Sereis (Dragon Master Daddies Book 2), page 3
The other Dragon Lords began arriving.
Davoren entered like a wildfire given form, the air around him shimmering with heat waves that made the mesh screens ping and pop. Kara walked beside him—not behind, never behind—and I noticed how her hand rested on her stomach now, protective. Her pregnancy showed more in how she moved than in her body yet, each step careful, deliberate. The golden marks on her skin pulsed in rhythm with Davoren's breathing, and when she sat—in a chair beside his throne, not at his feet—she positioned herself so she could see every entrance.
Caelus practically danced in, his excitement at the drama palpable. His silver-white hair floated around him in impossible directions, and he'd changed serving patterns four times just walking to his throne. "Historical significance!" he announced to no one in particular. "A Tribunal! In our lifetime! Well, my lifetime, which granted is quite long, but still!"
Garruk entered last, and his expression made my stomach drop. The Mountain Lord looked . . . troubled. Deeply, fundamentally troubled, like stone cracking under pressure it was never meant to bear. He took his throne with unusual slowness, his eyes finding Sereis and holding there with something that might have been sorrow.
Movement below. Davoren stood, and the hall itself seemed to hold its breath.
The truth-wine in my pitcher didn't slosh. It had turned to slush, half-frozen despite the enchantments meant to keep it liquid. When I looked through the mesh at Sereis, his eyes had finally moved.
They were looking directly at where I stood behind the screen.
Davoren didn't build to his accusation—he detonated it.
"Three assassins." His voice hit the mesh screens hard enough to make them sing, a high metallic note that hurt my teeth. "Three assassins bearing frost-burn marks that only dragon magic could create. Sent to steal or murder my bonded mate."
He moved from his throne like lava flowing uphill—wrong, unnatural, too fast for something that should be slow. Evidence materialized in his hands as if pulled from the volcano's memory itself. "Ice shards, forged from compressed winter." He held them up, and even from behind the mesh I could see they were beautiful, deadly things that caught light like frozen screams. "One shattered on my mate’s hide, but I recovered the others. Each one carries a magical signature."
His golden marks blazed so bright that several servants stumbled back from the screens. Kara stood beside him, her own marks pulsing in answer, and I saw her hand clench on her stomach—not protective now, but angry.
"Witnesses." Davoren's voice dropped to something worse than shouting—cold, precise fury. "Seven of them. All saw the attack. One heard them invoke 'the eternal winter' before my mate fought them off."
He turned to Sereis, and the temperature differential between them made the air itself crack.
"Lord Sereis of the Northern Range." Each word fell like a hammer on glass. "You who claim such perfect isolation, such meditative distance from our affairs. You who say proximity threatens your control—I suggest that you crave a mate. So much so that you tried to steal mine."
The ice blade came from nowhere. One moment Davoren's hand was empty, the next he held a weapon that shouldn't exist—ice that burned with inner cold, edges sharp enough to cut light itself. He threw it at Sereis's feet with enough force to shatter stone.
It exploded into a thousand singing shards, each one humming a different note of winter.
Sereis moved.
Just his eyes at first, tracking down to the broken blade with something I recognized—genuine shock, quickly controlled but there, real as the ice at his feet. His head tilted, just slightly, and for a heartbeat his perfect stillness cracked.
"That is . . ." He stopped. Actually stopped mid-sentence, like the words themselves surprised him.
The other Dragon Lords shifted uneasily. This wasn't court gossip or territorial squabbles. This was evidence of attempted murder of a bonded mate—one of the highest crimes in dragon law.
But then Caelus laughed.
Actually laughed, bright and delighted as a child at a festival.
"Oh, this is delicious!" He clapped his hands, and wind chimes that didn't exist rang through the hall. "The hermit finally makes a play for power! And what a play! Though honestly, Sereis, assassination seems rather beneath you. I'd have expected something more . . . elegant?"
The temperature plummeted twenty degrees instantly.
