Cassian's golden staff illuminated the chapel one slow pulse at a time.

Lyra had seen that light a thousand times.

It had warmed sickrooms. Blessed newborns. Guided funeral processions through winter rain.

Tonight it made the shadows look like prison bars.

"What is the second stage?" she asked.

Cassian's expression tightened.

"Come to me first."

Kael laughed without humor.

"Excellent. Answer nothing, demand obedience. Three centuries and your priesthood has preserved its traditions beautifully."

Cassian did not look at him.

That was somehow more insulting than hatred.

"Lyra," he said, "the longer you remain physically and magically entangled with him, the harder separation becomes. The first stage is resonance. Pain, emotion, magical interference. You have experienced those symptoms already."

"Symptoms?" Lyra repeated.

"The bond is not a disease," Kael said.

"You do not know what it is anymore," Cassian replied quietly.

For the first time, his gaze shifted to Kael.

Kael's amusement vanished.

Cassian continued. "No living dragon has completed such a convergence in centuries. No Saintess has survived long enough for us to study it safely."

Lyra's fingers tightened around the brittle protocol.

"Safely?"

Adrian stepped closer. "You told me the bond was an illusion."

Cassian closed his eyes briefly.

"I told you what would prevent panic."

"You lied to the crown prince."

"I prevented the palace from ordering Lyra's immediate execution."

Silence struck the chapel.

Lyra stared at him.

"Execution?"

Cassian's sorrow deepened.

"The oldest version of the protocol demands the destruction of both participants before second-stage convergence."

Adrian swore softly.

Kael's anger hit Lyra through the bond like a furnace door thrown open.

Not fear for himself.

For her.

It was so immediate that she almost turned toward him.

Cassian noticed.

Of course he noticed.

"That," he said, "is precisely what I mean."

Lyra felt suddenly cold.

"What happens in the second stage?"

Cassian hesitated.

Kael's voice sharpened. "Tell her."

"Shared dreams become more frequent," Cassian said. "Magic begins crossing the bond without deliberate invocation. Injuries may echo more strongly. Instincts can become difficult to distinguish from one's own."

"Thoughts?" Lyra asked.

"No. Not according to the surviving records."

Some absurd part of her felt relieved.

Cassian looked at the faint silver glow still threaded through her fingertips.

"But there is another sign. The bonded pair begins remembering things neither personally experienced."

Lyra stopped breathing.

The ruined tower.

The singing woman.

The silver-eyed child.

Kael went rigid beside her.

Cassian's gaze moved between them.

"You've already seen something."

It was not a question.

Lyra hated how easily he still read her face.

"Why was there a protocol?" she demanded instead. "Why did kings who supposedly exterminated the dragons prepare for a Saintess to bond with one?"

Cassian's hand tightened around his staff.

"Because history is rarely as clean as the stories given to children."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only answer I can give you here."

Kael took one step forward.

Golden wards ignited across Cassian's staff.

Adrian immediately moved between them.

"No one attacks anyone," he said. "Not in this chapel."

Kael glanced at him. "You possess a charming faith in architecture."

"And you possess claws. Retract them."

Kael looked down.

Black talons had emerged from his fingertips.

He slowly forced them back.

Lyra felt the effort through the bond.

Hunger. Weakness. Rage.

And beneath them, something worse.

Fear.

Cassian had frightened him.

That realization unsettled her more than anything else.

"You knew this could happen," Lyra said.

Cassian's face softened. "I knew it was theoretically possible."

"When you sent me below?"

He did not answer quickly enough.

The silence was the answer.

Lyra felt something inside her crack.

"You knew."

"I knew Kael's restraints had been designed to respond to Saintess magic."

Kael's head snapped toward him.

"Designed?"

Cassian looked genuinely weary now.

"They were created long before my birth. I inherited them, as I inherited many terrible things."

"And continued using them," Kael said.

Cassian's jaw hardened. "Because without the barrier system, tens of thousands may die."

The distant Barrier Bell rang again.

As though summoned by the accusation.

One enormous note rolled through the stone beneath their feet.

Dust sifted from the chapel ceiling.

Adrian glanced upward.

"The western wards failed twenty minutes ago," he said. "Reports are coming from the river district. Protective lamps are going dark. The palace shield is weakening."

Lyra looked at Cassian.

"Because the conduits stopped taking his blood."

"Partly."

That single word landed harder than a confession.

Kael became very still.

"Partly?"

Lyra remembered the black liquid.

The scent of funeral incense.

The impressions inside it.

Pain.

Grief.

