Chapter 82 Dante
I didn’t stop moving.
Even after we got the women out—wrapped in coats, loaded into transports, escorted by Lucian’s people with a speed and efficiency that spoke of long practice—I kept moving. Forward. Always forward. Because the trail was still there.
Hers.
It threaded through neutral territory like a living thing, faint but undeniable. Not a blaze—never a blaze with Seraphine—but a signature. A warmth pressed into the air itself. A memory of fire.
I crouched once, fingers hovering over a scorched patch of concrete, and closed my eyes.
There.
Sweet.
I frowned.
“Do you smell that?” I asked.
Lucian paused beside me, lifting his head. Amara came up on my other side, breath fogging faintly in the cold. Neutral territory always ran colder than it should. Like the land itself didn’t want to hold heat.
Lucian inhaled again, slower. “Yes,” he said. “I thought it was just me.”
“What is it?” Amara asked immediately. “Because it smells like—like dessert.”
“Burnt sugar,” I said.
The word felt wrong in my mouth.
Fire didn’t smell like that. Fire smelled sharp. Acrid. Hungry. Seraphine’s had always carried something warmer—ambered, almost—but this was different. Caramelized. Sweetened. As if something had been added.
As if something had been taken.
Lucian’s brow creased. “That’s not a natural expression.”
“Of what?” Amara asked, already pulling her jacket tighter around herself.
“Of fire,” Lucian replied. “Dragon fire doesn’t sweeten unless—”
“Unless what?” she pressed.
He hesitated.
“Unless it’s being… altered.”
That word set my teeth on edge.
We moved again, the trail pulling us forward between abandoned structures and rusted fencing. We passed a shuttered mill, an old rail spur swallowed by weeds, a storage depot whose doors had been torn off long ago. I could feel Seraphine everywhere, like she’d brushed the world as she passed.
Alive.
Fighting.
I pulled my phone from my pocket as we crossed a narrow alley choked with trash and dead ivy. My thumb hovered over a name I hadn’t wanted to dial.
Stephen.
I exhaled, then called.
He answered on the second ring, breathless. “Hello?”
“It’s Dante,” I said without preamble.
Silence. Then, sharp: “Where is she?”
“Alive,” I said. “And you’re going to help get others out.”
Lucian shot me a look. Amara’s mouth tightened.
I turned slightly away from them. “There’s an underground site off the old transit loop near the river. Your people will want to check hospitals in the radius. Intake logs. Women coming in with hypothermia, dehydration. Some may already be moved.”
Stephen sucked in a breath. “How do you know this?”
“Because I’m telling you,” I said flatly. “You want to look good? You want to be the one who cracks it?”
A beat.
Then: “Yes.”
“Then don’t ask questions,” I said. “Move.”
I ended the call before he could say another word.
Amara crossed her arms the moment I pocketed the phone. “You didn’t have to involve him.”
“I know,” I said.
Lucian nodded once. “But it will help.”
“It will make him feel useful,” Amara snapped. “Which is not the same thing.”
“I’m aware,” I said, a little too sharply. I reined it in. “It buys us time. And resources.”
She held my gaze, then sighed. “Fine. But if he fucks this up—”
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
We pressed on.
The scent thickened as we went, curling around us in layers. Burnt sugar and smoke. Heat that didn’t quite radiate outward, as if the fire had turned inward on itself. I hated how familiar that felt.
“How does this even work?” Amara asked suddenly, trotting to keep up. “Dragonborn, I mean. Is it genetics? Or—like—a curse? Or—”
“Amara,” Lucian said gently.
“No, I want to understand,” she insisted. “Because one minute I’m crocheting and the next I’m being told I’m water and my emotions are apparently a tidal event.”
Lucian snorted. “That tracks.”
She elbowed him.
“It’s resonance,” I said, surprising myself by answering. “Blood matters, yes. But so does circumstance. Trauma. Stress. Proximity. Dragons wake when they’re forced to reconcile what they are with what they’re pretending to be.”
Amara blinked. “That’s… deeply rude.”
“Accurate,” Lucian agreed.
We rounded a corner—and there it was.
At first glance, it looked like nothing. A squat, two-story building tucked behind a line of dead trees. Frosted windows. A faded sign half-torn from the facade.
WESTRIDGE MEDICAL ANNEX.
My stomach dropped.
“A clinic,” Amara whispered.
Lucian’s hand slid to his weapon. “Of course it is.”
The scent was strongest here. So thick it made my eyes water. The sweetness turned bitter at the back of my tongue.
I took one step closer.
And the world exploded.
Black fire tore out of the building in a concussive wave, soundless and absolute. It wasn’t heat—it was absence. The blast hurled us backward like toys. I felt myself lift, weightless, then slam into the ground hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
Trees ignited around us, bark peeling back in curls of flame. The ground cracked. Windows shattered outward.
But us?
Not a mark.
The fire curved around us like it recognized something.
I rolled to my side, gasping, stars bursting behind my eyes. My vision swam. I tried to push up—and nearly went right back down.
“Dante!” Lucian was there instantly, gripping my arm. “Stay down.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped, then winced as my head protested. “I’m—”
“You hit your head,” he said sharply. “You’re bleeding.”
Amara knelt on my other side, eyes wide but focused. “He’s right. You’re concussed at best. Don’t be an idiot.”
I ground my teeth and forced myself to breathe. The world steadied slowly.
“That was her,” I said hoarsely.
Lucian nodded. “Yes.”
“She didn’t mean to hit us,” Amara added. “I don’t think.”
“No,” I agreed. “She meant to hit them.”
I pushed to my feet this time with Lucian’s help, ignoring the ringing in my ears. The building smoked now, walls blackened, the sign hanging by a single bolt.
We had found her.
And she was furious.
“Not at us,” Amara said quietly, watching the smoke curl. “At them.”
“At Renee,” I said.
“And Thane,” Lucian finished.
The name tasted like ash.
“I can’t believe he’s involved,” Amara whispered. “A king—doing this?”
Lucian’s jaw tightened. “Death has always justified itself as necessity.”
I took a step forward—and staggered.
Lucian caught me again, firm. “Easy.”
I swallowed my pride and leaned into his support for a second longer than I wanted.
“I’m going in,” I said.
“Not alone,” he replied.
“Never,” Amara said, already moving.