Chapter 75
Fingers strained within a divot, I dig my head beneath my stretched arm, hunting the red-stone cliff for somewhere to wedge my soft climbing shoe—my spiked soles discarded within my stuffed pack below.
Too loud for the final ascent despite the poor hearing of the beasts that dwell in this fucking place.
This.
Fucking.
Place.
The dense, cloying air is hard to choke down despite my purifying shroud and the phase of breathing exercises I worked through in preparation.
Fierce heat from the leering sun radiates through the heavy smog that presses in from all directions, making it feel like I’m in a kiln.
Soft pottery being fired free of every last dribble of moisture.
It’s not far from fact.
I shook the last drip from my skein too long ago. Haven’t stumbled on so much as a muddy puddle since, plaguing my climb with moments I’m certain everything is going black despite my eyes being wide open.
If I don’t find water soon, this will be for naught. But I’m sure I heard the Great Silver Sabersythe thump free of her burrow while I was preparing a discreet shelter at the cliff’s base earlier.
This might be my only shot.
Internally, I curse, unable to find anything sturdier looking than a thin ridge of stone without begging for Bulder’s help.
Something that’ll draw too much attention.
My cloak—the exact tone as the rugged terrain—may smudge my shape, the smog extra protection against the razor-sharp eyesight of a Sabersythe, but their lethal sense of smell is unmatched.
Should they notice the vibrations of my presence and begin sniffing in my direction, I’m done.
I grit my teeth and set my toes against the ridge, tense my arm, and begin to shift my weight—
The rock crumbles.
My pulse pitches as I plunge. Immediately slash my pickax into the cliff, biting deep into a preexisting crevice that slows my descent, then stops it altogether. The shriek of metal against stone is still grinding through the smog while I hang from my clenched fist like bait dangling from a hook.
Heart in my throat, I ply myself with deep breaths, ignoring the tearing strain in my arm as I force myself to calm. To wait—listening for the thump of beating wings … a roar … any sign that I’ve been noticed.
Nothing.
Only the distant rumble, sizzle, and hiss of an angry nesting ground.
I search around until I spot a sturdy-looking cleft to wedge my foot into, easing the weight from my arm—slowly. At one … with … the rock as I guide my foot into the jagged gap.
That was too close.
After a few more deep, steadying breaths, I regather my poise and continue my sluggish ascent into the blinding swirl of red and gray, every muscle trembling by the time I pull up into the burrow’s gaping mouth.
I slink to the side and press against the wall—gouged from where Ahra’s scratched her face and body against it, broadening the hole. One of very few wild Sabersythe dams renowned for maintaining a single den rather than switching to accommodate her growth.
Some believe she’s been waiting for something. I hope that’s true; that I’m somehow part of that plan.
Crouching, I notch my pickax at my belt and use the loose end of my shroud to dab the sweat from my brow, working to regain my breath while I examine the burrow’s massive gape.
A wave of anxious nausea clenches my gut.
I’ve never seen Ahra myself, but this burrow is almost equal in size to the ones Rygun favors.
She’s bigger than I was expecting …
Somewhere in the distance, a volcano booms, causing a seismic shift in the air that blasts against my skin.
I pull my cloak farther forward, squinting as I cast my gaze into the cave’s dark throat. Despite hearing Ahra leave earlier, I listen for any rumbling sounds. For any sign she’s bundled at the end, nesting on her eggs—
The mountain trembles. Bits of stone loosen from above and crash to the ground, shattering.
Fuck.
I open to Bulder and murmur a quiet, calming lullaby:
“Kurth do arn, Bulder. Kurth do arth atin nahl goril arn.”
Though the burrow stops shaking, I can’t guarantee my own safety the moment I step down that tunnel. Couldn’t the moment I stepped foot in Gondragh. Bulder’s too focused on his ongoing war with Ignos—battling punch for punch, neither winning nor losing—and barely has time to turn his ear.
If the burrow collapses, that’s it. I’m dead.
But I’m not turning back.
Once I’m certain the mountain’s not about to catch an erupting cough from the nearby peak, I fist my silver dragonscale blade and step into the darkness, moving by sense alone.
Tune so deep into Bulder’s song that my mind sketches out the shape of the curving tunnel and the bits of fallen stone I step over, avoiding a stubbed toe or a rupture of sound that might toll the end of me.
