He looked to the ceiling and roared an unnamable pain. “Twenty years!”

While Silence and Hark unlocked one another, Nynn found her lover and caught his face between her hands. He was inhaling short, heavy breaths, his face distorted by anguish.

“I did everything they demanded and more,” he rasped. “They kept this from me.”

Nynn nodded. “They did. Now it’s time to dig those graves.”

They stared at one another. A bright golden glow gathered between their faces. It had happened before, but never like this. They generated their own energy. Nynn reached to touch it. Nothing. It was entirely pure. She could see individual molecules as they shivered with unspent potential.

“That’s it. Living gold.” Hark sounded awed. “That’s what we were waiting for.”

When Nynn blinked away her amazement, she found the couple staring at her and Leto.

“What is it?” Nynn thought her head should hurt. How could something so potent be without consequences? Yet she felt stronger than ever, and closer to Leto—joined in new, inexplicable ways.

Hark slugged Leto on the shoulder, which would’ve been a very bad idea under other circumstances. “Come back to us, my friend.” He eyed the ceiling where the unseen alarms continued to blare. “It’s gotta be hell, but we need you.”

Silence led Nynn by the hand until they stood at a far corner. Her eyes were dark marbles, like the unblinking gaze of a raven. “Weakest right there.”

It was like hearing a cat start talking.

“Weakest?”

The clamor of metal caught her attention. Leto was racing in seemingly haphazard directions, so fast that her eyes couldn’t follow. Was he testing his powers, or being overwhelmed by them?

“Leto! We need you!”

He snapped to her side. A huge, unbelievable grin took ten years off his face. The care and grim thoughts were momentarily lifted. His throat was a column of scars and overlapping callouses. He would never be rid of that mark, nor his tattoo. Perhaps having his powers in full—not returned, but for the first time—would be compensation.

“Okay, folks, we have one shot,” Hark said. “And even this is . . . well, let’s say I’d like to get out of this alive, but I’m not holding my breath.”

What he explained was ridiculous. Ludicrous. None of it was possible, and yet Nynn felt deep inside that this was a strange destiny. That four Dragon Kings with such compatible skills could come together, work together. She could almost feel the tattoo on her shoulder buzzing with excited approval.

“Too bad we don’t have an Indranan with us,” she said. “I’m half Pendray. The Dragon would be pleased by the cooperation of all Five Clans.”

Don’t be so sure.

Nynn and the other two stared at Leto. He’d spoken right into their minds.

He appeared almost embarrassed. “I’ve always felt it.” His words were halting. “I could almost see what an opponent was going to do before it happened. The only Dragon Kings who can fight like that are the Indranan.”

“The Five Clans it is, then. That’ll be nice and all kumbaya.” Hark flicked a glance at the door. “We’ll sort family trees later.”

“Yes.” Nynn took Leto’s hand. “Let’s do this. Burn it down.”

Leto was in pain. He was buzzing. He was furious.

He was himself.

Only when he felt the roughness beneath his fingertips did he realize he was touching his neck. He didn’t even know its contours. Hidden from him for two decades. Although he would bear those scars until he died, he would never wear a lonayíp collar again.

Another surety was harder to accept.

I’m one of the Heartless.

Had his mother been Indranan, or had Dr. Aster done . . . something to ensure Leto’s conception and birth? Pell had been incapacitated by her gift. Was she a crossbreed, too? Nynn was, and she was powerful—so powerful. And her son was half human. Perhaps that explained some of the Dragon Kings’ trials. Split and segregated, bigoted and aloof, they’d retreated into tight-knit clans and doomed themselves to extinction.

“We’re not going die.” Even his voice sounded different. Some combination of his liberated senses and his voice box free of a permanent metal grip.

There was no more time to delay. He turned to face Nynn. Their gazes caught. They held hands. At the far end of the disorienting golden tunnel of light, he found her icy blue eyes. She looked scared, elated, anxious.

“Never let me go,” she said.

“Neither of us is in the habit of letting go of the ones we love.”

She blessed him with a radiant smile that added more gold to their intimate bonfire. “Be ready to keep up, sir.”

His heart pinched. “Make me proud, neophyte.”

He could only watch as Nynn pulled the golden energy into her body. He couldn’t imagine what Nynn could do with this much pure energy at her disposal. The Pendray in her must be the difference. She wasn’t a pure, polite, straight-thinking Tigony. She possessed a wild touch of berserker.

His job was to keep the berserker calm and speed her to safety just before the full concussive blast neared its peak. For Hark and Silence, they had the task of channeling Nynn’s gift. Two wrathful blasts were better than one. For Leto’s peace of mind, he hoped the split would save Nynn from flat-out exploding. She’d lost control before.

Leto recalled the tattoo on her shoulder, now more a premonition than anything he’d done to save her from the Asters. It was as if Lamot had uncovered the color and shape that had already been there. Nynn, who carried a piece of the Dragon.

Did that mean she could succumb to her own inner violence, falling into the Chasm as the Dragon had done?

The golden energy disappeared. She threw her head back. Her whole body shook, as if his hands were live wires she’d caught while standing in a puddle of water. Lightning burst and sparked outward from where they touched. With his wild senses careening around the arena, collecting information he could barely process, Leto heard voices, guards, keys.

Hark and Silence positioned themselves before the section of arena wall they claimed was weakest. Leto found a strange sympathy for them. If no other Dragon Kings existed, the Sath would be as powerless as humans. No gifts to steal. What would it be like to only borrow the unfamiliar? They would never know in advance what intensity they prepared to take into their bodies.

A test, Hark had said. Can’t rely on a weak link.

There in the Cage, they’d already tasted a sample of Nynn’s power. Leto’s long games looked like snap decisions compared to these two.

A tremor in Nynn’s mind, a cry, a truncated scream. Between them had grown a bubble of fireworks and sputtering light. It doubled in size until its perimeter sizzled Leto’s skin. His sense of touch was radically sensitive. He jerked back, slipped, lost her hands.

“Nynn!”

The bubble was as tall as she was.

Just at his peripheral vision, he saw Hark and Silence touch. Just hands. A quick squeeze. Silence had a lovely smile. He looked away, unwilling to intrude on what may have been two lovers’ wishes for luck. Or their goodbyes.

The bubble burst in a furious blast of fire and stinging electrical currents. Leto was faster. No wonder they’d wanted to restrict what the Dragon had bestowed. He grabbed Nynn around the waist and pulled her to the far side of the Cage. She was limp in his arms.

The blast was a tidal wave pouring over them in an arc of molten light. The Cage, which had been the bedrock of his existence, shriveled and burned like paper in fire. Briefly, the Sath pair was silhouetted against the onslaught. He cringed closer to Nynn and groaned as his eyes were stabbed by indescribable brightness. Pain ricocheted between his sockets and the back of his skull.