Nick pulled away so suddenly that the chains rattled.
His eyes searched Jodi’s transformed face.
“No.”
“You once told me that no flame could conceal truth from a dragon.”
“Jodi bore a crimson mark.”
“It changed after I gave birth.”
Nick went completely still.
“Gave birth?”
Jodi stepped back.
His gaze moved toward the nursery tower.
“The girls,” he whispered.
“My daughters.”
“Our daughters?”
She heard hope in his voice and hated that part of her still responded to it.
“You lost the right to ask when you believed Melody instead of me.”
“I ordered you confined while the poison was investigated.”
“You placed me inside a tower cell.”
“The poison was beneath your bed.”
“Melody put it there.”
Nick frowned.
“Melody did not arrive until three months after you fled.”
Jodi’s blood turned cold.
“She stood in your throne room.”
“No. You accused Varos, not Melody.”
“I remember her.”
“And I remember you confessing that you planned to control my curse.”
“I never said that.”
Nick pressed one hand against his temple.
The fire began returning through the cracks in his skin.
“I cannot separate the memories.”
Jodi touched him again because she refused to let him burn while they argued.
The flames withdrew.
Nick summoned Seraphine, the oldest mind-healer in the Dragon Lands.
She appeared as a white-haired woman with translucent scales at her temples. When she placed her fingers against Nick’s forehead, silver light moved through his mind.
“His memories have been woven,” Seraphine said.
“By whom?” Nick demanded.
“Someone using blood magic and a personal object carrying the target’s emotional connection.”
Jodi remembered the engagement ring she dropped before Paul and Melody. Melody had recovered it from the mud.
The ring had touched Jodi’s skin for nearly a year. It carried enough of her essence to anchor false memories involving her.
“Can you remove them?” Jodi asked.
“Not quickly. Breaking a memory weave by force may destroy the mind beneath it. Truth must be recovered in pieces.”
Jodi demanded access to her daughters.
Nick accompanied her to the east nursery.
When the door opened, Ember and Ava ran into Jodi’s arms.
“Mama!”
She knelt and held them.
“Are you hurt?”
“Aunt Melody told us you didn’t want us,” Ava whispered.
“She lied.”
Ember glared at Nick.
“Is he our father?”
Jodi looked toward him.
Wonder and shame moved across his face.
“Yes,” she said.
Ember folded her arms.
“He looks sick.”
Nick almost smiled.
“I am.”
“Did you make Mama cry?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t like you.”
“That is fair.”
Ava approached him cautiously.
“Can you become a dragon?”
“Not while the curse controls me.”
“Can Mama fix it?”
Nick looked at Jodi.
“She has saved me many times.”
Jodi corrected him.
“I stopped the fire. I did not save you from your decisions.”
The following morning, Nick announced that the children were under royal protection. He concealed their parentage because whoever abducted them might strike again.
Melody confronted him after court.
“You cannot trust that healer.”
“Why?”
“She threatened me.”
“You struck a child in chains.”
“She carries forbidden blood.”
“So do you.”
Melody’s eyes flashed.
Nick stepped closer.
“What happened the night Jodi disappeared?”
Melody repeated the story woven into his mind.
“She admitted that she came to weaken you. She told Varos she intended to bear a child capable of destroying dragonkind.”
“Jodi never told Varos that.”
“You cannot trust your memories.”
“No,” Nick said. “But I trust my dragon.”
Every dragon possessed an ancient second consciousness beneath the human mind. Nick’s dragon had been trapped by the curse for a century, yet it recognized Jodi immediately.
The beast rejected Melody.
Jodi returned to the suite where the poison had been found. The rooms had remained sealed for five years.
Behind a wall panel, she found a residue of dream ash—the substance used to create false memories.
A strip of golden fabric was trapped beneath the wood.
It matched one of Melody’s old gowns.
Melody had entered the realm earlier than Nick remembered. She used a glamour spell to conceal herself from everyone except Varos and Jodi while planting false memories in Nick’s mind.
Varos requested a private meeting with Jodi.
She entered the council chamber armed.
“You should leave while the gate remains open,” he said.
“My daughters are here.”
“They will be safer without you.”
“You sound like Melody.”
Varos smiled.
“Melody is useful. You are dangerous.”
“You helped curse Nick.”
“No. But I learned how to benefit from his suffering.”
As long as Nick remained weak, Varos controlled the armies, treasury, and council. Melody promised to preserve that power when she became Nick’s wife.
“What does she want?” Jodi asked.
“The Crown of Cinders.”
The ancient crown allowed a true ruler’s mate to command the realm’s dragons. Melody believed marrying Nick would give her control.
“The crown will reject her.”
“That is why she needs your daughters.”
The blood of children born from a dragon lord and dragonslayer heir could activate the crown.
Jodi drew her knife.
Varos’s guards emerged from the shadows.
Before they reached her, the stone wall exploded inward.
Nick entered surrounded by blue fire.
“Step away from my mate.”
The word stunned the chamber.
Varos stared.
“You do not remember her.”
“My mind doesn’t.”
Nick’s golden eyes found Jodi.
“My soul does.”
Varos transformed into a gray dragon and escaped through the shattered wall. Nick attempted to follow, but the curse drove him to his knees.
Jodi placed her hand against him.
The fire stopped.
“You called me your mate,” she said.
“Because you are.”
“You never claimed me before.”
“I feared the curse would spread to you.”
“You decided for me.”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t protection.”
“No. It was fear disguised as protection.”
Jodi withdrew her hand.
The flames returned immediately.
Nick did not demand that she touch him again. He remained on his knees and endured the fire.
“I will make no further demand of you,” he said through clenched teeth. “I will uncover every lie. When your daughters are safe, if you choose to leave, I will open the gate myself.”
“You would let me go even if the curse kills you?”
“I would rather burn than make your freedom the price of my life.”
Jodi stared at him.
The Nick she once loved would have ordered her to remain for the realm.
This man was offering freedom even though it might destroy him.
That choice began repairing what apologies could not.
Over the following days, Seraphine carefully released fragments of Nick’s true memories.
He remembered Melody placing the poison.
He remembered Jodi pleading with him to trust her.
He remembered Varos ordering the guards to take her away before Nick issued any command.
The false weave had transformed his confusion into apparent betrayal.
But one truth remained unchanged.
Nick had doubted Jodi.
He had allowed fear to make her vulnerable.
“I was poisoned,” he told her, “but the poison used doubts already inside me.”
Jodi appreciated his refusal to hide behind magic.
Nick began meeting Ember and Ava each morning.
Ember challenged him constantly. Ava studied him with unsettling golden eyes.
He told them stories of dragon history and answered every question honestly.
“Why did you not find us?” Ember asked.
“I didn’t know you existed.”
“Why not?”
“Because I failed your mother.”
“Will you fail her again?”
“I will probably make mistakes. But I will not abandon her again.”
Ava’s eyes glowed.
“He is telling the truth.”
Ember remained suspicious.
“Truth is not the same as being good.”
Nick bowed his head.
“You are also correct.”
Melody watched the growing bond with fury.
On the seventh night, she entered the nursery using a charm stolen from Varos.
By the time the guards discovered the empty beds, Melody and the twins had vanished into the mountain.
A message burned across the nursery wall:
COME TO THE TEMPLE OF CINDERS—OR WATCH YOUR HEIRS BURN.