Kairi tried to tell the maids as they fussed with her hair that she was fine. She also tried to tell them she could dress herself.

  They nodded. Smiled. Continued anyway.

  Caught in a gentle, well-trained storm. Hands everywhere, pins and ribbons and the soft tug of fabric, murmured approval between women who had clearly decided Kairi’s opinion was a charming detail, not an instruction. All she could think about is, just like Tearia.

  Darius even tried to help.

  He lasted exactly two heartbeats before the first maid reached for Kairi’s laces and Darius made a strangled sound, spun on his heel, and faced the wall like it might offer him mercy.

  Kairi bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Darius was going to have a wakeup call about what all he was going to be seeing of her. She wondered if Kylar ever warned him. Or…if Kylar even knew. He didn’t grow up with a sister who was dressed by others. This could be something he had no idea about. That would be for later. For now, she was standing in front of the mirror, staring at the dress they had squeezed her into. It was elegant in a way that felt like a trap. The fabric draped correctly, the neckline sat modestly while still managing to remind her she had a neck. Her hair curled and pinned so perfectly it didn’t look like hers anymore. It looked like a portrait of a princess someone else had decided she should be.

  Her first thought was that Krezin would tease her until she threw a shoe at him.

  Her second thought was that Darius looked like he was going to die of embarrassment.

  She glanced at him. He flushed again so hard it climbed into his ears.

  “Are you okay, Darius?” she asked politely once it was just them in the room.

  Darius rubbed at the back of his neck. “No,” he admitted, staring determinedly at the tapestry instead of her reflection. “This will take time to get used to. I didn’t know they just… you know… start… and… well.”

  His hands moved helplessly in the air as if he could mime his way out of the memory. Corset. Chemise. Hands. No warning. Too much politeness. Too many ribbons.

  Kairi took a deep breath, stepped close, and caught his hands in hers before he could accidentally gesture himself into the fireplace.

  “It’s okay,” she said, voice gentle but firm. “We will learn this together. What happens. What is normal here. What isn’t.”

  She held his hands until he finally met her eyes and nodded, still pink, still valiantly trying to pretend he was not thinking about sleeves and laces and the fact that princesses were assembled like ceremonial offerings.

  Before she let go of his hands, he looked at them. She waited, watching him think as his eyes moved with his thoughts. “Your brother told us, that, we-“ He closed his eyes and took a breath. He looked at her then and tried again. “There is a ceremonial dress that the temple attendants and your Ash Guard would put you in... tie you in.”

  Her smile faded a notch as the memory of rope and knots surfaced like a cold tide.

  “Darius,” she warned gently.

  He didn’t move. He just held her gaze, earnest and mortified all at once. She gave his hands a quick squeeze.

  “You’ll be okay,” she said softly. “I trust you.”

  That seemed to be the only thing in the world that mattered to him. His shoulders eased by a fraction.

  “I believe the maid said we were to go to breakfast,” she said, then paused and tilted her head at him. “Can you guide me there?”

  Darius visibly latched onto the request like it was a lifeline. Directions. Hallways. Doors. Rules he could understand.

  “Yes,” he said immediately, and opened the door for her with pride.

  He guided her through the palace corridors like she was a mission he could complete. Kairi followed the turns, storing them away as she walked. Left at the archway. Right at the corridor with the lion carvings. Two flights of stairs. The palace was a maze designed to confuse strangers and reward those who lived inside it long enough to learn it.

  As they passed servants, Kairi felt eyes flick toward her and away again. Fast. Measuring. Quiet. Darius saw it too. His posture sharpened, his gaze scanning, a guard’s awareness flicking alive.

  When they reached the dining room, Darius pulled out a chair for her with a careful, almost stiff formality that made something warm tug in her chest.

  He sat beside her, not across, as if proximity itself was a kind of protection. She noticed on the road how Tessa always sat with Kylar and Fenway always with Damon. Like he was now. Must be how they do things here in Naberia.

  Damon stared.

  Kairi stared back.

