For several heartbeats, Lyra could hear nothing except the Barrier Bell.

It tolled above the palace in slow, thunderous strikes, each one vibrating through the stone beneath her boots.

Kael stood beside the shattered conduit, staring at the last traces of silver and gold fading from their joined magic.

"Three hundred and twelve years," Lyra said.

"Yes."

"You dreamed of me before my grandparents' grandparents were born."

"Your grasp of arithmetic is inspiring."

She turned on him.

"Do not joke about this."

His expression sobered immediately.

Through the bond she felt something he was trying very hard not to show.

Fear.

Kael Draven, the creature every Temple lesson described as fearless destruction given flesh, was afraid of a dream.

"What happened the next morning?" Lyra asked.

Kael looked toward the dark staircase where Lieutenant Corren and the remaining soldiers had disappeared.

"The Temple requested negotiations."

"Negotiations?"

"They said they wanted an end to the war."

His mouth curved without humor.

"I was young enough to believe people sometimes meant what they said."

Lyra folded her arms.

"You were already a king."

"Kings can be idiots. Often professionally."

Despite herself, a breath of laughter escaped her.

Kael looked at her as if the sound surprised him more than it surprised her.

Then another bell rang somewhere distant.

Not the Barrier Bell.

A sharper alarm.

Kael's amusement vanished.

"We need to move."

"Corren said he would find Adrian."

"And every other soldier in this palace will be attempting to find us."

"Running makes us look guilty."

"You entered this room carrying a sacred dagger specifically designed to remove my heart. I suspect appearances have already suffered."

Lyra glanced toward the weapon where it lay near the ruined chains.

She hated that he had a point.

More importantly, the broken conduits were beginning to hiss.

The black substance seeping through the cracks had thickened. It ran too slowly to be water and too smoothly to be blood, gathering in glossy pools across the carved floor.

The smell of incense grew stronger.

Lyra knew that scent.

Not merely incense.

Funeral incense.

Her stomach tightened.

"I've smelled this before."

Kael crouched without touching the liquid.

"Where?"

"The Temple crypts."

His silver eyes lifted to hers.

"Of course you have."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means your holy priests apparently decided imprisonment, blood theft, and subterranean plumbing were insufficiently disturbing."

Lyra ignored him and extended one hand over the dark pool.

Golden light gathered around her fingers.

The liquid shuddered.

Kael seized her wrist.

"I told you not to touch it."

"I'm not touching it."

"You have demonstrated a highly flexible definition of caution."

"And you have demonstrated a highly irritating definition of helpful."

The black liquid trembled again.

This time Lyra felt it through her magic.

Not life.

An absence shaped like life.

Thousands of tiny impressions pressed against her awareness: grief, warmth, devotion, exhaustion.

Then pain.

So much pain.

Lyra gasped and her golden light flickered out.

Kael's grip tightened.

The bond answered immediately, carrying his alarm into her chest.

"What did you feel?"

She swallowed.

"People."

He went very still.

"How many?"

"I don't know."

She stared at the black pool.

"More than one."

A strange expression crossed Kael's face.

"Saintess."

"Don't."

"Lyra."

That was worse.

She pulled her wrist free.

"We don't know what it is."

"No. But you recognized the scent from your Temple's crypts, your power recognizes something human inside it, and someone mixed it into the same system that drained my blood."

"That does not prove what you're implying."

"I haven't implied anything yet."

"Your face is extremely argumentative."

"My face has survived three centuries. It has earned opinions."

Before she could answer, footsteps echoed from the passage above.

Many footsteps.

Kael rose.

"That is not your lieutenant returning alone."

Lyra heard metal striking stone.

Armor.

Commands.

A voice called from the stairwell.

"By order of the Crown, seal every exit from the undercroft!"

Kael sighed.

"Diplomacy proceeds beautifully."

Lyra grabbed his sleeve.

"There is another way out."

He glanced at her.

"You neglected to mention that."

"Because I wasn't planning to escape with the prisoner I came here to execute."

"How narrow-minded of you."

She dragged him toward the rear wall.

The bond made the motion strangely effortless. Every time she changed direction, she felt Kael adjust almost before she did, as if their bodies were learning an unwanted rhythm.

Lyra found the carved sunburst she remembered from her descent.

Cassian had shown her the palace's oldest sacred passages years ago, when she was fourteen and still delighted by secret doors.

She pressed three rays in sequence.

Nothing happened.

"Wonderful," Kael murmured.

"Be quiet."

She tried again.

Stone scraped.

A narrow section of wall slid inward, revealing a passage barely wide enough for one person.

Kael stared.

"Your Temple teaches children secret architecture?"

"Only the extremely annoying ones."

"At last, your education makes sense."

They slipped inside just as soldiers entered the chamber behind them.

Lyra pulled the panel shut.

Darkness swallowed them.

Then silver light appeared beside her.

Kael's eyes were glowing.

Faint scales had surfaced along his cheekbones, catching his own light like polished metal.

Lyra stared.

"What?" he whispered.

"Nothing."

"You are staring."

"Your face is glowing."

"You were glowing ten minutes ago."

"I am the Saintess."

"And I am a dragon. We all have burdens."

The passage sloped upward.

They moved shoulder to shoulder because distance was impossible and the corridor was too narrow to permit dignity.

After several minutes, Kael stumbled.

Lyra caught him instinctively.

Pain flared across the bond.

Not sharp.

Deep.

