Chapter 182

Five days before Barnon descended into the ravine to confirm Elizabeth’s safety, there had been a conversation that would haunt him long after.

***

That day, Andrei was in a rare and vicious temper.

“Gods… it hurts like hell, brother,” he hissed, pressing a damp, chilled cloth to the hollow where his right eye used to be. His lips were cracked and bloodless from biting down on the pain, his voice hoarse and edged with frustration.

“It feels like someone’s still clawing at it,” he muttered, his words blurred by the tension in his jaw. “It’s been over a year since they carved it out, and still—damn it, it burns.”

“The physician has brewed a decoction from comfrey root and leaves,” Barnon began carefully. “Once it cools, you should—”

“Don’t bother,” Andrei cut him off. “It doesn’t do anything anymore. Maybe my body’s grown used to the poison.”

The truth was, Andrei had lost more than an eye and a leg.

During the fifteen days he was captured by the invading Ugel forces who stormed the Imperial Citadel, the barbarians had used every means imaginable to make him talk. Torture had been an art form to them—slow, methodical, and merciless. They poisoned his blood, broke his bones, burned his skin, and turned his insides into a battlefield.

He had escaped, yes—but survival was a relative thing. What remained of him was more ruin than man. The venom that had been forced into his body when they gouged out his right eye had long since become a death sentence.

If he had been treated immediately—if a healing mage had been present to draw out the poison before it settled—there might have been hope. But by the time Andrei severed the thorned vines that bound him and dragged himself from the Ugel stronghold, the damage was irreversible.

The magic he cast in desperation had only slowed the toxin’s spread through his veins. For months he had lived on borrowed time, feeding on what little energy his sister could share with him. But when Elise left for the front, even that fragile thread had begun to fray. Now, his strength waned by the day.

He exhaled slowly, the sound heavy, resigned. “It seems the time has come. I’ve cheated fate long enough. There’s no more running from it.”

“Don’t,” Barnon said sharply, his voice cracking with anger. “Don’t you dare talk like that. Elizabeth’s regaining her circuits. In a few days, she’ll have her full magic back. When she returns, she can heal—”

“I made a pact with a dragon,” Andrei interrupted.

Barnon blinked, uncomprehending. “What did you say?”

“If I die,” Andrei said quietly, “Sameshita will claim my body. And once that happens, it will fulfill the terms of our contract.”

“What are you saying?” Barnon’s voice rose, almost breaking. “You… you bartered your body to a dragon?”

“Not exactly.” Andrei’s tone remained calm, almost detached. “The trade was for something else. In exchange, I promised Sameshita what lies beneath the Citadel—the tombstone and relics of Gallian.”

At the heart of the Argane Citadel stood an ancient cathedral, built alongside the royal stronghold itself. Beneath its sanctum stretched a vast necropolis—the resting place of Argan’s emperors and empresses.

There lay the tomb of the First Emperor, Gallian the Founder, hero of the old age, whose legend had birthed a kingdom. Within the sealed catacombs rested more than royal bones: they housed the myths of Argan’s creation, the forbidden truths that underpinned the empire, and the ancient spellcraft the first emperor had learned directly from the dragons themselves.

The entrance was hidden beneath layers of enchantment, inaccessible even to those who knew it existed. The Ugels, for all their lust for power and magic, had never managed to breach it.

“So you offered up the tomb…” Barnon’s expression hardened. “Then what does it mean that Sameshita will ‘claim your body’?”

“It means that, whether I offer it or not, if a dragon covets a vessel, there’s little a man can do to resist,” Andrei said flatly. “Sameshita has taken a particular interest in Elizabeth and me.”

“Why?” Barnon demanded, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Because he sees the First Emperor in us,” Andrei answered with a bitter smile. “He believes Gallian was split in two and reborn.”

The notion of reincarnation was a hazy one in Grandel’s faith. The people believed the soul returned to the One God after death; there had never been divine scripture confirming any rebirth of mortal kind. But dragons—dragons believed differently. Or perhaps, Andrei thought with a trace of irony, they simply wanted to believe.

“Their fascination never changes,” he murmured. “All dragons care about is Gallian—their beloved disciple, their favored human. To them, he was the pinnacle of what mankind could be. I may bear his face, and Elise his power, but whether we’re his reincarnations or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that the wyrm believes it.”

Barnon’s jaw tightened. “Then what you’re saying is—”

“That when I die, my body won’t stay buried for long. Sameshita will take it. The dragon won’t allow the flesh it covets to rot in the ground. It would be the same for Elise, or even for her child. That’s why I have to die first—before he can take her.”

He spoke with terrifying composure. There was no tremor of fear in his voice, no trace of hesitation. He had already accepted it, as though death were an administrative matter he’d scheduled in advance.