  After a moment, Fenway nudged Damon’s elbow without looking up from his plate. “Staring.”

  Damon blinked, glanced at Fenway, then returned his gaze to Kairi like he was assessing an entirely new species. “You clean up nice,” he said finally, as if the compliment explained the staring.

  Kairi gave him a small dip of her head. “Thank you.”

  Damon’s mouth twitched as if he had expected her to throw a shoe.

  For a moment, Damon’s expression reminded her of Krezin. Krez. She looked down at her lap pushing the sudden grief away.

  The door opened again.

  King Niveus entered, trailed by Ezra and a handful of advisors who were talking at him about various things with the confidence of men who had forgotten what silence was. Niveus answered as he walked, steady and half-distracted. Ezra grabbed a plate and put food on it as Niveus pointed at items without truly looking. The advisors kept talking even as they drifted out again, the whole group moving like a single organism.

  Kairi watched them go, a strange, quiet awe settling in her chest. So, this was what a king’s morning looked like. Not peace. Not rest. Just motion, decisions, and people pulling at him from every direction. What did Ryder’s days usually look like? Kylar’s? Her eyes drifted back to Damon who was still watching her.

  A servant appeared at her side and placed a plate in front of her with a bow. “Here you are, my Lady Kairi,” the man said, then placed a plate in front of Darius. “For you, sir.”

  And then the servant left quickly, as if afraid of being caught lingering too near the table.

  Kairi stared at the plate. It was beautiful. It was also… a lot. Everything arranged like someone had decided hunger should be elegant. She glanced at Damon, who shrugged with a lazy little smirk.

  “Welcome to everyday breakfast in the palace of Naberia.”

  Kairi’s lips twitched despite herself. “Do you eat like this every morning?”

  Damon speared something unidentifiable and shrugged again. “Father does when the advisors let him. The rest of us…” He tilted his head, considering. “I do it for the drama.”

  Fenway snorted into his cup.

  Darius, who had been staring at his own plate, leaned slightly toward Kairi. “Do you… want me to taste it first?” he asked earnestly.

  Kairi blinked, then covered her mouth with her hand as a laugh threatened to burst out of her.

  Darius went even redder. “I didn’t mean— I just— in case—”

  “It’s sweet,” she said quickly, eyes warm. “And very loyal. But I think we are safe at breakfast.”

  Damon’s brows lifted as he chewed looking between the two of them. Once he shallowed he pointed a fork at Darius. “You are going to make Fenway look bad Dare. Offering to do poison testing in your first week on the job.”

  Darius sighed and ate, pointedly ignoring Damon.

  Kairi picked up her fork and let her thoughts wander; the Temple would be later. The Temple would matter. She couldn’t go in there running on fear and empty air.

  She took a bite. It tasted like butter and fruit and something spiced, pleasant enough that it almost made her suspicious. As she chewed, her mind tried to stay on simple things. The route to the dining room. The way Darius held the chair like it was a shield. He was nervous. She was proud for a moment that she was learning his tell. The fact that she had survived the maids. The fact that she would survive the Temple too.

  And then, traitorously, her thoughts slipped to the meadow.

  To Kylar’s warmth against her. To his grumbled vows and smug teasing. To the way he had looked at her like he couldn't believe he had been allowed to keep her close. How his arms held her close.

  Heat rose into her cheeks without permission.

  Kairi lowered her gaze to her plate and took another bite, determinedly calm.

  Damon noticed anyway. He leaned an elbow on the table, watching her with bright, wicked curiosity. “You’re blushing,” he said pleased.

  Kairi lifted her eyes slowly; the look she gave promised future violence in polite packaging.

  Damon, undeterred, glanced at her plate and made a thoughtful hum. “Ah.”

  Kairi paused mid-bite.

  Damon nodded, satisfied with himself. “You really like the food.”

  Fenway made a choked noise that might have been laughter trying to escape.

  Kairi’s cheeks stayed warm. Not because she liked the food. Because Damon was so confident in being wrong.