So many fallen bits scuffed by Ahra’s most recent retreat.
A gully in the mess that suggests she was dragging her tail as she exited.
I utilize the clearance, making for an easier journey.
The dark gives way to a warm glow bleeding through from ahead, causing the many silver scales scattered across the ground to glint like stars in the southern sky.
The tunnel yawns, inviting me into a giant domed cavity lit by a slow glug of magma seeping down a cleft in the side. But that’s not what holds my focus. Nor is it the tens of thousands of scales littering the floor like a treasure trove.
It’s Ahra’s nest.
A crater in the ground large enough to cradle the bundled dragon. Right in the middle, it bulges like a castle bound in a moat. A mound that should boast three scaled eggs … but doesn’t.
I pull my shroud down, choking a breath plagued with the smell of rotten death as I scan shattered bits of shell and the decomposing remnants of what was within …
the large boulder that’s busted a trail down the mound and into the nest’s hollow, bits of crumbled shell still stuck to its edges like a guilty conscience …
All the fight bleeds from my bones.
I slug forward, tumble down into the nest’s bowl, the roaring blare in my brain making it hard to hear, feel, or think.
I find my feet. Clamber up the mound while I gag on the hot reek of small, mangled things I don’t want to see, but force myself to look at anyway.
Beautiful despite their brokenness. Mostly silver like their dam, though two bear a smatter of dark-red scales.
My knees punch into the sharp ground.
I drop my dagger, hands trembling as I reach out and touch a shard of silver shell, its texture not unlike the tiny scales of the young it once swaddled—lying crushed beside the shattered remains.
A heavy sadness threatens to bury me beneath its monstrous weight as my mind tumbles back. Stabs into the dae the Fate Herder nudged me toward a merchant who was polishing a silver dragonscale.
I figured obtaining one of Ahra’s future eggs was meant to be. That losing Inkah—going through all that pain and agony—it all had some fucking purpose. A thought that kept me moving forward in the darkest times, when bashing myself against the world failed to numb the gaping hole in my chest.
When I learned Ahra had laid a clutch, that spark returned. The promise of new life. New hope.
Smashed.
A distant thud-ump preludes a gust of smoggy wind that blasts down the burrow and swirls within the cavern, but I don’t stand.
Don’t run.
The ground vibrates with the force of Ahra’s heavy landing as I lift a larger piece of shell from the messy grave. Gently set it atop the face of one of her young, hunting for more bits appropriate to repeat the process for her other two.
Dragons don’t bury their dead that don’t make it into the sky, but if there’s one thing I know about the moons, it’s that most are set with tucked heads and all have their eyes closed.
I can’t imagine there’s anything more painful than living in the wake of such a loss as this, but I do know the pain of seeing the emptiness of an open gaze that no longer registers you.
Covering the face of the final young, I grab my blade and slide back down the mound, into the nest’s cavernous hollow. Sit stagnant while I cradle the weapon, waiting for death to consume me.
Ahra’s deep, ragged breaths fill the void, while the void in my chest throbs. A hole I selfishly thought I could fill.
Now I feel like a tick in a tomb. A parasite come to raid something sacred.
I deserve my coming end. Realize this is what the Fate Herder meant for me.
Guess it knows I should’ve died with Inkah all those phases ago. When we were flushed from Arithia for refusing to drop the knee to the new regime, iron-pinned and chased by a thunder of military Moltenmaws that threw fire at our backs, herding us past the wall, toward the sun.
Until Inkah plummeted.
I close my eyes as I think of how they left us there, frying beneath the sun that feasted on my beautiful Inkah in ravenous, welting bites.
I wish they’d put her out of her misery.
Instead, she agonized over keeping me under the shade of her shredded wings, her keening a pained tune I’ll never cleanse from my soul.
When she broke our bond—plied me with the last of her strength in her final bid for me to survive—my honor forbade me to stay. To spit on her sacrifice and make my grave beside her. Leaving her alone on the plains was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and my biggest regret. Fate must register that.
Finally setting things right.
I keep my head down, my hair a pale shroud blocking sight of anything but the dagger in my calloused hands. Ignore the titanic presence shifting into the cavern in ground-shuddering steps as I fall into that gaping hole in my chest.
I’m struck from the side, losing grip on the dagger as I catapult across the ground. Only brought to a halt when a massive claw crushes down upon me, talons speared into the stone either side of my head.