Not gradually, not slowly—between one heartbeat and the next, summer became deepest winter. My breath misted in the air, and frost raced up the volcanic walls in patterns that looked like frozen screams, like fractured glass, like the death of heat itself. The truth-wine in every pitcher turned solid, expanding fast enough to crack some of the containers.
Sereis hadn't moved. Hadn't gestured. Hadn't even changed expression.
But winter itself had answered Caelus's mockery, and in that sudden, terrible cold, I heard something that made my bones ache—the sound of a dragon's patience finally, finally beginning to fray.
The trial proceeded like an avalanche—inevitable, crushing, gathering weight with every word.
Witnesses came forward, their testimonies preserved in crystal spheres that played their words back in their own voices—no chance for alteration, no room for doubt. Each piece of evidence built on the last, creating a structure of accusation that felt solid as the mountain itself.
But I watched Sereis through it all, and what I saw didn't match what I heard.
When they presented a frozen trade document—ink turned to ice mid-signature—his fingers twitched. Just barely, the smallest movement, but I'd learned to read the tiny gestures that Dragon Lords didn't know they made. That wasn't recognition. That was bewilderment, carefully controlled but there, like he was seeing his own reflection doing things he'd never done.
The formal questioning began with Garruk, as eldest. The Mountain Lord's voice rumbled up through the floor itself. "Lord Sereis. This ice blade carries your magical signature. Do you deny forging it?"
Sereis's pause stretched long enough that frost began creeping across his throne. When he spoke, his voice carried harmonics that made my bones resonate. "I do not deny the signature is mine. I deny creating the blade."
A murmur ran through the hall—even the servants behind the screens couldn't stay silent at that. To admit the signature but deny the creation... it was like saying your handwriting appeared on a letter you never wrote.
"Elaborate," Garruk commanded.
"My magical signature is not a secret." Each word came precise as carved ice. "Any Dragon Lord who has observed my workings for a thousand years could replicate it, given sufficient power and patience. The blade is mine in the way a forged painting bears the original artist's style—technically correct, fundamentally false."
But his eyes kept returning to those shattered pieces, and I saw something there that made my chest tight. He wasn't lying—the truth-wine vapors in the air would have revealed that instantly. He genuinely didn't understand how his power had ended up in weapons he hadn't made.
Morgrith spoke next, his shadow-touched voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. "Your isolation these past three centuries—was it preparation? A way to build power without observation?"
The temperature dropped another degree. "I isolated myself because proximity to others threatened my control, not to plot theatrical kidnappings."
The word 'theatrical' landed like a slap. Several Dragon Lords shifted, and Davoren's marks flared dangerous gold. But Morgrith pressed on. "Three hundred years of solitude is rather excessive for maintaining control. Unless you were planning something that required such distance from scrutiny."
"Three hundred years." Sereis's voice had gone soft, which was somehow worse than shouting. "Three hundred years of meditation, of maintaining the Northern Range's barriers against wild magic, of keeping my domain stable while others played politics and traded favors. If I wanted to accumulate power in secret, Lord Morgrith, I would have done what you do—stayed visible while building shadow networks. Isolation is a terrible strategy for conspiracy."
The accusation hung there, veiled but present. Morgrith's shadows writhed, but before he could respond, Zephyron cut in.
"The frost-burns on the assassins were distinctive." Lightning crackled between his fingers as he spoke. "Deep enough to mark bone. That level of ice magic requires not just power but intimate knowledge of human anatomy. How many humans have you frozen from the inside out, Lord Sereis?"
A sound escaped Sereis that took me a moment to recognize—laughter. Bitter as winter wind, sharp as breaking ice.
"None in three centuries." He stood for the first time since taking his throne, and even through the mesh, his presence made the air itself hold still. "But if you're asking about capability rather than action, then yes—I could freeze every human in this volcano without leaving my throne. I could turn their blood to ice between one heartbeat and the next. I could create winter in the heart of summer and make it last until the stars burned cold."