  Damon’s grin widened. “Eat as much as you want, Princess. No one is judging you. Except possibly, Father, but only if you steal his pastry.”

  Kairi stared at him for a beat, then very deliberately took another bite. Slowly. Pointedly. He chuckled. “When things settle down, we can go on adventures and try all the food.”

  The doors opened again as the servants reacted. Grateful, she looked away from Damon and toward where Ryder entered. He was composed, eyes taking in the room like he always did back when he use to visit them. Then, Kylar, came in beside him.

  And the moment Kairi saw Kylar, her stomach did something stupid. Not nerves. Not fear. A soft, private flutter that had nothing to do with breakfast. She had never seen him in anything other than his training leathers, the shadow guard kit and most recently, the royal guard uniform.

  Kylar’s gaze found her immediately. Just a flicker. A quiet check-in. And for a heartbeat his mouth softened.

  Kairi stared at her plate while her mind unhelpfully took notice of how his attire was clean, crisp and tailored perfectly to his figure. His hair combed and styled instead of the wind tussled mess it was most of the time in their meadow.

  Kylar took the seat beside her, close enough that his knee nearly brushed hers under the table. His posture was correct. His presence was calm as he looked between Kairi, Darius and Damon, eyebrow lifting faintly at his brother’s expression.

  Damon, delighted to have an audience, gestured at Kairi’s plate. “Kairi loves the food,” he announced, smug as if he had solved a riddle.

  Kylar’s brow rose higher. His eyes flicked to Kairi’s face.

  Kairi did not look up. She kept eating with the fierce concentration of this plate of food needed her utmost attention.

  Darius, having witnessed the whole exchange, quietly took a croissant from his plate and placed it on hers. One of the things she’d eaten quickly earlier.

  Kairi looked at it, then at him. Darius stared resolutely at his own plate like he hadn’t done anything at all.

  Damon leaned back in his seat and hummed. “I bet, you haven’t had meals like this since Tearia.”

  She internally wanted to yell about how her flush was not about food. She simply nodded. “The food is good. I look forward to trying more dishes.”

  Kylar’s gaze lingered a moment longer than polite, then he sat back, expression unreadable except for the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  Ryder took the seat across from them and reached for a pitcher, filling his cup without ceremony.

  Damon leaned toward him, still grinning. “No Serenity?”

  Ryder didn’t even glance up as he poured. “She requested to go out,” he said evenly. “She took Tamsin and Jayce.” Then Ryder’s gaze slid to Kairi, sharp but not unkind. “A carriage is being readied to take you to the temple. Kurt should be helping with that.”

  Kairi nodded picking up the croissant now taking a couple bites of it. Thoughts of the temple and what they would learn today. She hoped that she would be allowed to research what she wanted while they taught Darius and Kurt about their duties.

  Kylar shifted, reached for the serving dish, and added sliced pears to her plate as casually as breathing.

  Kairi blinked at them.

  He didn’t make a big deal of it. He was already speaking to Ryder about packing lunch, about whether they would be at the Temple all day. Kylar answered like he’d already decided yes.

  He remembered I liked pears

  Kairi tried to focus on the food. Tried to focus on the plan. Tried to focus on breathing like a normal person who had not been flipped into grass and kissed senselessly in a dream by the man beside her, who remembered she loved pears.

  She smiled privately and gently stabbed her fork into a piece of the pear and ate it. It was sweet and firm and filled with a taste of home.

  Damon silently watched as they finished off their plates then excused himself. He did a small bow of his head to them. “Don’t die of boredom today. See you at dinner.” He grinned and headed off as Fen followed.

  Soon enough. Kairi followed the others out into the corridor, Darius falling into step immediately, posture sharpening. Kurt appeared near the entry hall, already looking calm and collected, but the tension in his shoulders were there. It would be a day of learning for both of them she thought mildly.

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  “The carriage is ready,” Kurt said, nodding stiffly. Darius gave him a quick once-over, then a nod back like a shared understanding passed between guards.

