Your father is hunting you too.The words evaporated from Adrian's vision, leaving the ruined dining hall and the scent of scorched marble behind it.'Adrian?' Seraphine's fingers curled around his sleeve, 'what did she mean?'He didn't answer, instead watching Nyxara as she hovered over the ruined palace floor.Almost his height, the woman was kneeling in something close to reverence and that was unnerving him more than the rotting corpse that had just expired in the chamber beneath them.'Stand,' he ordered.The woman came up to her full impressive, dark eyes narrowing against the weak candlelight as if she could penetrate his bones.'Don't call me Your Majesty.''I will if that is what you are.''I don't know what I am.''Then why are you here?''To find out.'Adrian's jaw tightened. 'Start explaining.'Nyxara glanced around broken dining hall. 'Not here.'Caedmon laughed, something higher than he probably intended. 'Excuse me? A stranger walks into our house, kneels to that 'Nyxa

The doors exploded inwardAdrian hardly reacted in time to the gust of air that shoved him back, his shoulder slamming against the table."Adrian!" Seraphine was already up,"Stay down."Three men stepped through the smoke, their faces uncovered, revealing features that only furthered the tension thick in Adrian's throat. They moved in a careful practiced manner that marked them as something more than soldiers. Hunters.The man in the front wore a black coat lined with silver, a red symbol stitched over his heart. Dragon sight flared in Adrian's vision, revealing the thread running through the fabric, pulsing with power. Contract magic, and a powerful bit of it at that.The man's gaze swept over Adrian. "Here you are."Adrian rolled his shoulder, pushing himself upright, wincing at the protest in his wounded muscle. "Who are you?"The man peeled away a gloved hand, revealing a scarred and angular face. "Ravian Kross. Field Executor for the Ash Covenant."Caedmon found his voice, "Why

"Adrian…"The voice filtered out from the broken floor, low and familiar and devoured the rest of the sounds in the room. The cracking stone, the yelling, even Ravian's breaths.Adrian stopped in place.Twenty six years of his life, she had been a ghost. Something he sometimes smelled in the air. A hand brushing his forehead in dreams he could barely remember upon waking.Now she was calling him."Mom?"Adrian took a step towards the opening before Seraphine gripped his arm."Adrian, wait."He wrenched himself free. The marble beneath him trembled and another portion of the floor gave way, revealing a drop of golden light. A thick heat rolled from the darkness below."She's down there."Nyxara blocked his path. "No.""You told me she was dead.""I told you that the records said she was dead."His eyes narrowed. "You knew."Nyxara said nothing."How much?"Nyxara shook her head. "Not enough."Adrian chuckled mirthlessly. "Seems to be the answer everyone's giving me tonight."Ravian rai

The metal gave firstnot with a crash but a grinding shriek like the building was clearing its throat.Adrian spun towards the sound.A seam opened up in the archive floor, steel plates buckling along an old weld line with dust tumbling down into the darkness below.Something was moving in the gloom.Seraphine backed away, grandfathers device already up."Adrian.""I see it.""No." She lowered her voice by an octave. "You don't."The overhead light stutters once, twice and then every cabinet in the room snaps shut at once, a flat BOOM reverberating through B7 to finally die against the concrete walls.Adrian's Dragon Sight flared to lifethe white walls dissolving into the layers of silver current running through the structure, bloodline markings appearing like the veins beneath skin and strange symbols pulsing gently along the metal cabinets, waiting to be read.And beneath it all a thread, thin and silver running from the seam in the floor to Seraphine's side.Adrian's jaw tightened

The symbol hovering over Seraphine's heart pulsed once. Twice.Adrian felt the second beat vibrate within his bones.Not pain. Not recognition.Dragon Sight revealed what his eyes couldn't see - that the symbol wasn't glowing, but spinning, the black eye in the center whirring like a lock was turning from the inside"Don't touch me," Seraphine whispered. Her eyes were calculating.Adrian came to a halt. "What is happening to me?"He turned to the System. A single sentence appeared, stark against the black background:[SHE IS THE CONTAINER.]Nothing else.Adrian hated that sentence more than any threat Ravian had ever issued."Vaelric," Adrian said sharply. "You know what this is."For the first time since Adrian had met him, the silver-haired man looked shaken. "I know what it can become.""That's not an answer.""No. It isn't."Seraphine stepped between them, the symbol on her chest flaring to life with the movement. "I have spent my entire life being told what I am allowed to be. My