Chapter 20

  Markus rose from the floor with a calmness that bordered on the surreal—an unnatural serenity that felt entirely misplaced given the situation. Any sane man would have stayed seated, trembling, begging for his life. After all, the air was thick with tension, brittle with the weight of old wounds and unspoken fury. One wrong word, one wrong breath, and someone—any of us—might snap.

  And if not today, then in two days, he’d die anyway—on that altar, if we failed to stop the Crytomancers.

  Because Markus Varnedor wasn’t just some barkeep.

  He was a royal. Possibly the last of his line.

  A minute passed. Not one of us moved. The silence stretched—tight, crackling, electric. Like the air before a thunderstorm. Every breath felt too loud. Every heartbeat a drum.

  It was me who finally broke it. I stepped forward, voice laced with bitter amusement.

  “A member of House Varnedor,” I began, drawing the words out as though I were toasting a hero in a grand hall. My tone, however, was anything but reverent. “Advisor to the king. Ruler of a land others only dream of. Slayer of giants and hydras.”

  The irony in my voice turned venomous.

  “Master of nature and fire magic.”

  Then I let my tone drop. Cold. Final.

  “Dragon-breeder.”

  A beat.

  And then, with a whisper of hate curling through my words:

  “And war criminal.”

  My eyes locked onto his, and I let him see it—all of it. The loathing. The rage. The disgust.

  The others didn’t speak, but they didn’t need to. Maira gave a grim nod. Vin’s jaw tightened. Even Simon’s breath hitched, ever so slightly, betraying his quiet anger.

  And Markus? Markus—the man who had flinched every time we mentioned his son, the man who had cried like a broken thing when we’d discovered his secret lab—stood before us now as if he wore a crown. Head held high. Shoulders square. No fear. No remorse.

  He looked down on us. As though we were the ones on trial.

  “I am not responsible for the sins of my ancestors,” he said, voice level and firm, carrying the icy tone of someone used to command.

  “Your ancestors?” Maira echoed in disbelief, stepping up beside me. “They’re your parents, Markus!”

  I chuckled—a cruel, delighted sound—and added:

  “Who are currently rotting in a cell, deep beneath the dungeons of Neros.”

  Markus didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.

  No guilt. No shame.

  Then he said something that froze the blood in our veins more effectively than any Ice Wraith ever could.

  "My parents were cruel, yes," Markus began, his voice calm, almost bored, "but I had nothing to do with that."

  Then came the summit of his arrogance—words so vile, so twisted, they made the air itself turn sour.

  "Besides," he added, almost thoughtfully, "they were right."

  Silence fell—deadly, suffocating silence. But it didn’t last.

  Before I could react, Simon had already raised a hand and, with a flash of light, released a focused arc of fire that scorched Markus’s left shoulder. The blast was controlled, but deliberate. Markus grunted in pain and staggered back—

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  —but a heartbeat later, thick vines erupted from the wooden walls of the inn, snapping around his limbs like living chains. They slammed him backward into the stone wall and held him there—arms spread, legs pinned, crucified like some cursed martyr.

  Vin’s hands were trembling, outstretched in fury, her magic tightening the vines until they groaned under the strain. Her voice, when it came, was not her own. It was wrath given form.

  "Because of Varnedor, my brother is dead!" she roared. "He marched off to war against your allies because your family deliberately razed entire cities with your dragon-spawn—just to feed them!"

  And then, the monster laughed.

  Markus smiled. A soft, knowing smile that curled like a knife in every heart in the room.

  He smiled.

  "Your brother didn’t have to go to war," Markus said smoothly, baring his teeth. "Or was he forced? Poor little boy, following orders like a lamb to the slaughter."

  The vines twisted tighter. Markus let out a strangled chuckle but didn’t stop smiling.

  I couldn’t hold back anymore. I took a step forward, my voice thundering across the room like a war drum.

  "Is that what you want? For us to kill you? To drag you to the edge of death and back, over and over again until you beg for the grave?"