  Outside, winter air hit Kairi’s cheeks, sharp and clean. The palace loomed behind them, stone and watching windows. The courtyard was bright with pale light and scrape of wheels.

  Kurt and Darius took the driver’s bench.

  Kairi stepped into the carriage, skirt gathered carefully, and Kylar climbed in after her with practiced ease and set his pack down on the empty bench.

  The door shut. Sound softened. It was suddenly too quiet. Too small.

  Kairi sat on the bench opposite the door; hands folded in her lap as if she were trying to keep them from shaking. Kylar sat beside her, close but not touching, his presence filling the space anyway. His posture was formal. His attention was not. It stayed on her like he was reading the set of her shoulders, the tightness at her mouth.

  The carriage started moving, rocking gently. Outside, Kurt’s voice was low as he spoke to Darius. Hooves clicked against stone. Wheels rolled.

  Inside, Kairi stared at her hands and tried to think about what lay ahead of them and the apprehension and excitement she felt waring within her. What if she learned something terrible today? What if she failed to do something over these decades? What if-?

  Then Kylar finally spoke, voice soft enough it barely disturbed the air between them.

  “Was…” He paused, as if the words had to be managed, carefully. “…last night, okay?”

  Kairi’s breath caught and her mind stopped racing from thoughts of the temple to thoughts of him…all of him.

  She didn’t look up right away. If she looked up, she might smile. If she smiled, she might blush. If she blushed, Kylar might look pleased, and then she would die of embarrassment in a carriage on the way to a temple where the priests will consider her body sacred.

  So, she kept gazing at her hands. And answered honestly anyway.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Then, after a beat, because she couldn’t help herself, she added, still not looking at him, “It was… more than okay.”

  Kylar’s exhale sounded like relief. Kairi finally lifted her eyes.

  Kylar was watching her with something careful and bright in his expression, like he was trying extremely hard to be a prince that was composed and failing because he was so happy.

  The carriage rocked again, and his knee brushed hers by accident. Neither of them moved away. Kylar’s gaze stayed on her hands like they were a map he didn’t trust himself to read.

  “I thought…” He cleared his throat, and the sound was absurdly him. “I thought for a moment I messed up.”

  Kairi blinked.

  Kylar stared out the carriage window as if the winter streets could rescue him from saying the rest. “You were quiet after,” he muttered. “And everything that happened once we got back yesterday.” His jaw flexed. “I worried about it all morning.”

  Kairi’s chest softened in a way that made her want to comfort him and kiss him at the same time. So, she did the safe thing. She reached over and took his hand.

  His fingers tightening around hers like the contact was permission to breathe.

  “I thought about it all morning too,” she said quietly. “And you have nothing to worry about.”

  Kylar’s eyes flicked to her, searching.

  Kairi squeezed his hand once, firmer. “Nothing,” she repeated, and let the warmth in her voice do what words alone could not.

  He relaxed against the bench back and let himself be pleased, his mouth twitched. Smugness returned like an old friend.

  Kairi narrowed her eyes. “Don’t.”

  Kylar’s thumb brushed her knuckles, slow and infuriatingly confident. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You’re thinking it loudly.” She muttered.

  His smile deepened. “I’m just relieved.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Kairi said, unimpressed, though the curve at the corner of her mouth betrayed her.

  The carriage rocked over a cobblestone seam. Their joined hands shifted but didn’t separate. Outside, Carlbrin slid past in winter tones, stone buildings and bundled citizens, banners already appearing here and there like the city was dressing itself for his name day whether he wanted it or not.

  Kairi tried to focus on the temple.

  The Phoenix Temple.

  The place that had claimed her before she understood what claiming really meant.

  Kylar’s grip tightened slightly, and she looked to him.

  “I’m here,” he murmured.

  Kairi swallowed. “I know.”

  A beat of quiet as the slow joy of her having just one person that knew her so well and knew her tells by heart. The happiness leaked from her in a smile.

