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Great Vorago, flame of the skies, I beg your ears, only for a moment. I kept my head bowed, trying to pour every ounce of respect and awe I could into the words. It wasn’t too difficult, considering I was addressing a dragon mind to mind. Was this what it felt like to Pendragon and Florence, this immensity of thought? This aweinspiring sense of weight and power?

Vorago groaned and rumbled, then his voice spilled with anger. You wake me from the stone, little highblood, from this state of eternal torment, thinking to press mastery onto me?

No, I said swiftly. Not mastery. Mercy. I’m here to beg you to have mercy upon me.

Highbloods speak of mercy when they wish to fasten a collar, Vorago scoffed. Will you lash me to your will, force soul into soul?

Perhaps I could. I let the admission hang there a moment. But that isn’t what I want. I have no wish to contain or control you. There’s a dragon inside me already—one I didn’t want, one I didn’t ask for. He’s reckless and cruel. All I want is freedom. I wish to be myself again, free of his bondage. Freedom? You would choose freedom over power? Vorago gave a laugh that reminded me of stones sliding off a mountain. What sort of a highblood are you, boy?

I swallowed. I would, yes. But what about you? You say you’re in torment. Don’t you deserve to choose your own ending? If freedom means the sky, I will … offer myself to you willingly. I didn’t know quite how that would work and was praying he wouldn’t take that offer. A better plan would be him flying the fuck out of here—but only after he helped me kill the dragon within me.

Yes, offer to master me, you mean. Vorago snorted.

I would never dare to suggest mastering one so wise and noble as you, Great Vorago, I promised. Look at me. I cannot even master the one who dwells within me, and his violent spirit threatens all I hold dear. What can I give you that you long for? If freedom means rest, let me give you that instead.

There was a long pause. Then, The sky is a mere memory to me now, boy. I would bleed in the wind and fall, screaming. No matter where I went, I would never be free of these chains that have kept me bound here. That’s horrible, I said, honestly. It was true. I couldn’t imagine wanting to die instead of wanting to be free. And yet, that was what Vorago was talking about, wasn’t it?

Vorago’s laughter scraped my ears. Years in stone. Every nerve ablaze while I cannot move, cannot scream. A hell forged for me, fresh with every dawn. A state of torment. No life at all. And yet they said this was what I deserved.

I looked up at him as the stone began to crack, eyelids peeling open, red embers staring down into me.

Very well. I have decided. I will carve away the hatchling who gnaws at your marrow, and then I will end this futile existence.

Relief shot through my chest. No merging. No new tyrant inside my skull. It was more than I’d hoped for. It’s a deal. You help me, I’ll help you. Just tell me how, I said instantly.

The final words, he directed. They must be changed just so.

Inside me, my dragon suddenly burst to life, ripping and pressing against my skin. It didn’t want me to do this. It would fight with everything it had to stop me. I fell forward, sinking to my knees, palms flat on the flagstone, as scales burst forth along my arms, along my chest. “No,” I gasped. “Not now.”

Vorago gave an amused, rumbling laugh. Let the weakling come. I will crack its shell and drink its yolk. It is halfformed at best. Your beast will not stand before me. He suddenly gave a wracking cough that sounded like boulders shifting.

My heart twinged with guilt. Vorago sounded as if he truly were in a bad state. I hoped this was going to work. From the sounds of it, this was going to be a mercy killing—for us both.

Change the close, little highblood, the dragon rasped. Redraw the sigil.

The incantation? I grabbed the book.

Call not for union, but for devouring, he instructed. Your blood will carve a channel. My agony will be the flame that burns your beast out.

And then you’ll … go? I asked tentatively.

You wish me to stay? He sounded amused.

No, of course not, I said hastily.

Good. I wish only for an ending to the curse placed upon me.

My hand shook a little as I drew the second sigil on his chest as he instructed, then the other on myself, each below the first. Then, holding my voice steady, I read aloud the last half of the incantation, changing the words where Vorago had instructed.

“… scaled will to scaled vein. One furnace, one cry. Let the weaker ember sigh, let the greater spirit fly. The elder burns and the younger fades away.”

Fade away to blooddamned nothingness, I snarled at my dragon as I finished. You fucking monster. You would have killed her tonight and not even cared. I won’t mourn you. It’ll be like you never existed at all.

Light detonated around me. Vorago roared. Stone crashed down, sandstone shale fracturing, like a volcano bursting from the earth. Inside, something within me, vast and savage, tore free. A wall of heat slammed through my chest, and for a single blinding moment I was not one, not two, but three. I could feel Vorago—feel his molten memory, feel the centuries of fury and anguish compressed down my spine. I’d thought the dragon inside me angry and violent? That rage was nothing compared to Vorago’s wrath. Now the presence I had carried for months like a burden, the one that had made a cage within my bones, was cowering, collapsing into raw, animal fear.

I tasted blood in my mouth as the two spirits met. Vorago’s cruel laughter thundered through my veins, and for a moment, I feared I had made a terrible mistake. The Inferni was powerful—a hundred times more deadly than the creature that lurked within me.

Witness, whelp, Vorago hissed inside me. Thus ends the torment of captivity. Thus ends our pain.