Devotion.

Exhaustion.

Human lives.

She pulled the stopper from a small glass vial at her belt.

Cassian's face changed.

Only slightly.

But Lyra saw it.

She had collected a trace of the black substance before leaving the undercroft.

"What is this?" she asked.

Cassian stared at the vial.

"Where did you get that?"

"From the conduit connected to Kael's blood."

"Dispose of it."

"What is it?"

"Lyra."

"What is it?"

Her voice cracked through the chapel.

Cassian looked suddenly older than she had ever seen him.

"A stabilizing medium."

Kael smiled coldly.

"Ah. A priest's phrase. Meaning something unforgivable with excellent grammar."

Lyra ignored him.

"It contains traces of people. I felt them."

Cassian's eyes closed.

Adrian turned sharply. "People?"

Lyra raised the vial. "Hundreds, maybe more. I don't know."

"You shouldn't have been able to sense that yet," Cassian whispered.

Kael's gaze cut to him.

"Yet."

Cassian realized his mistake.

Too late.

Lyra stepped toward him.

The bond immediately tugged Kael with her, forcing him to follow.

"Whose lives are in this?"

Cassian's silence became unbearable.

Then footsteps thundered outside the chapel.

Commander Darius Vane appeared in the doorway with six armored guards behind him.

His sword was drawn, but its point remained lowered.

"Your Highness," he said to Adrian. "The king has issued an emergency confinement order. The Saintess is to be secured. The dragon is to be restrained if possible."

Kael's mouth curved.

"If possible. How encouraging."

Darius's gaze flicked to the dragon carving exposed beneath the statue, then to the protocol in Lyra's hand.

His expression tightened.

"What happened here?"

"Three centuries of lies," Adrian said. "Apparently."

Darius did not smile.

"The city wards are failing. We do not have time for philosophy."

"Then perhaps stop imprisoning the creature powering them," Kael replied.

Two guards raised their weapons.

Lyra lifted a hand.

"Don't."

The command surprised everyone, including her.

She looked at Darius.

"If you separate us, we may both collapse. Adrian saw it happen."

Darius looked to the prince.

Adrian nodded.

The commander's eyes narrowed. "How close must you remain?"

"We don't know," Lyra said.

"Wonderful."

Cassian stepped forward. "Commander, I will take responsibility for Lyra. Kael must be returned below before the bond progresses further."

Pain exploded through Lyra's chest.

She gasped.

Kael doubled over beside her.

For one terrifying second she thought someone had attacked.

Then silver light burst beneath Kael's skin.

Golden fire answered beneath hers.

The vial slipped from her fingers.

Kael caught it before it shattered.

Their hands collided.

The chapel disappeared.

Lyra stood in sunlight.

Not a dream this time.

A memory.

A woman knelt on the same chapel floor, though there was no chapel yet—only the ruined tower rising beneath an open sky.

She wore white robes edged in gold.

A Saintess.

Before her stood a dragon in human form, silver blood running from his mouth.

Around them, seven figures chanted.

The woman was crying.

"They said union would destroy us," she whispered.

The dragon reached for her.

"They lied."

The scene shifted.

The same woman lay dead beneath a golden altar.

Priests surrounded her body.

Black liquid flowed from silver tubes into crystal vessels.

Lyra could smell funeral incense.

She tried to scream.

Another voice spoke behind her.

The silver-eyed child.

"They kept the light," he said.

Lyra turned.

The child pointed toward the dead Saintess.

"They kept all of them."

The vision tore apart.

Lyra slammed back into her body on her knees.

Kael was beside her, breathing hard.

Everyone in the chapel stared.

But Cassian looked terrified.

Not surprised.

Terrified.

Lyra slowly raised her head.

"The black substance," she whispered.

Cassian said nothing.

"It's Saintess magic."

Adrian went pale.

Darius's sword lowered another inch.

Kael stared at Cassian with murder in his eyes.

Lyra's voice shook.

"Dead Saintesses."

Cassian's composure finally broke.

"Lyra, listen to me—"

"How many?"

He stopped.

That silence answered too much.

Then every golden flame in the chapel turned silver.

Cassian looked toward the altar.

For the first time in Lyra's life, her mentor appeared truly afraid.

"We are out of time," he whispered.

A crack split the ancient stone beneath the statue.

Something below the chapel knocked once from inside the earth.

Then again.

Kael's hand closed around Lyra's.

His face had gone white.

"I know that sound," he said.

The floor trembled.

A third knock came from beneath them.

And somewhere under the palace, something impossibly old began to breathe.