The hall went silent. Even Caelus stopped fidgeting.
"If I wanted Lady Kara," Sereis continued, each word dropping like ice into still water, "I would challenge Davoren directly under ancient law. Dragon to dragon, fire against ice, as the old ways demand. I would not send human assassins to fail at a task I could accomplish in seconds."
The admission of capability made everyone tense. Kara's hand had found Davoren's arm, golden marks pulsing faster. The other Dragon Lords exchanged glances—calculating, measuring, preparing for violence.
But I heard something else in his words, underneath the threat. Frustration. Genuine, deep frustration at being accused of something so far beneath what he'd actually do if he chose to act. Like accusing a master painter of forging copper coins—technically possible, fundamentally insulting.
"You speak of what you would do," Davoren's voice cut through the tension like magma through ice. "But the evidence speaks of what you did do. Your signature, your magic, your methods."
"Methods?" Sereis turned to face him fully, and frost spread from where his feet touched the floor. "My methods? If those were my methods, you'd be attending your mate's funeral, not a trial."
The truth of it rang through the hall like a struck bell. No one could argue—if Sereis had truly wanted Kara dead or taken, she would be. The fact that the assassins had failed, that she'd been able to fight them off, actually argued against his involvement.
But the evidence remained. The ice blade. The frozen ships. The magical signatures that sang his name.
I watched him stare at those shattered blade pieces, and recognized the look of someone seeing their own power turned against them, shaped into accusations they couldn't defend against because they didn't understand how it had happened.
"Refreshments!" Caelus announced, because apparently attempted murder trials required intermission.
The word cracked through the tension like lightning through ice. Several Dragon Lords turned to stare at him, but Caelus was already gesturing dramatically, his cape creating static displays that competed with the gravity of the moment.
"We've been at this for hours," he continued, oblivious to or simply ignoring the incredulity around him. "Parched throats lead to poor judgment. Besides, I have a fascinating new trade proposal that relates directly to transportation security—relevant to our current discussion, don't you think?"
Davoren looked ready to incinerate him, but ancient law was ancient law. If a Dragon Lord called for refreshments during a trial, refreshments were served. Even if the trial might end in execution.
We emerged from behind the screens like shadows becoming solid. My hands found the pitcher—truth-wine, still frozen solid from Sereis's temperature drop. Other servants carried food that no one would eat, water that would sit untouched, all of it ritual and meaningless except for the wine that could burn lies from your throat.
My circuit included Sereis's throne. Of course it did.
I moved through the patterns Caelus had trained into my muscles—twelve steps between positions, pour from the left, never let your shadow cross their space. The other Dragon Lords took their refreshment with the same disinterest they'd show furniture delivering itself. But as I approached Sereis, that stillness of his seemed to deepen, like winter recognizing winter.
The truth-wine had begun to melt, slow drops of purple so dark it looked black in the volcanic light. I positioned myself at the proper angle, pitcher raised—
"The southern passages are inefficient!" Caelus's voice boomed suddenly as he launched into his proposal to Morgrith. "My servants—particularly this well-trained property here—"
His hand shot out and grabbed my arm, yanking me toward him to demonstrate some point about transportation efficiency. "—could move goods faster than—"
The pitcher was already tilted. My balance, carefully maintained through three years of service, shattered. Time slowed to honey-thick moments as I stumbled, the heavy pitcher pulling me forward, wine arcing through the air in a graceful, horrifying cascade.
Purple against white. Dark wine across pale robes. It splashed across Sereis's chest and lap in a pattern that looked like blood on snow, like violence made liquid.
The hall went silent. Not even breathing. Even Caelus's hand fell away from my arm as everyone stared at what I'd done.