Barnon’s chest ached. “You’re talking about the Great Dragon, Andrei. Sameshita isn’t a being you can reason with. You can’t possibly believe he’ll abide by your ‘terms’.”

Andrei’s lips curved faintly. “I know. Which is why I’ll still need Elise’s help.”

He wanted her to stay far from the battlefield, away from the reach of dragons and death alike. And yet, he needed her. For after he was gone, someone had to keep Sameshita’s promise from becoming a curse.

“She’ll have to be there,” he said, eyes distant. “Someone has to make sure the dragon honors the deal.”

“Make him honor it?” Barnon demanded. “How? What could she possibly—”

“And Rezette Kyrstan will have to help as well.”

At the mention of the name, Barnon’s stomach turned.

Andrei broke into a fit of coughing. Each breath sounded like fire tearing through his lungs. Blood spattered his palm, dark and viscous, and when he spoke again, his voice was a whisper.

“I only ever asked Sameshita for one thing. One spell.” His lips twitched into a grim smile. “I asked him for fire—a fire that would never die until its prey was nothing but ash.”

It was a cruel, merciless kind of magic. The flames of the abyss themselves, bound to his command. He spat a clot of blood to the side, wiped his mouth, and murmured, “Did you know? Our birthday is coming soon.”

Barnon stilled. The twins had been born in mid-February, on the cusp between winter and spring. Their twenty-third birthday was only days away.

“We used to celebrate it quietly, just the two of us,” Andrei said, a hint of nostalgia creeping into his voice. “Last year we couldn’t. We were too busy running.”

Barnon’s throat tightened. He said nothing.

“So perhaps,” Andrei continued, “if I won’t be around to see my nephew’s birth, I can at least send him a gift. A celebration of sorts.”

Barnon frowned. “What are you—”

Andrei raised a trembling hand, gesturing toward the door. “Go now, brother. If my sister comes back here, tell her one thing. Tell her, ‘Let’s light the candles.’ She’ll know what it means.”

***

“…That was our last conversation,” Barnon said finally, his voice raw. “When I returned to the Citadel after seeing you, he was already fading. Three days ago, he forbade anyone from entering his chambers. When the doors opened again, he was… gone.”

Elise didn’t answer. From the moment Barnon began to speak until the very end, she hadn’t moved, hadn’t turned. She stood by the open window, her gaze fixed on the horizon, her back rigid as carved stone.

No one had seen her brother’s final moments.

She drew a slow breath, her hand tightening against the sill. I won’t believe it, she thought fiercely. Not until I see him myself. Not until I see his body, cold and still.

For the past year, every step she had taken had been for him—for the brother she had once mourned and then discovered alive. She had crossed mountains, storms, and bloodied fields to find him. She would not lose him again to something as hollow as rumor.

If he truly was gone, she would find him, reclaim what was left, and only then let him rest.

Her palm pressed to her abdomen, where a faint ache lingered. Every year on our birthday, she thought. What did we always do?

Her memories unfurled like smoke.

Their birthdays had never been idle days. Andrei had always been the one running about, arranging everything in secret. Elise would lie in her chamber, listening to the muffled clatter of gifts being carried into the courtyard outside—boxes upon boxes sent from every corner of the realm, stacked so high they blocked the sunlight.

By the time midnight approached, he would appear—exhausted from the endless ceremonies of his own coronation day, yet grinning like a boy—with a cake in his hands.

“Happy birthday, sister!” he’d say, his voice bright despite the fatigue clinging to him.

He would set the cake down before her, produce a small box of matches, and smile. “Here. You light the candles.”

It was their ritual. She would strike the match, watch the tiny flame bloom, and he would lean forward to blow it out. The flickering light, the shared silence—it had been their one peaceful moment in a year drenched in duty.

Now, the memory burned in her mind like a brand. The candle… she thought. Light the candle.

Understanding hit her like lightning.

Riosa. The fortress at the top of the gorge—its towers reaching into the sky like the spires of a colossal cake, its banners streaming like ribbons. The castle itself was the candle, waiting to be lit.

He wants me to burn it, she realized. To set the flame, just as I always did.

It wasn’t a message of despair, but of purpose.

A birthday celebration, yes—but of a different kind. The kind that would turn the tide of war.

What do we celebrate with cake? she thought. Victory.

Her eyes hardened. The answer was as clear as his voice in her memory.

The annihilation of the enemy. Our triumph.

Her fingers curled into a fist. She knew now what her brother had asked of her. Sameshita had granted only one spell—one conflagration that would never die. It couldn’t distinguish friend from foe, couldn’t be bargained with or steered. It would burn until nothing was left.

But Elise didn’t need finesse. She needed only precision.

Just once. One perfect strike.

She would draw the enemy into the fortress—trap them within the stone belly of Riosa, where there would be no escape—and then she would ignite it.

A blaze so bright it would blind the heavens, a storm of fire that would devour everything the Ugels had ever touched.