Page 96 of Lost in Fire

Dragon-Vanya towers over the assembly, ten times her human height. Her tail sweeps once across the stone floor, its tip leaving a scored mark in ancient rock. With each breath, smoke tints the air around her snout.

The Syndicate members draw back instinctively. Even Vex pauses, momentarily awed by the creature before him. This is no mere execution display. This is dragon-kind in its purest form—terrible and beautiful.

Her long neck curves as she regards me with those golden eyes. In their depths, beneath the ancient power, I still see her—the woman who whispered to me in darkness just hours ago.

And she’s magnificent. Even facing death, I can’t help but marvel at her.

“Proceed with the execution,” Vex commands.

She draws to her full height. Wings spread wide enough to block the ceiling. The intake of breath before dragonfire forms sounds like a furnace settling.

“Vanya, this isn’t you.” I strain against chains, voice cracking. “Fight it!”

Her dragon eyes fix on mine—ancient, terrible, unreadable. In that gaze, I see centuries of Arrowvane pride. The weight of bloodline expectations. The crushing pressure of a life lived under scrutiny.

Her chest expands.

Please, Vanya.

“I love you,” I whisper. “Whatever they’ve done, whatever they’re making you do—I love you.”

I won’t close my eyes. If this is how it ends—if the woman I love kills me—I’ll face it. Meet her gaze until the end.

Fire erupts from her jaws.

Not hearth flame or battle heat. This is dragonfire in its purest form—white-hot destruction that turns air into a weapon. It engulfs me completely, the roar of it obliterating all other sound.

Pain beyond description tears through every nerve. My scream echoes off stone as flesh burns and blood boils. The world dissolves into agony and blinding light. Consciousness flickers.

Why? Why would she do this?

Chapter 32

Vanya

My scales catch the torchlight as I tower over the ritual platform, the weight of my dragon form pressing against stone that’s witnessed countless atrocities. Below me, Hargen lies chained to blackened metal, his dark hair matted with blood, his chest rising and falling in measured breaths that tell me he’s calculating escape routes even now.

He doesn’t know there are none.

“Proceed with the execution.” Vex’s voice cuts through the chamber. He stands twenty feet away, close enough that I could incinerate him in seconds, far enough that Ember—my daughter, my everything—remains within reach of his guards’ weapons.

She kneels behind him in the shadows, chains glowing with suppression magic wound around her wrists and throat. Her hair hangs in her face, but I catch the flash of her brown eyes as they meet mine. She doesn’t understand. How could she? Allthe years of careful lies, and now the truth explodes in the worst possible moment.

Kill Hargen Cole, and I’ll consider sparing your daughter…

The words echo in my mind, Vex’s earlier ultimatum delivered with the cold precision of a man who’s eliminated innocents without flinching. I’ve seen his handiwork. Bodies drained of magic, left as husks. The Ivory League doesn’t make empty threats.

My dragon consciousness wars with what remains of my humanity. Ancient instincts scream to protect my offspring, to eliminate any threat to her survival. But the woman buried beneath scales knows exactly what I’m being asked to do—murder the only man I’ve ever loved while our daughter watches.

“Vanya.” Hargen’s voice reaches me, steady despite his circumstances. “This isn’t you. Fight it.”

Fight what?

The bitter irony burns as purely as the fire I’m about to breathe. He thinks I’m being controlled, that some spell or compulsion drives my actions. If only it were that simple. If only I could blame magic instead of cold, calculated choice.

I lean closer, hoping he’ll see something in my dragon eyes that explains. Some hint of the desperation clawing at my insides, the way my heart breaks with each breath I take. But all I see reflected back is his unwavering faith that the woman he loved still exists somewhere inside this scaled monster.

“I love you,” he says softly, words meant for me alone. “Whatever they’ve done, whatever they’re making you do—I love you.”

---