Chapter 51
I run my thumb over the pinched edges of Kaan’s lark, watching the world beyond through a runed window in the stone. Just big enough to see the smog has far from cleared—still bearing down on the scorched terrain.
Thick.
Oppressive.
I’ve heard of phases such as this, when Gondragh grumbles for daes, heaving like a battlefield before Ignos and Bulder finally settle again.
But a fertilized clutch of eggs will only sit for so long before they hatch …
given they’re properly incubated. And if the Great Silver Sabersythe has indeed turned rabid as Kilíth’s recounting suggests—leaving her nest for long periods—those eggs will be at risk of not hatching at all.
That, and the world’s apparently fucked. About to be rained upon by a catastrophic amount of moons.
My fist crunches around Kaan’s lark before I stuff it in my pocket and pull the skein from my belt. I pop the cork and toss back a drink, the icy water painting a much-needed trail of relief down my dry throat.
Re-stoppering it, I look at the wall to my right, gouged with hundreds of names dug with chisel or blade, thinking of the male who tried his luck cycles ago.
Heathron.
He disappeared into the caustic fumes and never returned, likely in the belly of some great beast or being picked at by a clutch of hatchlings. Or he lost his way and fell victim to the harsh terrain.
I study his name chiseled deep into the orange rock. The only tombstone he’ll receive.
A burst of movement snags my gaze back through the window to a bronze dam tearing through the thick, murky vapors.
She swoops low, tills up curls of embers as she opens her thorny maw and drags it through a bubbling pond of magma, collecting a scoop. She kicks back into the sky, swallowed by the smog. No doubt heading to her nest to dump the lava on her eggs.
“I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”
I look over my shoulder at Kilíth lifting the lid on the water urn, filling his skein.
His golden hatchling is slumped over his shoulder, sleeping with its outstretched wings draped across the male’s chest like a hug.
Likely female, I’ve decided, based on the less boxy shape of its head and the few tail spikes, but it’s hard to tell at this early stage.
My chest warms at the sight of them. Hearty evidence of the strong bond they’ve already formed despite the chaotic hatching. Every time I see the two, that dragon is slumbering on Kilíth’s shoulder with a belly so plump with meat it’s practically bulging.
Kilíth looks me up and down, frowns. Takes in my rust-colored leathers etched in thousands of cooling runes that’ll make the climate beyond the hut mildly tolerable. His gaze drops to my thick boots—spiked soles equipped. The pickaxes hanging from my belt.
Brow arched, he offers a hand for me to pass him my skein. “You’re heading out?” he asks, and I nod as he ladles it full. Something I appreciate.
Springs are almost impossible to come across in Gondragh. I’ll need all the water I can carry.
He passes back my skein.
I stopper it and dip my head, looking back out the window—
A violent boom rattles the ground.
Anxiety grips my ribs, threatens to snap them as a distant peak spews into the sky. A chug of black smoke follows. Will eventually settle into the gullies between the countless mounts and make visibility even worse. But I’ve made my decision.
The fates have offered these conditions. A test, no doubt.
I reach into my pocket, pull out Kaan’s crunched-up note and a partially folded parchment lark, passing both to Kilíth.
“Rubbish you want me to discard?” he asks, jerking his chin at Kaan’s lark.
“A note from our king. I think it’s important you read.”
Kilíth’s eyes widen, drop to the note, lift back to my face. “How—”
“If I don’t return in seven cycles, please press the final fold on the other lark. It knows where to go.”
He dips his head and smashes his fist against his chest. “On my honor.”
I glance at the wall behind him, scanning the hundreds of names chiseled into it. The blank spaces between. Room for hundreds more.
“Name’s Grihm,” I murmur before I wrap my face, shoulder my pack, and make for the exit tunnel, pulling the silver dragonscale blade from the sheath at my thigh. “Just in case.”