Dawn's Reckoning
The bloodred sun climbed above Blackspire, setting long shadows in the broken walls. There was still smoke curling from the gatehouse where Kaelen's sword had bitten dragonfire.
Lioran had not rested.
He stood where he'd stood all night—on top of the tower, gazing out over the duke's camp spread across the valley like a plague. Thousands of cookfires twinkled in the predawn gloom. The stag banners dangled limp in the stagnant air, waiting.
Kyrris curled at his feet, gasping shallowly, each breath flavored with blood. The dragon's wing dangled crookedly where Kaelen's steel had bitten so deeply. Lioran's own hands were bound in charred cloth, the flesh beneath raw from brushing against the knight's blade.
Pain was becoming familiar. Almost comfortable.
The ember throbbed in his chest—not anymore with the same burning urgency, but with a deep, satisfied heat. Like a beast after feeding.
You held, it breathed. They crashed against you like waves on rock.
But gray eyes in Lioran's face never left the valley. He'd held, yes. But at what price?
Footsteps crunched on stone behind him. He didn't move.
"Forty-three dead," Renn's voice had come, his throat raw from smoke and bellowing. "A dozen more won't make tomorrow. The north wall's fractured through. One more attack like yesterday and—"
"And we'll burn them again," Lioran said softly.
Renn fell quiet. When he spoke, his voice held something Lioran had never heard before. Doubt.
"Will we? They retreated because night fell, not because we won. The priests did little more than go through the motions. Kaelen was pushing us. Pushing you." He paused.
Pushing you.
Lioran's jaw clenched. "Then let him test. Fire does not tire."
"But you do." Renn stepped closer, speaking softly. "I saw you stumble. I saw blood on your lips. The ember—it's burning you from the inside out, isn't it?"
Lioran fell silent for a moment. Then: "What would you have me do? Surrender? Kneel?"
"I'd have you live," Renn said. "What's the use of fire if the one who holds it burns to ash?"
.
The Council of Wolves
Down in the trashed hall, the Flamebound assembled. What had been sixty bandits was now fewer than thirty. They sat there in silence, dressing wounds, honing swords that would not protect them.
Mira worked her way through them with water and cloth strips. Her hands never ceased to tremble, but she worked in grim efficiency. When she knelt over a young man whose face was half-burned, he clutched her wrist.
"Will he rescue us?" the man croaked. "Your son—will he rescue us again?"
Mira gazed at his battered face and was speechless. She tugged her hand away and approached the next injured man.
The scarred outlaw—or, at least, what was left of him—had left a void that rang out more loudly than his betrayal. The Flamebound understood what became of skeptics. They had witnessed the fire that responded to queries.
But fear, once sown, took root.
A man rose on his feet. "I signed up to fight, not die for one boy's vendetta against dukes."
Others rose too. A woman with a bandaged arm said: "We swore to fire, not suicide."
"Then leave." The voice belonged to the doorway.
Lioran came down the stairs, every step purposeful. Kyrris limped after him, golden eyes flashing in the dark. The dragon was smaller, somehow, shrunk by hurt, but no less fearsome.
"The gate is broken," Lioran went on, his tone not bitter—only icy conviction. "Walk through it. The duke will provide you with swift deaths. Swift than starving. Swift than waiting for me to incinerate you for cowardice."
The man who'd spoken swallowed hard. "I didn't mean—"
"You meant exactly what you said." Lioran halted before him. "Fear is honest. I value that more than broken oaths. So choose now. All of you. Remain and burn with me, or go and burn without me. Either way, you burn."
The ember throbbed, and for a moment his eyes glowed like coals.
"But remember this: the duke doesn't coddle wolves who've bitten his blood. He'll make an example of you. He'll hang you from trees and allow the crows to peck at your bones while you're still alive. I've witnessed it."
The silence hung.
Then Renn moved forward. "I remain." His voice broke but remained firm. "Fire made me more than I was. I won't turn back into nothing."
One by one, grudgingly, the others bowed their heads.
The first man slumped back down. "Flamebound," he breathed, as if in prayer or curse.
.
Mira's Truth wasn't over yet.
Later, after the rest had split up, Mira cornered Lioran in the tower.
"You're killing them," she told him flatly.
He turned to her, and she could see it now—her son was lost. The gray eyes that looked back at her held no heat, no knowledge of the woman who gave him birth. Only calculation.
"They're already dead," he said. "I'm just deciding how they die. With intent, or like cattle."
"Listen to yourself!" She was crying. "You sound just like the warlords I ran from. The dragon riders who torched my village when I was a child. You're becoming what you set out to destroy."
Something flashed in his eyes. Memory? Remorse?
"Those riders," he said deliberately, "were they in the right to burn your village?"
Mira flinched as if struck. "How can you—"
"Answer me. Were they right?"
"No! They were monsters!"
"Why?" He moved in closer. "Because they were powerful and you weren't? Because they decided who lived and died?" His voice went to a whisper. "Or because no one could interfere with them?"
Tears streamed down her grime-stained face. "Because they felt nothing. Because there was no mercy in them, no humanity left."
Lioran kept his eyes on hers. For the instant, she could see her son once more—the boy who had run after chickens, the boy who had laughed in sunlight.
Then the ember flared and he turned aside.
"Mercy is a luxury, Mother. One I must not afford."
He stepped past her towards the parapet, where morning broke full now over the valley.
Mira stood there, watching him disappear from sight, her heart shattering all over again. "Then I've lost you," she said softly to his receding back.
He halted. Did not turn.
"You lost me when I burned," he informed her. "You just haven't yet accepted the ashes."
.
The Duke's Offer
As the sun rose higher in the sky, a horn blew from the valley. Not a war horn—a parley.
One lone rider came beneath a white pennant. Not Kaelen, this time, but a herald in unblemished armor, untainted by yesterday's flames.
Lioran greeted him at the shattered gate, Kyrris standing behind like a storm given form.
The herald's horse wouldn't come closer. The man climbed down, leading the last yards on foot, and Lioran saw with grim satisfaction how his hands shook.
"Yield yourself and the beast," the herald cried. "Your people are released—he swears it on the stag's honor."
"The stag has no honor," Lioran said. "Hunger only."
"Then he offers this: single combat. You and Ser Kaelen. You have your choice—he and his army withdraw if you conquer. If you are defeated—" The herald swallowed. "—the Flamebound burn."
Lioran stood in silence, listening to the murmurs behind him. Hope, and hope was a desperate thing.
He examined the herald's face, reading honesty there. The duke was not patient. Siege over long periods of time cost men and gold. But something more—Rhaemond desired spectacle. Desired the kingdom to witness the Dragon Lord publicly defeated.
Lioran's smile was sharp as shattered glass.
"I tell my duke I accept. But not Kaelen." He spoke loudly so it rang out over the valley. "Tell him if he wishes to take my head, he should come and do it himself. Or does the stag use his champion as a shield?"
The herald paled. "My lord, the duke doesn't—"
"We have nothing to speak of, then."
Lioran turned and dismissed him.
As the herald ran away, Renn materialized at his shoulder. "You can't really fight the duke. He'll have guards, illusions—"
"I won't have to," Lioran said softly, following the rider into the camp. "I just needed to decline his terms in front of his men. Now his soldiers will tell each other that their duke is afraid of a child. Fear catches fire faster than fire."
He glanced down at his wrapped hands, then at Kyrris's destroyed wing
"Besides," he said, softer now, "I don't know that I could defeat Kaelen. Not as I stand."
It was the first sincere acknowledgment of vulnerability he'd ever made.
And it frightened him more than any army.