8. Ragon
RAGON
A ce’s war camp announces itself long before it comes into view.
You hear it first.
Drums pound in uneven rhythms, echoing off scrap walls and canyon stone, the sound thick and ugly enough to travel miles.
Engines rev and cut and rev again, not for transport but for display.
Metal shrieks as something heavy gets dragged across something heavier.
Somewhere inside the noise, someone screams, and the sound doesn’t stop quickly enough to be accidental.
The Scorch squats at the intersection of three old trade routes like it’s proud of the chokehold it’s built itself around.
Towers rise at irregular angles, welded from vehicle frames and ship hull fragments, bone totems clattering in the wind like nervous teeth.
Fires burn everywhere, their smoke greasy and black, staining the air until it tastes like oil and charred meat.
Spectacle, layered on spectacle.
Ace does nothing quietly. Fear doesn’t work if people aren’t watching.
I crouch low on a ridgeline and let the heat bleed out of my scales as the sun sinks, bronze light sliding along the ridges of my arms. Below, the camp shifts through its evening cycle.
Patrols rotate. Guards change posts with the kind of sloppy confidence that comes from believing no one is foolish enough to try anything here.
Belief is not the same thing as truth.
“Count with me,” I murmur.
Sophie lies beside me, chin pressed into the dust, eyes tracking movement. She doesn’t ask why. She’s learned quickly that questions are better saved for later.
Two guards peel off the east tower. Four replace them. The overlap lasts twelve seconds. Not long enough to matter to someone who rushes.
Plenty of time for someone patient.
“Notice how they always leave one drunk at the inner gate?” I whisper.
Sophie squints. “I thought that was just a personality thing.”
“Alcohol is cheaper than discipline,” I reply. “Ace prefers volume to loyalty.”
A cheer erupts from the arena pit, loud enough to rattle the scrap walls. The crowd surges, bodies pressing closer together, attention pulled inward like a tide.
Good.
Noise is a curtain.
We slip downslope once full dark settles, moving when the drums peak, freezing when they lull.
The air grows thicker the closer we get, heavy with the stink of blood and sweat and rust. The ground vibrates faintly underfoot, not from engines but from bodies stomping in rhythm, the entire camp moving like a single, ugly organism.
“Try not to look purposeful,” I murmur.
Sophie huffs softly. “I’ll try to look dead inside.”
“Excellent,” I say. “You’ll blend beautifully.”
We ditch our outer gear behind a collapsed wreck and step back out as servants, hunched and grimy, shoulders bowed just enough to signal submission without advertising weakness. Sophie pulls it off better than she should. Her posture shrinks, eyes downcast, hands tucked close to her body.
It makes something in my chest itch unpleasantly.
I hand her the revolver as we walk.
It’s a blocky Vakutan piece, scarred but meticulously maintained. Designed for claws and recoil tolerance humans tend to lack. She weighs it in her hand, brows lifting.
“You have a gun,” she whispers.
“I appropriated a gun,” I correct. “From a gentleman who attempted to relieve me of my water.”
“You don’t seem like the type.”
“I am not,” I say. “I prefer weaponry that obeys my body, not something that jumps and coughs and spits with a life all its own.”
She flips the cylinder open, counts, then looks up sharply. “Twenty rounds.”
“And not a single one more,” I reply. “I would advise restraint.”
She snorts. “Well, I have no qualms about coughing and spitting if it keeps me alive.”
The laugh that escapes me is genuine, warm, and entirely ill-timed.
“Oh,” I say softly. “You are a treat. I sincerely hope Zhankar doesn’t ruin that acerbic wit, Sophie.”
She flashes me a brief, feral grin. “I plan to be a long-term problem.”
We merge with the flow of bodies headed toward the arena compound. Guards barely spare us a glance. Servants are furniture here—noticed only when they break.
The arena itself is a sunken wound in the earth, carved straight into bedrock and reinforced with welded scrap.
The walls glisten darkly in firelight, layers of old blood never quite scrubbed away.
Gates grind open and closed with mechanical reluctance, their timing precise enough to feel deliberate.
Precision invites interference.
I brush past a control housing, claws skimming its edge. The metal hums under my touch. I feel for vibration, for strain, for the tiny imperfections that come from overuse and neglect. A twist here. Pressure there.
A locking tooth slips.
The gate will hesitate now. Not enough to stop it. Just enough to question itself .
Sophie watches me from the corner of her eye. “You’re enjoying this,” she murmurs.
“Immensely,” I reply.
We move deeper.
Cages line the lower corridors, stacked two and three high, packed with bodies that smell like resignation. Some captives look up as we pass. Most don’t bother. Hope is a currency that gets you killed here.
I slow.
Jax’s cage sits apart from the others, reinforced, guarded by two men who are far too invested in a dice game to be doing their jobs properly.
Of course.
Even slumped against the bars, he’s unmistakable. Bruised. Bloodied. Breathing shallowly through pain that hasn’t quite decided what it wants to break next.
Relief is an intrusive thing. It slides in where it isn’t welcome and makes a mess.
I tap twice on the bars. Soft. Precise.
His head lifts a fraction. One eye opens. Then the other. Focus takes a moment, then sharpens.
A corner of his mouth twitches.
Naturally.
“Ragon,” he rasps. “You’re late.”
“Fashionably,” I murmur. “Try not to die before I retrieve you. It would complicate my evening.”
His gaze flicks past me, subtle as breath. “Sophie.”
“Safe,” I say quietly. “Annoyingly so.”
That’s enough. His shoulders ease, tension bleeding out in a way that makes my chest tighten in a way I absolutely refuse to examine.
I straighten and move on before the guards notice a servant lingering.
I find Sophie near the outer corridor and give her the signal: two fingers, then a clenched fist.
Her jaw tightens. “We’re really doing this.”
“Yes,” I agree. “We are.”
The drums above shift tempo. The crowd roars louder, attention snapping toward the pit as Ace’s announcer bellows something about blood and honor and nonsense.
Timing is everything.
I move fast now, confident, letting the camp’s own chaos cloak me. Another control housing. Another gentle sabotage. A pressure release misaligned. A pulley scored just enough to scream when stressed.
Nothing catastrophic yet.
But cumulative.
Alarms don’t blare immediately. They never do. Confusion spreads first. Gates hesitate. Guards shout. Someone kicks a mechanism that should have worked and doesn’t.
Ace likes noise.
Noise likes to spiral.
The first gate jams.
The second grinds halfway shut and locks itself there, metal shrieking in protest.
The third snaps its locking bar clean through when forced.
Voices rise. Orders overlap. Someone fires a weapon reflexively, the crack of it swallowed by drums and cheers.
I bare my teeth in a smile.
“Now,” I murmur.