white crystal that seemed to glow with its own cold light—where the accused would stand.
But no-one was there.
All the dragon masters sat in their thrones, which meant—
"Davoren hasn't formally declared," Tam whispered, reading my thoughts. "He's making everyone wait."
Through the mesh, I watched Sereis. He was motionless. Not a shift of weight, not a turn of his head. He might have been carved from winter itself, white robes pooling around him like frozen water, those pale eyes focused on nothing.
Or everything.
Even from behind the screen, even with the distance between us, I felt the echo of last night's dream. The frost patterns on my skin that weren't really there. The weight of his attention that had seen too much, known too much, wanted—
"Truth-wine," Tam hissed, shoving a pitcher into my hands. The metal burned cold, enchanted to keep the wine at the exact temperature that revealed lies. "Pattern Twelve, the Spiral of Judgment. No variations, no matter what Caelus says."
My hands knew the motion even as my mind reeled. Truth-wine was different from ceremonial wine—older, more dangerous. The stories said it burned liars from the inside, turned their words to ash in their mouths. Three drops could kill a human who spoke false.
We wouldn't be drinking it. But we'd pour it, and if we spilled even a drop on someone who then lied . . .
The other Dragon Lords began arriving.
Davoren entered like a wildfire given form, the air around him shimmering with heat waves that made the mesh screens ping and pop. Kara walked beside him—not behind, never behind—and I noticed how her hand rested on her stomach now, protective. Her pregnancy showed more in how she moved than in her body yet, each step careful, deliberate. The golden marks on her skin pulsed in rhythm with Davoren's breathing, and when she sat—in a chair beside his throne, not at his feet—she positioned herself so she could see every entrance.