  Kylar watched her profile and the subtle smile spreading. He looked toward the bag and pulled it into his lap and began to open it. “Still not calling myself your mate.”

  Kairi let out a soft huff that was suspiciously close to laughter. “Good.”

  His grin flashed. “Unless you ask.”

  “KYLAR.”

  He leaned closer, voice pitched low enough to stay theirs. “I’m behaving.”

  “You’re flirting.”

  “I’m coping,” he corrected, utterly serious.

  Kairi’s cheeks warmed, but she kept his hand, anchored by the simple fact of him beside her.

  The carriage slowed outside and he pulled the cloak out of his bag and wrapped it around her and closed the clasp and adjusted it some, so the crest showed proudly. “There,” He stroked her cheek softly. “you can wear this.”

  Wheels crunched on gravel.

  Kurt’s voice carried faintly from the driver’s bench, posture rigid with purpose. Darius answered in the low tone he used when he was trying to pretend, he wasn’t nervous.

  The carriage came to a stop. Kairi looked at the crest and ran her fingers over it and gazed into his eyes. They showed bluer today than the gray. This was his solution to having to give back his ring for now. A way for him to still say ‘mine.’

  The door opened, and winter air swept in sharp and clean. The cloak helping keep it from finding the cracks in her attire today.

  A priest waited outside, robed in ash-gray trimmed with ember-gold, face calm and serene. The kind of calm that made you wonder what made them so calm.

  “Princess Kairi Shadow,” the priest said, bowing.

  Kairi stepped down carefully, skirts gathered and nodded in return. “Thank you for receiving us.”

  His gaze slid briefly to Kylar, then to Darius and Kurt behind them. “And the Ash Guard candidates.”

  Darius and Kurt straightened automatically, the reaction drilled into them.

  Kylar offered his arm to Kairi as his expression shifted into something formally composed as she slipped her arm into his. Her gaze floating up the temple itself.

  The Phoenix Temple rose pale against the winter sky, its stone polished smoothly, its carvings intricate and ancient. Phoenixes in flight, phoenixes in flame, phoenixes with wings spread so wide they looked like they were holding up the building itself. The doors were tall enough to make Kylar look smaller for a moment, and memories of standing before a temple much like this one came back to her. She tightened her grip on his arm for just a moment.

  Kylar briefly glanced to her and then back to the priest and then followed them up the stairs and into the temple.

  Inside the temple the air was warm and scented with herbs and incense with a mingle residue smell of wood smoke. The sounds changed immediately from the bustle of the streets of Carlbrin. Softer. Reverent. Every footstep swallowed by stone and rugs and the weight of holy air.

  The priest guided them through outer halls and quieter corridors, past alcoves with candles and kneeling cushions and murals that made Kairi’s skin prickle. Past other priests who watched without staring. Past acolytes who moved like whispers.

  And then into the inner sanctuary. It was a space that felt carved from devotion. Tall columns. A domed ceiling painted with flame and sky. A central dais where a phoenix emblem was inlaid on the floor in gold and red stone. Light filtered in from high windows, catching in dust motes like tiny sparks. There were acolytes in some parts of the sanctuary working on texts. Every once in a while they would glance and then away, as if looking upon their god’s vessel was too much.

  Kairi’s throat tightened. Kylar’s shoulder brushed hers, a subtle contact that said, steady.

  At the far end, an older priest stood waiting. His robes were darker, the trim richer, the kind of garment worn by someone who didn’t have to announce his authority for it to be felt.

  The head priest. He regarded them for a long moment, eyes like embers that had burned down into something enduring. “Princess,” he said, and his voice held no warmth or cruelty. Only certainty. “And those who will stand in ash beside you. I am pleased to greet the Phoenix’s vessel. I am Enelias, your humble servant.”

  Darius and Kurt bowed so deeply Kairi thought their spines might snap. Kylar bowed with measured respect. Kairi curtsied, feeling the old training slide into place.

  The head priest gestured, and they were guided to seats along the sanctuary’s edge. Not thrones. Not cushions. Simple benches. Instructional. Equalizing.

