Page 71 of Heartflame

My heart felt like it stopped beating. All around me the room began to sway as panic filled me from head to toe. Ringing filled my ears and my stomach turned over. For a brief moment, I thought I was going to be sick.

“I’ll… I’ll never…” I began, gasping for air.

“Yes you will,” Thaddeus nodded, his fangs gleaming. “Whether you want to or not.”

“There is no amount of magic⁠—”

“Oh please,” he laughed, his voice cutting me off. “You can make all the empty threats you want, but I know the truth.” He stepped past Aeron chained to the floor and over to me. He towered over me, his horns backlit by the chandelier high above. “You are nothing. You come from a witch family that can barely light a candle without a match. The greatest thing your parents have ever done in their lives is pay their mortgage.” He leaned in closer. “You do not scare me, Quill Aster. You don’t scare anyone.”

I wanted to scream that he was wrong, that I wasn’t nothing. But the words wouldn’t come. My throat had closed up, and all I could do was stare up at him, at those golden eyes that were so much like Aeron’s and yet held none of the warmth I’d seen there.

Behind me, Aeron let out a sound I’d never heard from him before, something raw and broken that didn’t belong in a throat that could roar loud enough to shake stone. The chains rattled as he thrashed, and I felt more than saw the witches step back, giving him a wider berth even bound as he was.

“You son of a bitch,” I heard him choke out, the words distorted by the metal crushing his jaw. “You’re my grandfather. You raised me. You told me… you told me family meant everything⁠—”

“And it does,” Thaddeus said, not even bothering to look at him. His attention was fixed entirely on me, studying me the way someone might study an insect they were deciding whether or not to squash. “Which is precisely why this will work so beautifully. The whole paranormal world already believes deep down that witches and monsters can’t coexist without disaster. A little push in the right direction, and they’ll believe it with their whole hearts. Out loud. Forever.”

“You’re insane,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “You’re going to kill your own grandson to prove a point?”

“I’m going to save our world,” he corrected, something like genuine passion flickering across his features for the first time. “Do you have any idea how many centuries witches and monsters have been clawing at each other, pretending at peace while resentment festers underneath? The Elder Council is weak. Divided. They’ll never make the hard choices necessary to keep our kind safe. But show them their precious mixed-species academy burning. Show them a Pyre heir murdered by the very witch he loved. They’ll beg me to separate us. They’ll thank me for it.”

Morgana laughed softly from where she stood, and the sound made my skin crawl. “He does love a dramatic flourish, doesn’t he?”

“I won’t do it,” I said again, forcing steel into my voice even though my whole body was shaking. “You can’t make me hurt him.”

“Oh, Quill.” Thaddeus almost sounded sad, like he pitied me. “I’m not going to make you do anything. You misunderstand the plan entirely.” He reached out, and before I could flinch away, his clawed fingers closed around my chin, tilting my face up toward his. “Aeron is going to die tonight. That much isn’t negotiable. But how the world sees it happen, well. That’s where you come in.”

Ice flooded through my veins. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t need you to swing the blade of your own volition,” he said, releasing my chin with something like distaste, like touching me had dirtied his fingers. “I’ll just kill you and bring you back to life. Fresh undead are almost impossible to distinguish from the living. When you cut Aeron down, the whole world will believe you did it without question, without hesitation, and without any interference from me.”

I looked past him to Aeron, chained and bleeding on the marble floor, his golden eyes wide with horror, with grief, with something that looked terrifyingly like resignation. He wasn’t looking at his grandfather anymore. He was looking at me.

“Red,” he rasped, the chains distorting his voice into something broken. “Whatever happens—whatever they do—I need you to know that none of this is your fault. Do you hear me? None of it.”

“Don’t,” I begged, tears burning hot down my face. “Don’t talk like that. We’re getting out of here. We are.”

But even as I said it, I didn’t believe it. Not with Thaddeus standing over us both, radiating that terrible, patient calm of a man who had already won.

Thaddeus turned away from me then, his attention shifting to the two witches still holding my arms. “Prepare him,” he said, as though he were ordering a meal rather than my death. “I want it done cleanly. No struggle, no visible wounds beyond what’s necessary for the show.”

The witches untied my hands and I pulled back, yanking my hands from their grasp for one brief second.

“Tell me why first,” I shouted, shoving my hands in my pockets to show I wasn’t a threat. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know or if I was just buying time. But I felt the glass potion bottle as my fingers wrapped around it. “Tell me why you’re doing this. I deserve to know that much before you kill me.”

“Silence that boy—” Morgana began, but Thaddeus cut her off.

“You want to know why?” he barked, turning on his heel and storming over to me. “I’ll tell you why.”

His golden eyes burned with something ancient and raw, a wound that had never scarred over properly no matter how many centuries had passed.

“Do you know how my mate died?” he asked, his voice suddenly quiet, almost gentle in a way that terrified me more than his shouting had. “No. Of course you don’t. Nobody remembers her anymore. Even Aeron doesn’t know her name because I still can’t bear to speak it aloud.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My fingers tightened around the vial in my pocket, feeling the cool glass against my palm, knowing it was my last hope and that I’d only get one shot to use it.

“She was murdered,” Thaddeus continued, pacing slowly in front of me now, his tail dragging across the marble with a soft hiss. “In the middle ages, when dragons were hunted for parts. Our blood, our scales, our hearts, all of it worth a fortune to anyone desperate enough or greedy enough to try their luck. She was out hunting while I tended our nest when they found her. Witch hunters. They didn’t even have the decency to make it quick. They wanted every piece of her while she was still breathing. They said the magic was stronger that way.”

His claws curled into fists at his sides, and for just a moment, I saw something almost human in his expression. Grief. Real, undiluted grief that hadn’t faded no matter how many years had passed.