The apothecary wing was alive with the scent of simmering roots and crushed blossoms, but Imogen and Malachite barely noticed anymore.

  Between the clink of glass and the soft burble of brewing tonics, they’d lost all track of time.

  “I mean, really,” Imogen was saying as she poured a thick golden mixture through a strainer. “Of all people to interrupt that moment, it had to be your bossy brother-king with the emotional timing of a brick.”

  Malachite snorted, flicking a bit of dried mint at her. “Pretty sure he thinks he’s helping.”

  “He thinks a lot of things.”

  “Like dragging Axel into a war meeting while he was about to kiss me was smart?”

  Imogen grinned. “Exactly.”

  They both laughed, loud and unfiltered, heads tipped back, shoulders brushing like the sisters they never got to grow up as.

  “I’m glad we have this,” Malachite said after a moment, softer now. “These talks. This weird little moment before everything explodes again.”

  Imogen’s smile gentled, ”Me too.”

  The door creaked open behind them.

  “You two know it’s midday, right?” came the amused voice of the head healer from the archway. “You’ve brewed enough potions for a siege.”

  Imogen blinked and looked toward the high windows. Sure enough, sunlight was streaming in bright and hot, the angle completely different from when they’d started.

  Malachite looked mildly alarmed. “Oh crap.”

  “I was supposed to eat hours ago,” Imogen said, half-laughing as she leaned against the table. “I think my stomach gave up on me.”

  The healer chuckled and waved them off. “Take a break, both of you. Before you pass out in a puddle of salve.”

  Imogen turned to Malachite. “Lunch?”

  “Only if you promise not to bring up the almost-kiss again.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m going to bring it up at least six more times.”

  Malachite groaned, but there was no heat behind it. “I hate you.”

  “You love me.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  They cleaned up what they could, side by side, the air between them filled with ease and golden dust motes dancing in the sunlight.

  Imogen and Malachite walked side by side, the path leading them away from the bustling corridors of the apothecary and into the remnants of a battlefield long reclaimed by silence. The ruins stood half-swallowed by nature, crumbling stone walls overgrown with ivy, cracked weapons jutting from the earth like relics of ghosts. It was a place where the scars of the past still whispered.

  "Hard to believe this is where it all happened," Malachite murmured, her voice low. "When the humans turned on us. When the land bled."

  Imogen nodded, her eyes scanning the wreckage. "Eleanor used to tell me stories about this place. Said it was once beautiful, until it wasn’t."

  They walked in silence for a while longer, the weight of memory pressing in. Finally, Imogen spoke again, her voice thoughtful.

  "I’ve been experimenting with something," she said slowly. "A new aura technique. It’s… not in the journals. Not fully. But I felt it when I was healing Axel. It’s like… singing to the fire inside a dragon. Waking up their true strength. Just for a short time."

  Malachite glanced at her, eyebrows raised. "You mean like a power surge?"

  "Exactly," Imogen said. "But not just raw power. It’s guided. It’s like reaching into a dragon’s core and whispering, ‘Remember who you are.’ And for a few moments, they’re more. Stronger, faster, even fiercer."

  Malachite let out a low whistle. "That’s not just new. That’s dangerous."

  "Only if used recklessly," Imogen admitted. "But if we can master it, if I can learn how to control it, it might be the edge we need. Especially when the south starts moving."

  Malachite looked around the broken field, then back at Imogen. Her expression was unreadable for a moment, but then she gave a single nod. "Then we learn. Together."

  Imogen smiled. "Together."

  The two stood there amid the forgotten battlefield, a promise forged between them as strong as any weapon. The future was coming and they would be ready.

  Imogen shifted slightly on her feet, then asked, "Can I try it on you? Just to see what it feels like?"

  Malachite’s grin spread slowly, confident and playful. "Hell yeah," she said. "Let’s light it up."

  Imogen got up excitedly, slipping off her shoes and holding a half-eaten cookie in her mouth as she directed Malachite where to stand.

  Malachite chuckled, stretching her shoulders. “Well, just remember if you kill me, you have to give my eulogy.”

  Imogen gave her a mock salute, the cookie still clamped between her teeth. “Deal,” she mumbled around it. “But I’m not wearing black. Too depressing.”

  Malachite rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide the smile tugging at her lips. “You’d probably sing a power ballad instead of a proper farewell.”

  Imogen swallowed the bite with a dramatic flourish. “Correction: I’d write an original. ‘Ode to the Hammer-Wielding Hothead Who Refused to Die Gracefully.’”

  Malachite barked out a laugh, the sound echoing against the cracked stone around them. “Gods help us all.”

  The breeze picked up around them, lifting strands of hair and rustling the grass beneath their feet. Imogen's expression shifted the humor still there, but tinged with focus as her golden aura began to hum gently to life.

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  “Okay,” she said softly, stepping closer. “Just breathe. Let me find your rhythm.”

  Malachite closed her eyes, grounding herself. The battlefield faded from her awareness all that remained was the warmth building in the air, the quiet promise of something ancient awakening between them.

  Imogen raised her hands, the glow brightening as the magic began to sing.

  And somewhere deep within Malachite… something stirred.

  Imogen focused, drawing the warmth of her magic into her palms. The golden aura flared to life, brighter and stronger than before but something shifted. Instead of flowing gently, it surged forward like a blast of sunlight, striking Malachite square in the chest.

  Malachite’s knees buckled with a gasp. She stumbled back a step, gritting her teeth.

  Imogen’s eyes went wide in horror. “Stop! I said stop!” she shouted, cutting off the magic with a sharp wave of her hand.

  The light fizzled immediately.

