"Alright Frostborne. What now?" Fin asked amused.

Serena didn’t answer, instead handed folded robes to Fin and Aeron. She grabbed a third robe already hanging, pulling it on herself.

Fin’s lips visibly twitched at how large it was on her.

She pulled her hood up, knowing how ominous this looked because she was on the receiving end of this a few months ago. But she was sworn by blood oath and couldn’t tell them anything.

"Last chance to back out." She turned back over her shoulder to Fin and Aeron.

"Not a chance in hell. Lead the way."

She opened the door, and everyone in the chambered turned to see her first. Dexmon was at the other end. She made eye contact with him, and looked away quickly swallowing.

The chamber was exactly as Serena remembered it. Dark stone. No windows. The basin of fire at the center, casting long shadows that bent unnaturally against the carved walls.

Serena led them to the front, then took her place in the stone pews beside Elara, both in their oversized cloaks.

Dex was still staring directly at her and she still was avoiding his eyes, trying to pretend that it was fine and she didn’t feel a literal furnace of intensity fifteen feet away.

Heat crawled up her spine. Her pulse spiked. Something low in her stomach tightened involuntarily, an instinct she couldn’t override, a reaction her body produced without consulting her brain.

She didn’t move or breathe, willing her body to not betray her to either of her matebonds.

Every member of the Brotherhood stood in formation, hoods up, faces concealed.

The oath began, her and Elara joining this time. Fin and Aeron didn’t react to their credit. It started in common tongue, then changed half way. Five full minutes of Draken-Vorah spoken in perfect unison without a single voice breaking.

Then Serena noticed how large Elara’s cloak looked and she smirked. Elara gave her an unimpressed look right back.

Both had their hoods up, and both were trying very hard not to laugh.

Elara: We look like we’re being swallowed by curtains.

Serena: Dignity is a luxury we lost when we met Thor Crushturn, Myrtle.

Elara: You said you would never bring that up again in Orosia.

Serena: I said I wouldn’t in public. It’s a catchy name, have to hand it to him.

Elara: Fine, Frostborne. What did he say about you? Choke-me-while-I-finish—

Gavriel: I can hear you both and so can the Alpha and Beta.

Elara and Serena shut up immediately.

Twice now they’d done that. Then the question dawned on both of them, has it been like that every time?

They glanced at one another, then shook their heads. Impossible.

Then the doors opened.

The Brotherhood preceding Drakenfell was not common knowledge. It was an oddity that Fin was here at all, given how fiercely Drakenfell preserved its bloodlines. Their royal lineage had produced only sons for generations, something in their blood ensuring it, and typically only one per generation. The bloodline was cultivated, deliberate, controlled.

But Aeron had been confirmed as a descendant of the First Dragon King. His lineage, however improbable, was legitimate.

And Fin had Onyx. A bonded dragon. That alone qualified him, regardless of where he was born.

Hyran spoke, voice cutting through the silence.

"For those not yet sworn. Step forward."

Fin and Aeron advanced to the basin.

Hyran offered the ritual blade.

Aeron took it first. He cut his palm with out a flinch, then handed the blade to Fin.

Fin cut his palm in one clean motion and held his hand above the basin. His blood struck the flame.

The fire roared black, then shifted to a deep, violent gold that made the walls shake.

Several members stirred. Hyran’s brow rose a fraction.

Fin’s expression didn’t change. But something in his posture said he had felt that more than he let on.

They placed their bloodied hands on the stone slab. The slab drank, the same way it had with Serena and Elara.

Hyran began the oath.

"The Brotherhood of the Hidden Flame predates Drakenfell. This oath cannot be altered. It binds blood, bone, and lineage."

His voice carried the same weight it had the first time.

"Do you swear before dragon fire to bind your lives to the Brotherhood of the Hidden Flame, sworn to the survival of it above crown, kin, and self?"

"I do," Fin and Aeron said together.

"Do you swear to live by dragon code? To keep the Hidden Flame secret, even from those you love?"

"I do."

"Do you swear this oath will pass through your blood? That your descendants will answer the call until the fire releases them?"

"I do."

Hyran paused for a few too many seconds, with the same dramatic timing he used at every ritual that Serena now knew he practiced.

"The Brotherhood of the Hidden Flame was bound for this charge above all else. Do you swear to protect the chosen one, to kneel in reverence, and to answer when summoned?"

"I do."

The flame roared once, then collapsed inward.

Aeron’s eyes widened slightly. Then wider. His gaze swept the chamber, the runes, the fire, the cloaked figures, processing at the speed of a mage who had just realized this was cool.