  They didn’t leave for hours. Enelias spoke of the vessel. Not as a title. As a function. Much of this Kairi had known before, but the rest of her party absorbed the lesson.

  “As the Phoenix chooses, so the world is altered,” he said, walking slowly before them. “The vessel is not crowned. The vessel is carried.”

  Kairi’s fingers curled in her lap.

  “The vessel burns so others do not,” the priest continued. “The vessel is the door through which the Phoenix passes. Flesh endures what divinity cannot hold for long.”

  Darius listened like a man trying to memorize every word as a shield. Kurt listened like this was scripture being etched into his bones. Kylar’s face stayed still, but Kairi saw his jaw tighten at certain phrases, like each one added weight to an invisible chain.

  Enelias looked to Darius and Kurt expectant.

  “You are not guards in the common sense,” he said, gaze cutting. “You are ash-bearers. You stand close enough to be scorched by her flames, her tongue and her hands. You will become her devoted servants. Her last line of defense against all her enemies and herself.”

  They both didn’t flinch or show any concern about the potential of being burned. They sat and waited for Enelias to continue.

  Kairi’s stomach churned. She tried to remind herself: this is why she came. To learn. To prepare. To stop being surprised by her own existence.

  Enelias spoke of discipline, of restraint, of what it meant to protect someone whose power could turn inward if cornered.

  Kylar leaned forward once, voice even. “What are the signs of overload?”

  Enelias held his gaze for a moment. “Pain. Heat. The beginning of flame where flame should not be.” His eyes slid to Kairi. “And the instinct to hide it.”

  Kairi harden her eyes and thought back how Kylar already knew how she has pushed herself too much. Darius and Kurt also offering themselves to her for practicing to increase her healing abilities. She looked down at her fingers. But the flames she could tighten so sharp into lightning. Her overload, her burnout from that. She pushed the thoughts aside and continued to listen to the lessons.

  Hours later, when the light had shifted in the high windows and her body ached from sitting too still, Enelias came to what she had wanted to know most about, the cycle.

  He didn’t announce it like a tragedy. He announced it like weather. Like law. “The Phoenix dies,” he said.

  Silence tightened around the words.

  Kairi felt Darius go very still beside her while Kurt took a more audible breath. She felt Kylar shift some beside her as she forced herself to calm.

  “The Phoenix dies,” the Enelias repeated, “and is reborn. Again, and again. That is its nature.”

  Kairi’s mouth went dry.

  “And the vessel?” Kylar asked, voice too controlled.

  Enelias’s gaze sharpened, as if pleased someone asked the question with teeth in it.

  “The vessel endures,” he said simply.

  Kairi’s stomach dropped.

  Endure what. Endure how. Endure until when.

  “The vessel carries the passage,” the priest continued, unhurried. “The dying. The burning. The breaking. The rebirth.” His eyes settled on Kairi with a calmness that felt like a blade. “And each cycle leaves ash.”

  Kairi heard her own pulse loud in her ears, and for a moment the sanctuary tilted, the murals blurring at the edges. Dying, burning, breaking and then rebirth.

  “No,” Darius said before he could stop himself. The word came out raw, untrained, a man speaking instead of a guard. “That’s—”

  Enelias didn’t even look surprised. “That is.”

  Kylar’s voice cut in, low and dangerous in its restraint. “Define endure.”

  Enelias didn’t flinch away. “The vessel does not escape the cycle,” he said. “The vessel survives it. Until it cannot.”

  Kairi’s hands were shaking. She didn’t realize it until Kylar’s fingers brushed hers under the edge of the bench, hidden by fabric and shadow. A secret touch. A lifeline. Her fingers clutching his. Her chest felt too small for air.

  Enelias kept speaking, but her mind snagged on only one line.

  Until it cannot.

  Darius stared at the floor like he was trying to hold his own world together by force. Kurt’s eyes were bright and glassy, devotion cracking into something like horror.