  “Are you alright?! I’m so sorry, Malachite!” Imogen rushed forward, hands outstretched and guilt already curling in her chest like smoke.

  But Malachite raised one hand, steadying herself. “I’m alright, Imogen. I swear. Just whoa. That was intense.” She managed a shaky chuckle. “Like drinking fire and lightning at the same time.”

  Imogen hovered beside her, heart still racing. “I didn’t mean to push that hard. I thought I had it-”

  Then the crystal around Malachite’s neck began to glow.

  They both froze.

  A tremor passed through the stone, and then, crack. The crystal shattered.

  Glass-like shards hovered in the air between them, suspended for a breathless moment… then launched.

  Imogen barely had time to scream.

  “Malachite!”

  The shards drove into Malachite’s chest in a scatter of blazing copper light. She gasped, the sound jagged, and was flung backward by the force hitting the cracked earth with a bone-rattling thud.

  Imogen fell to her knees beside her, eyes wide with panic.

  “Malachite! No, no, no!”

  Malachite lay still, glowing lines beginning to trace across her skin like molten veins as something ancient, something sealed, began to stir deep within her

  Malachite’s body arched violently, a raw scream tearing from her throat as her limbs thrashed against the earth. Her back bowed unnaturally, hands clawing at the ground, at her chest at the shards still glowing like embers embedded in her skin.

  “Malachite!” Imogen shouted, scrambling closer on hands and knees. “Hold on I’ve got you, I’ve got you!”

  Her palms glowed instantly, her golden aura flaring as she pressed her hands to Malachite’s shoulders. “Just breathe, I’m going to heal you, just stay with me!”

  But as soon as her magic made contact, the warmth flickered then vanished.

  “What?” Imogen blinked in confusion.

  The glow around her fingers was being drawn down not into Malachite’s wounds, but into the earth. Into the swirling, copper-tinged energy pooling around Malachite like a living thing.

  Her aura was being consumed.

  “No no no come on!” she cried, trying again, pushing more energy into her friend’s body. But every time she did, it was ripped away. Stolen. Swallowed.

  Malachite convulsed again, screaming louder, the sound cracking with something not human.

  Copper light raced across the veins in her neck, her arms, her face illuminating lines and sigils beneath her skin like runes carved in fire.

  And still, Imogen’s magic couldn’t reach her.

  “Please,” Imogen begged, tears brimming. “Please don’t do this. Come back to me!”

  But the copper magic kept spreading.

  And somewhere deep inside it something ancient was waking.

  Malachite convulsed again, her entire body arching off the ground. Her scream tore through the air raw, guttural, wrong, and then twisted, deepened…

  It became a roar.

  A sound ancient and thunderous, pulled from the marrow of something not fully human.

  Imogen recoiled, eyes wide with horror and awe. The ground beneath them cracked in a ring around Malachite’s body as copper light exploded outward and now, glowing sigils ignited across her skin.

  They carved themselves into her arms, her throat, her collarbone a lattice of shimmering copper runes that pulsed like a heartbeat made of molten metal.

  “Malachite…” Imogen whispered, frozen in place.

  The copper aura surged again.

  Malachite let out one final scream, a roar that echoed through the ruins, shaking the broken stone and then collapsed, her body trembling, chest heaving, as smoke curled from the shattered crystal shards still buried in her armor.

  She was glowing. Flickering with raw, unstable power.

  And something had changed.

  Meanwhile, back in the castle corridors, Axel was still grumbling under his breath as he stalked beside Darius, arms crossed, brow furrowed, and jaw tight enough to crack stone.

  “I said I was sorry,” Darius muttered for what felt like the hundredth time, his voice teetering between exhausted and amused.

  “You yelled at us. Twice.” Axel shot back, barely sparing him a glance.

  “I was trying to help.”

  “You interrupted my first kiss.”

  Darius groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Gods above, you’re like a wounded puppy.”

  Axel whipped his head around. “I am not a puppy.”

  “You’re pouting.”

  “I am no-”

  “Sulking, then.”

  Axel let out a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a sigh, teeth clenched. “You’ve doomed me to a life of almosts.”

  Darius snorted. “Oh relax. She didn’t throw you into a wall this time, that’s progress.”

  “Keep talking, and I will throw you into a wall.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Axel took one step closer, eyes gleaming. “Try me.”

  Darius raised both hands, grinning. “Okay, okay. Love-sick dragon mode: acknowledged.”

  Axel rolled his eyes, but the tips of his ears had flushed a distinct red.

  Then a sound tore through the stillness like a jagged claw across stone. Distant. Guttural. Raw.

  A roar but not from any known patrol dragon or drake.

  The laughter died instantly.

  Darius stopped mid-step, his entire body going rigid. His head snapped toward the distant hallway like he’d been struck.

  Golden energy pulsed beneath his skin.

  Imogen.

  He felt it a sharp ripple of fear, not his own, but hers. A tremor of distress that echoed down their bond like a warning bell.

  His eyes narrowed, tone dropping. “That came from the abandoned battlegrounds.”

  Axel was already turning when he staggered slightly, clutching his side. A flare of copper light shimmered briefly beneath his armor, brighter than it had been in years, real and anchored.

  His breath caught.

  Something was pulling at him, someone.

  For the first time since the bond had formed, it felt alive. Present. As if Malachite was calling out to him without words, her pain thundering through him like an echo of that roar.

  “Malachite,” he choked out, eyes wide.

  Their bond links were screaming.

  Darius didn’t waste a second. “Move!”

  Axel shot forward without hesitation, both of them racing down the corridor, shadows stretching behind them like wings.

  Whatever was happening it wasn’t just a surge.

  It was war breaking loose.

  And someone they both loved was right in the middle of it.