Morgrith's starlight eyes found me.
The chamber fell away. The other lords, their arguments, their fear—all of it dissolved into background noise. There was only him, watching me with an expression I couldn't decipher. Apology? Resignation? Hope?
"That's where you come in, wound-walker."
My name. He didn't use my name.
"Your role is to keep me alive as the dragon-nature is torn away." His voice was steady, but I heard the tremor beneath it. The crack in his armor. "You'll need to absorb enough of the trauma that my body survives the separation. That my mind doesn't shatter under the weight of what's being taken."
My mouth went dry.
I'd absorbed fevers that could have killed strong men. Infections that turned flesh to rot. The slow poison of tumors eating their hosts from within. I'd taken broken bones and bleeding wounds and the screaming terror of children too young to understand why their bodies had betrayed them.
But this.
This was different.
This was the death of a god. The unmaking of something ancient and vast. The tearing away of an identity that had existed since before my ancestors' ancestors were born.
"I've never—" My voice cracked. I swallowed and tried again. "I've never absorbed anything like that."
"No one has." Morgrith's expression didn't change, but something in his eyes softened. Just slightly. Just enough for me to see the person beneath the power. "But you're the only one who might survive it. The only one whose gift might be strong enough to hold the pieces together while everything else falls apart."
He said it like a compliment.
It felt like a death sentence.
But I nodded anyway.
What else could I do?
Theypreparedinnear-silence,and that silence held more weight than any words could have carried.
The Dragon Lords moved to their positions with the practiced ease of beings who had done this before—not this exact ritual, perhaps, but others like it. Ancient workings that required precision and power in equal measure. Their arguments had ended not because they'd accepted Morgrith's decision, but because they understood it couldn't be changed.
Davoren stood to the east, and heat rolled off him in visible waves. When he raised his hands, fire bloomed between them—not the wild flames of destruction, but something older. Steadier. The fire that had burned at the heart of the world since the beginning. It would fuel the transformation, he'd said. Provide the raw energy needed to tear reality open.
Sereis took the west, and the temperature around him plummeted. Frost spread across the stone beneath his feet, climbing the altar's base in delicate crystals. His ice would preserve what remained. Keep Morgrith's body from failing even as his essence was stripped away.
Garruk stood to the north, and I felt the stone shift beneath me—a subtle vibration, as if the mountain itself was acknowledging its master. His power would anchor the magic. Keep it from spinning out of control, from consuming more than it was meant to take.
Zephyron claimed the south, lightning crackling between his fingers like eager pets. His energy would bridge the gap between worlds, create the pathway across which Evara's soul could travel.
And Caelus stood opposite Morgrith, wind gathering around him in visible currents despite the enclosed space. He would carry the call. Send it ringing across the veil to wherever lost souls waited.
Behind each Dragon Lord, a mate stood with hands pressed to broad shoulders. The touch looked casual—intimate, even—but I saw the concentration on their faces. The way the bond-marks on their skin pulsed brighter. They were lending their strength. Pouring themselves into their partners to fuel a working that might destroy someone else's bondmate.
I stood alone.
My hands hung empty at my sides. No one to touch. No strength to lend. Just a wound-walker from the Eastern Reaches, about to attempt something that should have been impossible.
Morgrith removed his shirt.
The gesture was so simple. So human. A man undressing before something difficult, the way a laborer might strip beforeheavy work. But it made my chest ache with a sudden, desperate tenderness I hadn't expected.
He folded the dark fabric carefully—unnecessarily carefully, the kind of care that said he needed something to do with his hands—and set it aside. Then he lay back on the altar, his pale skin stark against the ancient stone, and I forgot how to breathe.
The shadow-marks I'd glimpsed on his face continued across his entire body. They traced his collarbone, swept down his chest, curled around his ribs like living things. In the starlight's pulse, they seemed to move—shifting, reaching, alive with power I couldn't comprehend.