14. Ragon
RAGON
T he temple bells don’t ring when I tell her.
They should. This kind of information deserves drama. Thunder. Stone grinding against stone. Something holy and inconvenient.
Instead, there’s just the soft hiss of wind slipping through the upper arches and the smell of hot dust and old incense hanging in the air like a held breath.
Sophie stands with her back to me, hands braced on the balcony rail, staring out over Sweetwater as if the settlement might answer her if she stares hard enough. Sunlight catches in her hair, turns it copper-bright, makes her look carved instead of born.
Jax is three steps to her left. Guard position. Always. He’s pretending not to listen, which is cute, because I know exactly how much he’s listening.
I clear my throat.
“Our temple logged a crash,” I say. “Fifteen years ago. Same year your father went missing. Same quarter, actually.”
Nothing.
Sophie doesn’t turn. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe, far as I can tell.
I keep going because if I stop now, I might lose my nerve, and I hate that about myself.
“Western badlands. Edge of the old salt ravines. Unregistered heat signature, atmospheric burn, then—nothing. No wreckage recovered. No bodies. No salvage claims. Just… gone.”
Her fingers curl tighter around the stone railing. I hear it—the faint scrape of skin on rock.
Jax’s head snaps toward me. “You’re saying you knew this.”
I shrug, because shrugging is easier than admitting the truth. “I knew the report existed.”
Sophie turns then, slow and sharp, like a blade rotating toward flesh.
“You knew,” she says. Her voice isn’t loud. That’s worse. “And you didn’t think to mention it.”
“I didn’t know it was him,” I say quickly. “Not until I saw your father’s name in Alliance records. The dates lined up. The trajectory lined up. The gods-damned silence lined up.”
She’s walking toward me now. Each step is deliberate. Controlled. Like she’s afraid if she moves too fast, something inside her will rupture.
“Show me,” she says.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Ragon,” she snaps, close enough now that I can see the red veins spidering in the whites of her eyes, “if you say ‘it’s not that simple’ one more time, I will throw you off this balcony and go digging myself.”
Jax makes a low sound. Warning. Not to her. To me.
I lift my hands. “All right. All right. You want simple? Here it is. The crash zone sits in disputed territory. Temple-monitored, not temple-controlled. Which means politics. Which means blood.”
“I don’t care,” Sophie says instantly.
“I know you don’t,” I say. “That’s the problem.”
Jax steps forward. “What kind of blood.”
“The kind that stains maps,” I say. “Warlords. Old ones. The kind who don’t answer comms and don’t negotiate unless they think you’re already dead.”
Sophie doesn’t even hesitate.
“We go now.”
The words land like a shot.
Jax whirls on her. “No.”
She turns on him just as fast. “Yes.”
“You don’t even know what you’re walking into.”
“I know exactly what I’m walking into,” she fires back. “I’ve been walking into it for fifteen years.”
“That’s not the same?—”
“It’s close enough.”
I watch them argue like I’m watching a storm form—pressure building, heat rising, the air between them crackling with everything they don’t say.
Jax drags a hand through his hair. “Sweetwater isn’t secure,” he says, forcing his voice calm. “You know that. Raiders have been sniffing the perimeter for days. If I leave?—”
“Then leave,” Sophie cuts in.
Silence.
That one hits harder than anything else she’s said.
Jax stares at her. “What.”
“You have to stay,” she says, softer now but no less firm. “You’re the shield here. I won’t take that away from them.”
“And you’ll take yourself away from me?” His voice cracks on the last word.
I look away. This is not a moment meant for an audience.
Sophie swallows. I hear it. Thick. Painful. “I need to do this.”
“And I need you alive.”
She steps closer to him, presses her forehead briefly against his chest. Just for a second. Just enough to be devastating.
“You trust Ragon,” she says. “You trust his people. You trust me.”
Jax laughs once. It’s ugly. “I don’t trust fate.”
“Neither do I,” she whispers. “That’s why I’m not waiting for it.”
He closes his eyes. I can practically hear the war inside him—duty versus devotion, protection versus possession. When he opens them again, they’re bright with something dangerous and wet.
“Ragon,” he says. “You get her back.”
I meet his gaze. Drop the charm. Drop the grin. Let him see what lives underneath.
“On my life,” I say.
He nods once. Then he turns away, because if he looks at her any longer, he won’t let her go.
The decision settles like dust after an explosion.
We move fast after that.
Sophie packs with ruthless efficiency—water, rations, her compad, the old photo she pretends she doesn’t still carry. I watch her hands shake when she thinks no one’s looking. I don’t comment. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s movement in spite of it.
We take a crawler from the temple garages, matte black, low profile. I load weapons she doesn’t comment on but definitely notices. The air smells like hot metal and oil and the faint ozone tang that always clings to temple tech.
As we roll out, Sweetwater spreads below us—patched roofs, solar rigs, people moving like ants who don’t know how close the boot is. Jax stands at the edge of the platform, arms crossed, jaw set, watching until distance swallows us.
Sophie doesn’t look back.
Neither do I.
The road west is rough, cracked by heat and old seismic scars. The crawler rattles, suspension groaning. Dust coats my tongue. Wind screams past the open vents.
After an hour, Sophie finally speaks.
“You’re different out here,” she says.
I glance at her. “Out where?”
“Away from people,” she says. “Away from… performance.”
I huff a laugh. “You saying I’m fake?”
“I’m saying you hide,” she replies. Not accusing. Observing.
Fair.
I tap the console, adjust our heading slightly. “The temple teaches us early. Be what the room needs. Smile if it calms. Joke if it distracts. Kill if it protects.”
She studies me. “And what do you need.”
The question hits harder than it should.
I keep my eyes on the horizon. “That’s not a luxury we get.”
We drive in silence for a while. The land changes—rock giving way to salt-crusted flats, the light bleaching everything until the world feels overexposed. The air tastes sharp, mineral-heavy. My scales itch under my clothes. Bad sign.
“Temple politics,” Sophie says suddenly. “You mentioned them like they were a disease.”
“They are,” I reply. “We pretend neutrality. We collect information. We survive by being useful to everyone and loyal to no one.”
“And the warlords?”
“They tolerate us because we remember things,” I say. “And because sometimes we forget things for a price.”
She turns toward me fully now. “Did you forget my father.”
I meet her eyes. “No.”
The truth is heavy. Clean. Uncomfortable.
“If he crashed there,” I continue, “someone noticed. Someone always does. The question isn’t whether he survived.”
Her breath catches. “It’s who found him first.”
“Exactly.”
She nods, slow. Thoughtful. Not breaking. That strength—quiet, stubborn—curls something tight in my chest.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what.”
“For not lying,” she answers.
The sun dips lower, throwing long shadows across the flats. Ahead, the land fractures into ravines, dark mouths waiting to swallow sound.
I slow the crawler.
“There,” I say. “That’s where the report ends.”
Sophie stares out at the broken earth. Hope and fear war across her face, raw and unguarded.
She looks at me then—not the charming fixer, not the temple rogue, but the man who brought her here.
“I’m glad it’s you,” she says.
I swallow.
“Yeah,” I reply softly. “Me too.”
The wind howls through the ravines like a warning.
We drive into it anyway.