Chapter 36 Chapter Thirty-Six: The Hunt

Chapter 36 Chapter Thirty-Six: The Hunt
The scent of blood hadn’t yet faded from her hands.
Sera paced the chamber like a wolf circling the edges of a trap, her bare feet smeared with gold. The healers worked in tense silence behind her, tending to Rhazien’s wound with salves and enchantments that flickered like embers. He hadn’t woken yet.
She couldn’t look at him. Not while he was still.
They had carried him away minutes earlier, and she could still see it—his body slumped in the arms of two dragonkin warriors, his limbs heavy and limp. The warlord who had torn kingdoms apart with his bare hands now dangled between others like a broken thing. His head lolled to one side, jaw slack, eyes half-lidded with no flame behind them. Blood soaked through the silks beneath him, trailing in molten streaks across the floor as they carried him away.
There was no power in him now. No fire. No fury. Only silence.
It was the first time she’d ever seen him as anything but invincible.
And it felt wrong. Like watching a god bleed. Like the moment before a mountain fell.
Maybe the first time anyone had—since the days the dragons first rose to rule.
And it gutted her. Tore through her chest like the knife that had brought him down, because if even Rhazien could fall—if he could be stilled so completely—then there was no such thing as safety. No such thing as untouchable.
And that terrified her more than anything else.
The child sat at the far edge of the room, knees tucked to his chest, arms locked around them like they were the only things keeping him from falling apart. His silks were stained, his cheeks dry now but raw. He hadn’t spoken since the moment he’d whispered “It was supposed to save them.”
Sera hadn't let him out of her sight.
A guard had tried to move him. Just one. A single hand extended toward the boy’s arm, intent on dragging him off for questioning or execution or whatever dragons did to assassins, no matter how small.
Sera had stepped between them.
"He stays," she said. Her voice didn’t raise, but the edge in it was sharper than any blade.
The guard's brows twitched. His lip curled faintly, like he might challenge it. Like he saw only a mortal, bloodstained and trembling, defending the thing that nearly killed their king.
Sera took a single step closer, her eyes locking on his. "Touch him again," she said, "and I’ll tell Rhazien it was you who let the assassin escape."
The silence that followed was suffocating. The guard backed away without another word.
No one had touched the child since.
She could feel their judgment. Their confusion. Their silent fury that she would protect something that nearly killed their king. To them, the child should have already been dragged to the dungeons—bound in iron, silenced, punished. Not sitting quietly under the protective gaze of their warlord’s bride.
But none of them had seen his face. Not the moment it broke. Not the moment he realized what he’d done—when the dagger left his hand and all the lies he’d been told shattered like brittle glass in his eyes.
He wasn’t a threat. He was a vessel. A child too small to carry the weight of a kingdom’s fear.
The dagger, she’d noticed, had markings etched along the hilt—symbols she didn’t recognize, but they felt old. Cursed. Intentional. It wasn’t made for war. It was made for ritual. For sacrifice. For spectacle.
And someone had placed it in a child’s hand.
Someone had looked at a boy with milk teeth and soft hands and seen a weapon.
She would find who gave it to him.
Even if she had to tear the court apart stone by stone. Even if she had to drag their secrets into the fire with her bare hands.
Sera crossed the space between them and knelt in front of the child. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look up.
"What’s your name?"
He blinked slowly. Then, so quietly she almost missed it: "Lioren."
She nodded, folding her legs beneath her. "Do you know who gave you that blade, Lioren? The man who told you it would save people?"
His lower lip quivered. "He said... they’d burn us all if I didn’t. He said the fire would take everything. But if I did it... the war would stop. The king would go away."
Sera’s stomach turned to ice.
He thought he was saving people.
She reached out and touched his hand. It was cold. "Lioren, can you remember what he looked like? Anything he wore? A ring, maybe? An accent?"
Lioren’s brow furrowed, eyes squeezed shut in effort. "He wore gloves. Always. Even when it was hot. And he smelled like ash and something sharp. Like metal... and smoke."
Sera’s heart thudded once—sharp and sure. Dragonsteel. Poison. Sorcery. Someone who knew exactly what would mask their scent and hide their touch. Someone who had trained for this.
