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And the fear on Luca’s face sends me spiraling. I had told myself not to fight, but just coming out of my rut, I’m unable to stop myself at first. My claws and fangs are extended, and I draw blood before I’m even aware of it.

It’s not until one of the guards has a weapon against my back and whispers words in my ear that I stop.

“I will kill your human,” he says. I don’t know this guard—a young thing, barely out of his hatchling phase, and too full of himself and the power that the council has given him. The idea that he is allowed to take someone of my rank into custody must be heady. “I am under orders to control you by any means necessary.”

Those words are the only thing that can drag me out of my frantic, feral state. I cannot let him be harmed, and if my compliance will buy us time, I will give them that. So I freeze, and I sink to my knees, and let them bind me.

I feel Luca’s panic as if it were my own, and when they blindfold him, I quickly slip into his mind so he is not trapped by both silence and darkness. I lend him my eyes, and though his fear is profound, I feel a trust in me that I’m not sure I yet deserve.

I tell him that we have a plan. A failsafe.

I want to tell him I have made strides with the Tarek and the Vorthex, and that there is an escape option. It will take work, and it will take skill, but Rathyn possesses the communication device, which means we still have hope.

But I cannot explain it all to Luca yet. I must know that Rathyn hasn’t been found out first. Which means allowing the guards to take us.

“Remove the mask from his eyes,” I demand as I’m pushed to my feet.

The guard laughs at me. “I don’t take orders from you any longer. You are under arrest and are to be brought before the council for immediate trial.”

Immediate sentencing, he means. Because I have done this before. I have stepped into the council room as a prisoner and watched as they took my companion from me, and then locked me in the dark for moon cycles upon moon cycles as I was tortured and mocked.

I would forever be changed by that, but the past will be no comparison to the shell I will become if Luca meets the same fate.

No. I cannot allow that to happen.

“He is Deaf,” I tell them as one of the other guards barks an order for Luca to rise. “He cannot hear.”

The Vyastil guard’s eyes widen and he takes a step back from Luca as though touching him might give him the same condition. I fight back a vicious retort.

“Take the mask from his eyes,” I say again, this time more of a request.

The guards refuse, but they do haul Luca to his feet, and my beloved obeys. I send him a small pulse of praise through the bond, though I know he’s still afraid. I watch him still his trembling as the guards open a portal and shove him through.

I follow next, nearly tripping over his prone body as we step into the hallway just a few feet from the council room doors. The growl in my throat reverberates along the walls, but the guards ignore me as they pull Luca back up to his feet.

My claws are itching to tear at my bonds. I don’t know that I would be successful, but my desire to protect him is overwhelming almost all of my rational sense. A small part of me can understand why some Vyastil in power would want to rid us of this irrational, animal nature.

What are we if we can’t overcome instinct?

And yet, I would not trade it for anything in the world.

I think if we were to stand in the hallway much longer, I might lose my control, but it’s only a few moments before the doors sweep open, and the guards shove me forward. I do everything I can not to look back, and I avoid slipping into Luca’s mind because my grip on my sanity is thinner than a bylain thread.

The council sits before me, each one of them staring at me with passive eyes. Jyrion is in the center as always, and the chair I once occupied is painfully empty. I know it is a symbol. There is always a backup member to replace empty seats. So this was a message to me.

“Eissa of the North Hills, you stand before the remaining council accused of high treason and archive manipulation.”

Those are my charges? High treason I expected, but archive manipulation?

“Are you prepared to defend yourself?”

I take a breath, then answer. “I am not.”

If I were any other Vyastil, I would be in the Ancient Hall standing before a tribunal. I do not know if this is a message meant to convey I am more or less important to them. I meet Izar’s gaze, and I can tell he is uncertain about all of this.

He was never good at hiding how he felt, and now, in the flick of his ears and the way his gaze keeps darting to his brother, I think perhaps with a few convincing words, I will be able to sway him.

I look over at Zynth next. The high warlord who sits on the council for duty alone. He has always voted with the majority and has never cared for Vyastil politics. His place is out on the field, and he may soon get his wish.