Exhaustion so profound it seemed to live in his bones.

"You're getting weaker."

"Insightful."

"Kael."

"I lost several centuries' worth of blood and broke chains specifically designed to suppress dragon magic. Forgive me for failing to look radiant."

Lyra pressed her palm against his chest.

Golden light spread beneath her hand.

Kael jerked away.

The bond punished them both instantly.

They hissed in pain and collided again.

"What was that?" Lyra demanded.

"Don't heal me."

"Why?"

"Because your healing is no longer entirely yours."

Silver sparks moved through the gold around her fingers.

Kael watched them grimly.

"Every time you pour power into me, the bond deepens."

Lyra withdrew her magic.

"You know that for certain?"

"No."

"Then why state it like divine scripture?"

"Because unlike your priests, I admit when I'm guessing."

The insult should have angered her.

Instead it landed too close to the doubt already growing inside her.

They continued upward.

The passage ended behind a wooden panel.

Lyra placed her ear against it.

Silence.

She pushed.

The panel opened into a small chapel she recognized immediately.

The Chapel of Saint Orienne.

Few courtiers used it. The room was older than the palace's main sanctuary, built of gray stone rather than white marble. Seven statues stood around the circular chamber, each representing one of the Radiant Gods.

Kael stepped inside and stopped.

Hatred flooded the bond so suddenly Lyra nearly staggered.

Not rage.

Something colder.

Older.

"You know this place," she whispered.

"I know what was here before it."

Lyra looked around.

"The chapel is eight hundred years old."

"The foundation is older."

Kael walked to the statue of Aureon, God of Light and Judgment.

He stared at the carved pedestal.

Then he laughed once.

There was no humor in it.

"They didn't even bother removing it."

"Removing what?"

He pointed near the statue's base.

Lyra knelt.

At first she saw only decorative vines carved into the stone.

Then she noticed one line curling beneath the others.

Not a vine.

A wing.

A dragon wing.

She rubbed dust from the carving.

More appeared.

A circle.

Seven human figures around it.

And at the center, something shaped like a flame divided into gold and silver halves.

Lyra's breath caught.

"I've seen this symbol."

Kael turned sharply.

"Where?"

"In the vision. On the ruined tower."

The chapel door opened.

Lyra spun.

Kael moved in front of her so quickly his coat snapped through the air.

Silver scales spread over his neck and one hand transformed partially, fingers lengthening into black claws.

A man stood in the doorway with a drawn sword.

Blond hair.

Blue-gray eyes.

No helmet.

Crown Prince Adrian Valerius stared at Lyra, then at Kael, then at Kael's clawed hand positioned protectively in front of her.

For several seconds no one moved.

"Lyra," Adrian said.

Relief hit her first.

Then suspicion followed.

Through the bond, Kael felt both.

"Adrian."

His gaze fixed on the silver flame still faintly glowing beneath her skin.

"Corren told me what happened downstairs."

Kael's mouth curved.

"Did he include the part where your kingdom has been using me as a public utility?"

Adrian raised the sword.

"Move away from her."

Kael did not move.

"No."

"Kael," Lyra warned.

"He has a sword."

"So do half the men I know."

"You know unfortunate men."

Adrian looked between them.

"Lyra, come here."

She took one step.

Agony exploded through her ribs.

Kael made a strangled sound behind her.

Lyra fell to one knee.

Adrian immediately dropped his sword and rushed forward.

Kael's claws flashed toward him.

"Don't touch her."

"Then stop hurting her!"

"I'm not."

"Both of you stop!"

Lyra gripped the nearest pew and forced herself upright.

Adrian froze.

His face changed as understanding arrived.

"The bond is real."

Lyra nodded.

"And distance makes it worse."

Adrian looked sick.

"Cassian said there was no bond."

Silence filled the chapel.

Lyra stared at him.

"What did you say?"

Adrian's eyes closed briefly.

"He came to me ten minutes ago. He said Kael had contaminated you with dragon magic. He said you might believe you were bound to him, but that it was an illusion caused by corruption."

Kael became perfectly still.

Lyra felt his attention sharpen through the bond.

"Cassian knows already," Kael said.

Adrian nodded reluctantly.

"He has ordered the palace guard to capture you both alive."

"Alive?" Lyra repeated.

"For now."

A chill moved through her.

Adrian reached inside his coat.

Kael's claws lifted again.

"Slowly, princeling."

Adrian gave him a murderous look and withdrew a folded sheet of parchment.

"I found this in my father's emergency records after Corren reached me. The seal predates my grandfather. Possibly several generations."

He handed it to Lyra.

The parchment was brittle.

Across the top was the royal crest.

Beneath it, written in formal script, were five words.

PROTOCOL FOR SAINTESS-DRAGON CONVERGENCE.

Lyra stopped breathing.

Kael read over her shoulder.

The bond filled with a terrible, cold certainty.

Adrian's voice lowered.

"Your accident has a protocol."

Before Lyra could answer, the chapel bells began ringing.

Once.

Twice.

Then every flame in the room went out.

A familiar voice spoke from the darkness beyond the open door.

"Lyra."

Her blood turned cold.

High Priest Cassian stepped into the chapel carrying a golden staff.

His face was not angry.

That somehow made it worse.

He looked at her the way he had when she was a frightened child waking from nightmares.

With tenderness.

With sorrow.

"Come away from him," Cassian said softly. "Before the bond reaches the second stage."