Her gaze flicked toward the door. Beyond it, she could already hear movement. The court would be gathering. Whispers already slithered like snakes through the halls, winding themselves into theories and blame.
They would want blood.
But she would give them answers. Names.
Rising to her feet, she turned to the nearest guard.
"Bring me the master of spies. And the high chamberlain. Now."
The guard hesitated, his eyes flicking over her bloodied gown, the child clinging to her, and then toward the bed.
A mortal giving orders.
Sera narrowed her gaze. Her voice dropped to something colder. "Do you know who’s bleeding out behind me? What he’ll do when he wakes and finds you ignored the woman carrying his heir?"
The guard swallowed hard. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing came. Then he bowed—short and stiff—and turned on his heel, disappearing down the hall with urgency in every step.
"And if you see anyone with a burn on their hands... don’t let them leave the palace," she called after him, her voice sharp enough to carry.
When she turned back, Lioren hadn’t moved.
Sera approached slowly, her steps quiet against the stone, her presence softening again. "You’re going to stay with me now, alright? No one else touches you. No one questions you but me."
He nodded slowly. For the first time, his small fingers reached out—hooked into the hem of her ruined gown like an anchor. As if holding her was the only thing keeping him in this world.
She let him.
Let the guards watch. Let the court whisper. Let them all stew in their fear and fury.
She would find the one who used this child.
And she would burn them.
The chamber doors opened again—not with the chaos of panic this time, but the sharp precision of summoned power.
Two figures stepped through.
The master of spies was a thin man with silver-threaded hair and eyes like flint. He moved like smoke—quiet, watchful, calculating. His dark robes whispered across the floor, lined with concealed weapons and secrets.
Beside him, the high chamberlain stood tall and severe, robes pressed and golden chains across his chest gleaming with rank. But it was the way he looked at her—as if she were a problem to be managed—that set Sera’s teeth on edge.
She didn’t stand.
She didn’t bow.
She stayed crouched beside Lioren, one hand resting on his back.
"You’re late," she said flatly.
The master of spies inclined his head. "The court was in uproar. We came as swiftly as—"
"Not swift enough." Her voice cut him off, clean and cold.
The chamberlain’s nostrils flared. "You presume much, mortal, calling us here in the name of—"
"The man who’s bleeding out in this room? The one I carry a child for?"
A beat passed. A breath.
And then it hit her.
He wasn’t just injured. He was dying. Truly dying—only feet away. The thought struck with the weight of falling stone, robbing her of breath. Healers moved in a blur around him, but their urgency felt like a countdown, not a promise. The sound of his breath was too faint. The silence between each rise of his chest too long.
Rhazien, who had scorched armies to ash. Rhazien, who had taken her over every surface of their chambers like a storm made flesh. Rhazien, who held her in sleep with a hand over their child.
Now he lay limp. Silent. Vulnerable.
Her stomach twisted.
She blinked once, forced the panic back down into her spine, and raised her eyes to the men before her.
Her voice, when she spoke again, was quieter. But colder. "You'll answer to me." She rose slowly, deliberately, and though she didn’t shout, the words were iron.
"Now sit. Or don’t. I don’t care. But you’ll listen."
Neither of them moved at first. Then, the master of spies nodded, and both men stepped closer—careful now. Curious.
Sera tilted her chin toward Lioren. "He knows who gave him the blade. Or enough to help us find them. We’re going to start with the ones who know how a cursed weapon ended up in a child’s hands—and got inside palace walls without triggering enchantments."
Her gaze sharpened. "That means secret routes. Smuggled items. Overridden wards. That means you."
The master of spies didn’t blink, but his fingers twitched at his sides—just once.
"Then let us begin," he said.
"Good." Sera moved toward the nearest table, pulling a chair aside without waiting for permission. "We start with who’s been paid to keep doors open. I want names. And I want to know who’s been using children as weapons. Because that’s not treason. That’s desecration."
The chamberlain shifted, clearly displeased, but for once, he didn’t speak.
The master of spies inclined his head again, more slowly this time. "Then I’ll give you what I know. But if this was done from within... you won’t like what the truth reveals."
"I don’t need to like it," she said. "I just need to burn it down."
She turned from them without waiting for reply.
Rhazien still hadn’t moved.