  Kylar didn’t move. But Kairi felt it in his hand, the tremor he was refusing to show anywhere else.

  They all took the news hard. And the temple, ancient and calm, kept burning its truth into them anyway.

  Kairi’s voice came out smaller than she wanted it to.

  “If… if the cycle is inevitable,” she asked, forcing the words through a throat that felt tight with smoke, “how many vessels survive it?”

  Enelias regarded her for a long moment. Not unkindly. Not gently either. Like a man who had watched too many answers become ash.

  Then he nodded once, more so coming to his own answer. “Many have, yes,” he said. “With the proper protections.”

  Kairi’s fingers tightened in Kylar’s hand. “What protections?”

  “The Ash Guard,” Enelias answered, his eyes noticed how she gripped the prince’s hand, then his gaze sliding briefly to Darius and Kurt. “The vessel’s guardian.” His eyes returned to Kairi. “And the vessel’s mate. Sometimes, the guardian and the mate are one in the same.”

  The word landed like a stone in still water. The heavy ripples spreading out shattering the serene calm before all of them.

  Kairi felt Kylar’s hand go rigid against hers, as if the term had snapped something into place in him even as it startled him.

  Darius shifted, jaw tight. He looked like he was trying to decide whether to speak, and then duty won. “Guardian?” Darius asked, voice careful. “What is the guardian?”

  “The guardian is the one who stands between the vessel and the worst of the cycle,” he said. “The anchor when the Phoenix burns too close to the skin. The hand that holds the vessel to the world when divinity tries to pull her away.”

  Darius swallowed. Kurt leaned forward a fraction, listening like every syllable was sacred. “What does that mean exactly?” Kurt finally said.

  “And who is chosen as guardian?” Darius asked.

  Enelias looked between them. “The dragon vessel,” he said simply, as if naming a sunrise. “They use their abilities to stabilize the phoenix vessel.”

  The sanctuary went quieter. Kairi’s breath caught on the word dragon like it was a hook.

  Rush.

  All the weight of her brother’s blessing and all the history she didn’t fully understand, suddenly threaded into her fate with a priest’s casual certainty.

  Darius’s eyes widened, then narrowed as his mind tried to fit the pieces together.

  “The dragon vessel will be her guardian,” Darius repeated, half to confirm, half to protest.

  Enelias nodded once. “Yes.”

  “No.” Kairi said low but certain. “The dragon vessel is not….not this time.”

  Kylar breathed slow as her grip on his hand was becoming crushing. She was scared. He watched Enelias’s eyes widen in shock at her declaration. He gave a small squeeze back as she realized and gentled her grip on his.

  Enelias finally found his voice. “If it is as you say my vessel. I… my vessel, I have a surprise for you. Please follow me, all of you.”

  He led them deeper.

  Not farther into darkness, but into a quieter kind of light, where candles burned in glass lanterns and the air smelled of old ink and burned herbs. The corridor narrowed, the stonework changing from grand to intimate, like the Temple itself was drawing them into its throat.

  They entered a side chamber that felt more like a sanctum than a classroom.

  A table stood in the center, heavy and scared by years. Along the walls hung paintings. Not decorative. Not pretty. Documentary.

  Kairi’s breath caught. Enelias gestured, and an acolyte carefully uncovered the first canvas.

  A dragon and a phoenix, painted in sweeping motion, their bodies curved like a spiral of flame and wind. The brushwork made it look alive, like if you stared too long it would move again. The dragon’s coils were protective and possessive all at once. The phoenix’s wings were spread, not in flight but in surrender to the dance.

  “The Dance of the Dragon and the Phoenix,” the priest said quietly. “Older than most kingdoms. Older than our language in some parts.”

  Kairi stepped closer without realizing she had moved.

  Her eyes tracked the strokes. The way the painter had captured flame without painting fire. The way the phoenix’s face was both serene and fierce, like devotion didn’t mean weakness. She could feel Kylar behind her, close enough that his warmth touched the back of her shoulder.

  Another painting was revealed.

