"Cara."
Her name echoed through the cavern.
Not shouted.
Not broken.
But raw.
It hit her harder than the plea had.
The dragons reacted first—heads lifting, murmurs rising at the foreign sound.
Vyrisa did not react immediately.
But she felt it.
Cara felt it through the mark.
A flicker.
A recalibration.
Her gaze lowered slowly to the human at her side.
"What is your name?"
The question was spoken aloud.
Not inside her mind.
The cavern went still.
Lyris straightened sharply.
A queen does not ask a human's name.
Cara's throat tightened.
"You never asked," she said softly.
"I did not require it," Vyrisa replied.
A beat.
"But I do now."
The shift rippled outward.
Lyris's eyes burned.
Elias inhaled sharply at the entrance.
Cara swallowed.
"Cara," she said.
Vyrisa repeated it once, quietly.
Testing it.
"Cara."
Something in the way she said it changed the air.
Not ownership.
Recognition.
Then—
Without warning—
Vyrisa's hand closed around Cara's arm.
Not cruel.
Not gentle.
Claiming.
She dragged her forward.
The cavern parted for them.
Dragons shifting back instinctively.
Lyris watching every movement with razor focus.
The conversation slipped back into their minds as they moved.
You bind me to decisions I would not otherwise make, Vyrisa murmured.
You're the one who dragged me out here, Cara shot back, heart pounding.
He will reach for you.
He's my father.
A pause.
That word.
Father.
It sat heavily between them.
Another kind of treasure, Vyrisa observed quietly.
Cara faltered half a step.
I am not treasure.
You are to him.
And that complicated everything.
They reached the threshold.
Wind rushed around them.
YOU ARE READING
Ashes Embraced
FantastikA Dark Sapphic Romantasy A century ago, the Red Dragon Queen burned Frairdale to the ground. Now she rules from the cliffs above the lake-untouched, unchallenged, and unrepentant. When Cara steps into dragon territory, she expects death. Instead, sh...