"Step forward for your Hidden Flame Primeseal."

Aeron rolled up his sleeve and placed his hand in the flame without hesitation. The mark formed on his forearm, and he stared at it with a quiet, awed scholar intensity.

Fin went next. His hand went into the flame. He already had a mark on his forearm. There were gasps when people saw.

"Both blood oaths have been taken," Hyran declared.

Every member removed their hoods.

Hyran turned toward the pews. "Serena."

She knew it was coming. She stepped down from the pews and crossed to the basin, Elara falling into step beside her out of habit before stopping at the edge of the pews remembering.

Hyran handed Serena the book.

The ancient cover was warm before she touched it. The pattern engraved on the front, her Hidden Flame mark, the one that was different from everyone else’s, flared hot the moment her fingers closed around the leather.

Fin frowned. Aeron’s head tilted. Both felt their marks burn the second she made contact.

Neither were expecting this part. Or any of it. But especially not Serena specifically doing something.

The whispers began.

Draken-Vorah filled the chamber, ancient and layered, pressing into the air like something alive. Serena felt the words before she heard them, thrumming in her mark, resonating in her bones.

"I am a son born in the west. A warrior blessed by the Gods to protect the chosen one. Bound by blood, passed down through generations of watched nights. Flame as my claim."

Every member of the Brotherhood heard it. Fin and Aeron included, now bound by blood oath, the whispers reaching them for the first time.

Hyran translated for them.

Aeron went very still. His eyes flicked to Hyran, then to the book, then to Serena.

Serena drew a breath and answered in Draken-Vorah.

"I am a daughter born in the east. Known by the Gods and seen as one of their own. Watched by three, blessed by two, and carved in the image of one. I am the flame."

The first lock clicked open. Hyran translated again.

The temperature dropped. Cold flooded the book, the mark, the chamber. The whispers shifted.

"I am a warrior, a brother hidden in a flame, sworn to protect the chosen. A moon blood carved in the image of one. Flame bound, frost born."

Serena responded, her voice carrying clearly through the cold.

"I am the axis who answers your hidden flame. A daughter of the Moon Goddess. Carved in her image. I am the flame. I am the fire. I am the Draken Prime."

The second lock clicked.

And then it happened.

Gold light erupted from the book, pouring into Serena, through her, and outward into the chamber. It was the same as last time, every member of the Brotherhood flooded with her protective magic, the golden warmth threading through them like a pulse.

But this time, something else came with it.

Beneath the gold, pink fae magic spiraled outward.

Both energies surged simultaneously, intertwined, wrapping around every person in the room. The gold was familiar, warm, the same protective instinct that had settled into Serena’s chest during her first initiation.

Gold and pink runes blazed across the walls alongside the Draken-Vorah inscriptions.

Three languages. Three legacies. Blazing in a chamber that predated the kingdom it was built beneath.

Aeron made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a prayer. His eyes were wide, reflecting the twin lights, and he looked around the chamber with the unguarded wonder of a man who had studied magic his entire life and was currently watching something that wasn’t in any of his textbooks.

"This is..." He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Then, to no one in particular, "How often does this happen with her?"

"More than you’d think," Alaric answered dryly from the back.

There were chuckles.

Xeon: We signed a blood oath in a basement, and now she’s glowing two colors while reading a book. You’re sure about this?

Fin: No. But I’ve never been more entertained.

Fin stood with his arms folded, watching her and the corners of his mouths twitched at his mate. In the deeply amused recognition of a man who had sworn a blood oath to an organization he didn’t fully understand, in a kingdom that functioned on what appeared to be a combination of ancient magic, blood ritual, and collective insanity, led by a woman who was currently serving as a magical loudspeaker for dead people while simultaneously radiating two different types of magic she hadn’t fully learned to control.

Every single thing about Drakenfell was unhinged. And he had just signed up for life.

Xeon: You’re smiling.

Fin: No I’m not.

Xeon: I want to go to her.

Fin: No.

Xeon: She smells incredible right now.

Fin: Absolutely not.

The book hummed in Serena’s hands. Her eyes had shifted gold, pages turning at alpha speed, the same possessed-marionette reading that had horrified Gav and Dex the first time.

Aeron watched with academic fascination.

Serena finished the book in thirty seconds, looked up, and blinked.

Her eyes flickered back to green. The gold and pink light faded slowly, reluctantly, as if the magic didn’t want to let go.

She looked at Hyran with an expression that said, there was new information.

Hyran’s eyebrow rose.