I dropped to my knees immediately, the words tumbling out on instinct carved into me by three years of servitude. "My lord, forgive me, please, let me—"
My serving cloth was already in my hand, and I pressed it against his chest without thinking, trying to absorb the wine before it could stain further. The fabric was soaked through instantly, purple wine creating a barrier thin as breath between my palm and his chest.
Our skin touched through the wet cloth.
The world shattered.
Not metaphorically—literally. Ice and light erupted from both of us, violent as birth, inevitable as gravity. My shoulder blazed with cold that burned, frost-flower patterns spreading across my skin in fractals that sang. Matching marks raced across his neck and down his chest, silver-white against his pale skin, and where they spread, they claimed.
But the physical was nothing compared to what slammed through the bond.
I FELT him. Not just his presence but his existence, centuries of loneliness so vast it made me gasp. Iron control hiding desperate need. The weight of isolation he'd carried like armor. And underneath it all, sudden, overwhelming recognition of me—not the servant, not the girl with the collar, but ME. The one who gave away food when starving. Who chose kindness in hell. Whose inner flame he'd sensed even through servant clothes and submission.
Through the bond, I saw myself through his eyes—not small and worthless but burning with life that three years of servitude hadn't managed to extinguish. He saw the books hidden in my memory, my mother's stitches in Tam's sleeve, the way I'd fed the younger servant. Every small rebellion, every preserved piece of who I'd been before the collar, blazed in his perception like stars.
The frost patterns spread faster, racing up my arms, across my collarbone. Where they touched, I felt him—not just his power but his need, his recognition, his claim. Three hundred years of waiting he hadn't known he was waiting for. Searching the wrong places, the wrong ways, while I'd been hidden in plain sight, invisible as furniture that poured wine.
His control, that perfect stillness he wore like armor, shattered completely. His eyes went wide, pupils blown black with shock that transformed into something else—determination that made the mountain itself tremble.
The bond didn't ask permission. It simply was, slamming into place with the force of natural law. Mine to his. His to mine. Written in frost and fire, sealed in magic older than the dragons themselves.
Through the connection, I felt his thoughts—not words but understanding. He'd been falsely accused, evidence planted, and none of that mattered anymore because I was here, I was his, and he would burn the world before he let anyone take me.
The ice marks reached my throat, and when they touched the collar—Caelus's collar, the thing that marked me as property—it shattered. Not cracked, not broken—shattered into dust finer than snow, dispersing into nothing like it had never existed at all.
I was on my knees in front of him, my hand still pressed to his chest through wine-soaked fabric, and I could feel his heartbeat through the bond—steady as winter, inexorable as glaciers, but underneath it something wild, something hungry, something that had been frozen for centuries suddenly, violently thawing.
The truth-wine pitcher fell from my other hand, shattering on the volcanic glass floor with a sound like breaking bells.
And Sereis moved.
Through the bond, I felt him shatter and reform into something else entirely.
"MINE."
The word didn't come from his throat—it came from somewhere deeper, carried on harmonics that predated language. The volcanic glass walls cracked. Every piece of metal in the hall sang. The other Dragon Lords stepped back, even Davoren, because this wasn't a claim—it was a fundamental rewriting of reality.
Caelus jerked forward, outrage overcoming his usual theatrical nature. "She's my property! Ancient law states that servants bound by collar and contract—"
"Mine." Softer but somehow worse, like the quiet before an avalanche. Sereis's eyes had gone pure white, not pale but white, as if winter itself looked through them. "She bears my mark. The bond has chosen. Your collar is dust, and your claim is void."
"You can't just—the trial isn't even—Davoren, tell him—"
But Davoren stood frozen, his fury suddenly redirected.
"The trial," Morgrith's shadow-voice observed with something like dark amusement, "has become significantly more complicated."
Sereis's hand covered mine where it still pressed against his chest. His skin burned cold, but through the bond I felt the careful control he maintained even as everything else shattered—gentle with me, so gentle despite the rage building like an avalanche.
"The trial," he said, and his voice harmonized with itself, becoming something that transcended sound, "is over."
