Nitras POV
Blake has always been dangerous when he stops wanting things.
I ride the cold air high above the mountains, wings cutting clean arcs through the night as distance stretches between me and the underground fortress. From this height, the world looks simple—stone, snow, shadow. Borders fade. Claims mean nothing. But I can feel what lies beneath me all the same.
The wards breathe.
They are old, layered, listening. They do not snarl or threaten; they endure. And threaded through them is something new—something steady that wasn’t there before.
Her.
Blake’s fire no longer rages the way it used to. It coils—controlled, deliberate, chosen. That is what unsettles me most.
My dragon circles my thoughts, restless and sharp, his hunger tempered by calculation. He spoke truth, he rumbl