  This one was more… specific.

  The phoenix vessel stood at the center, bare-armed, draped in ceremonial rope and layered cloth that looked more like harness than gown. The knotwork crossed the chest, circled the waist, cascaded in deliberate lines that were both modest and unmistakably intimate. Gold accents glinted at the throat and hips. Body paint traced along the shoulders and down the arms like ember light.

  Kairi’s mind snagged.

  Rope.

  Harness.

  So that’s why Krez was so upset that day.

  She looked back over her shoulder, finding Darius, Kurt and Kylar looking at the painting. All three of them had some color to their faces.

  Damon would have had a field day with them, she thought. She turned fully and placed a hand on Dariu’s shoulder. “You did tell me, Rush warned you.”

  Kylar lowered his eyes from the painting to her. “Verbal warnings and seeing what he meant are vastly different.”

  The dragon vessel was painted beside the phoenix vessel, hands steady, posture reverent. One arm was braced around her like an anchor, the other holding a blade. The blade was drawn across the phoenix vessel’s skin in the painting, a thin line of red, not violent but deliberate. It was visible this ceremony was of an intimate nature. The way the body paint was smeared across both vessels in this painting showing where the dragon had touched the phoenix’s body. The phoenix vessel’s expression wasn’t fear. It was acceptance.

  It was the kind of calm that came from knowing exactly what you were offering.

  Darius’s voice came out strained. “He’s… cutting her.”

  Enelias nodded, unbothered. “A ceremonial exchange. The dragon vessel is blood sacrificed. The Phoenix recognizes the Dragon through it.”

  Kurt whispered, “And the rope?”

  “A binding,” the priest said. “Not of ownership. Of forever, the ropes represent the never ending threads of life, the infinity that the phoenix endures and cages itself within it’s own being.”

  Kylar shifted. Kairi felt it, the subtle tension of him trying to keep his face neutral.

  Kairi stared at the painting, heart thudding.

  It was beautiful.

  It was terrifying.

  It was… hers.

  Another painting. Another angle. The dragon and phoenix vessels in motion, the dragon guiding, the phoenix yielding, their feet positioned in a spiral pattern painted on the floor. The brushwork captured movement in a way that made Kairi’s skin prickle, like the ritual had been too real for the canvas to hold.

  Kairi’s gaze lingered on the dragon vessel’s hands.

  Not rough. Not cruel. Steady. Protective.

  She didn’t miss the way the phoenix vessel leaned into that steadiness. “The dance of the Dragon and the Phoenix is the ceremony of mates. Correct Enelias?”

  Enelias nodded with a smile. “Yes, vessel.”

  Kylar’s voice cut in, low and controlled. “Has any other god-beast guarded the Phoenix? And…as far as ‘mates’ go, this ceremony is called the dance of the dragon and the phoenix. Is it always a dragon blessed man?”

  Enelias paused. For the first time, he looked genuinely thoughtful rather than simply knowledgeable. He stepped closer to the paintings, eyes tracing details as if the answer might be hidden in pigment and age.

  “…Possibly,” he admitted after a moment. “There are gaps. Wars. Lost records. Times when temples fell and histories burned.” His gaze lingered on the dragon vessel’s painted silhouette. “But as far as our records show…”

  He looked back at them.

  “…it has always been the Dragon who guards. And it has always been a dragon vessel or a dragon blessed who had been chosen to be the phoenix vessel’s mate.”

  The words should have been comforting. Instead, they felt like fate tightening a knot.

  Kairi swallowed, eyes still on the rope harness, the blade, the dance. “...chosen mate?”

  Darius looked at her and then at Kylar who wasn’t moving, not breathing. He waited till he saw his prince finally take a breath,

  Kairi took a deep breath. “I am choosing my own mate.” She said steady enough.

  Enelias blinked. “We can talk about it more later, Vessel”

  She shook her head. “I am not accepting any court or temple appointed male to be my partner.” She said with cold finality. “Prince Dato will be. He is my betrothed.”