  And truthfully? I wanted it. Every part of me screamed for it. My home, my family, my entire life had been scorched away in dragonfire—and though Zarkhural, the beast who laid waste to my land, hadn’t come from House Varnedor’s breeding pits, but they had built the world that allowed him to exist.

  They had taught the world to fear dragons.

  And then they had taught the world to hate them.

  Because twenty years ago, things had been different. Dragons were not the hunted, hated monsters they are today. Back then, they were rare—yes—but respected. Mysterious, powerful creatures tied to the balance of nature and magic.

  Then came the famine.

  Two winters, longer and crueler than any in living memory, froze the fields and starved the people. Food was scarce. Entire regions teetered on the brink of collapse.

  And what did House Varnedor do with their vast stores of grain and gold?

  Nothing.

  Instead, they released their dragons.

  They fed them—not with cattle, not with meat, not with anything rational. No. They fed them cities.

  Whole towns, reduced to embers, their inhabitants screaming beneath blackened skies as fire rained from above. All for the sake of fattening their beasts. All to cull rebellious provinces and weaken political enemies.

  They called it necessity.

  We called it slaughter.

  What followed was the Dragon War—a conflict that swept across the southern continent like wildfire. Millions perished. Kingdoms burned. The world changed.

  And House Varnedor?

  They stood before the High Council after the smoke cleared and, without a hint of shame, claimed:

  “We had to feed them.”

  Now Markus stood before us, bound in vines, bruised and scorched, yet still smiling. Still defending it all.

  And we?

  We were barely holding ourselves back.

  But instead of begging for mercy, instead of trembling in fear or showing even a flicker of remorse—he laughed.

  Markus Varnedor, dragonlord and traitor, laughed.

  A low, hearty sound that echoed around the cold wooden room like the tolling of some damned bell. He laughed as though we were the fools, as though the chains, the fire, and the seething fury in the room were all some part of a performance he had already scripted.

  My blood boiled.

  I reached up and took off my helm, not out of formality—but to keep it from being splattered with his blood. My fingers gripped the hilt of my sword, half-drawn already. It would take one motion. One clean arc to drive the blade through his throat and end the line of Varnedor forever.

  But then, a hand gripped my shoulder—gentle but firm.

  It was Maira.

  Her voice was calm, but I could feel the rage trembling behind her words.

  "He’s taken many of my people too, Luken," she whispered, her breath cold with fury. "And believe me, I would infect him with every cursed plague this world has ever known if I could."

  Her hand tightened on my pauldron.

  "But we need him alive. At least until the Crytomancers are dead. He’s our bait."

  And she was right. As much as every instinct in me howled for vengeance, we weren’t done. Not yet.

  Markus, still pinned to the wall by Vin’s vines and with smoke curling from his scorched shoulder, looked around at us with amusement—as if we were the ones being restrained.

  Then he chuckled again. "Listen to your cleric friend," he said, voice filled with venomous glee. "She's right. If you want to get out of here, you’ll have to keep me alive. Whether you like it... or not."

  And there it was—that smug, crooked smile again. Like a king among paupers. Like he still ruled the world.

  Vin’s hands trembled as she finally released the vines, her teeth clenched so tightly I thought she might crack them. The tendrils shrank back into the wall with a reluctant hiss, as if they too hated to let him go.

  Simon, who had quietly been forming a small fireball in his palm, let it die with a flick of his fingers. The light dimmed, and his eyes narrowed into slits.

  And I—gods help me—I shoved my sword back into its sheath with a snarl.

  Markus slumped to the floor like a discarded sack of flour—but only for a second.

  With unnatural poise, he stood back up. Dusting off his coat like some royal lord after stepping through mud, he rose to his full height, back straight, chin lifted. He looked at us not like a prisoner—but like a general about to brief his soldiers.

  "Good," he said, calmly. "Then it’s time we prepare a trap for the Crytomancers."

  And damn it all—we had no choice but to agree.