Crossing the room, she knelt beside his bed once more. His face was pale, too pale for a man made of fire. She placed a hand gently against his chest, above the wound, feeling for the slow rhythm of his heart beneath bandages and heat wards.
"Don’t leave me," she whispered. "Not like this."
She stayed there a breath longer than she should have, willing him to stir, to flare, to burn. But he didn’t.
And so, with Lioren still clutching the edge of her gown, she stood.
She walked from the healing chambers into the hallway beyond—where the court was waiting.
Dozens of nobles stood in a semi-circle like circling birds, all scales, gold, and self-importance. Some stepped back as she entered, blood still drying on her gown, the child at her side.
But one did not.
He stepped forward instead. Young. Arrogant. Unscarred. His scaled shoulders were squared with pride, and a smirk curled the corner of his lip as though this were some petty performance, not a reckoning.
"You overstep, mortal," he said, loud enough for the court to hear. "Do you think because you warmed his bed, you now hold his crown? That you speak with a king's voice just because you were clever enough to carry his child?"
A ripple moved through the crowd—smirks, narrowed eyes, a few murmurs of agreement. He was their mouthpiece. Their shield.
But Sera saw him for what he was.
A distraction. A coward.
A scaled peacock hiding behind ceremony while her mate bled out on the other side of the wall.
And she'd had enough.
The word "mortal" echoed through her bones—again, and again, and again. Always a curse. Always a dismissal. As if her blood made her weak. As if her heart, her fury, her love meant nothing beside the color of her skin or the fire in her veins.
She didn’t answer.
Her hand moved before her mind caught up.
She reached for the dagger.
The very one that had nearly killed her mate. Still smeared with dried blood—his blood.
She held it to the noble’s throat in one fluid motion, with the steadiness of someone who had nothing left to lose.
And silence fell like stone.
"Now is not the time," she said, low and venomous. "The man I love is lying behind that door barely clinging to life, and all you care about is reminding me I wasn’t born with scales."
She stepped closer, forcing the blade beneath his chin. "While you preen and posture, someone put a blade in a five-year-old’s hand and pointed him at your king."
The noble flinched.
"You insult me again," she hissed, "and I won’t waste this knife on you. I’ll carve your name into the court record as the one who tried to gut the warlord’s bride while he bled."
Her hand didn’t lower.
Smoke curled from her mouth—not just breath but heat, rising like warning from deep inside her chest. The scent of her own rage hit her nose: scorched silk, fear, something ancient and molten clawing at the edges of her control.
The noble didn’t move. Couldn’t. His eyes widened as the tip of the dagger pressed into the soft skin beneath his jaw, drawing a single bead of blood.
The clutch stirred.
Her belly tightened. Her magic answered.
A pulse of something deep, hot, and wrong flared beneath her skin.
She wanted to hurt him.
She wanted them all to feel it—the way it felt to kneel in blood while the man who made her feel invincible went still and cold and silent. She wanted them to burn.
Her hand twitched.
And then—
Lioren’s small fingers tightened around hers.
Not pulling. Not tugging. Just holding.
An anchor.
The world returned in pieces.
Sera blinked, chest rising and falling too fast. She stared down at the noble—at the fear behind his bravado—and slowly, slowly withdrew the blade.
Her voice, when it came, was low and jagged. "Now. Who let that child into our walls?"
No one answered.
But eyes flicked—subtle, reflexive, guilty.
A noble to her left shifted ever so slightly. Another clenched his jaw, avoiding her gaze. The master of spies, who had followed her into the hall, watched it all in silence.
She stepped forward.
"That wasn’t a question. It was a demand. Someone let a cursed blade into this fortress. Someone wrapped it in silk and gave it to a child."
She turned slowly, letting her eyes meet each face in turn. "And if you don’t give me the name, I’ll have the truth pulled from your bones."
The master of spies cleared his throat gently. "There is... one man. In charge of guest screenings. Human trade goods. Normally insignificant. But he’s been taking liberties lately. Allowing undocumented offerings to pass."
Sera’s eyes narrowed. "What’s his name?"
The spy hesitated. "Yeral. He answers to the outer court. Not mine."
"Then he’ll answer to me," Sera snapped. "Find him. Now."