Chapter 133

KAELOS Dragons remember everything. It's both our greatest strength and our deepest curse—every slight, every betrayal, every moment of beauty or horror burns itself into our memory with crystalline clarity. So when Lady Vex's "research specialists" escorted us to the "experimental stabilization facility" the next morning, I catalogued every detail with the thoroughness of a predator studying prey. The facility was three levels below the main Guardian complex, in sections I'd never seen despite years of service. The corridors were lined with containment cells disguised as medical rooms, each one warded against specific types of magical energy. As we passed, I caught glimpses of other occupants—Guardians I recognized from various missions, all of them bearing the glassy-eyed expression of those under deep magical sedation. "How long have you been operating this facility?" I asked with forced casualness, though my dragon instincts were screaming danger at every step. "Only recently," rep