Chapter 33 #3
The guards outside were slumped against the poles, blinking slowly like they were trying to remember what wakefulness felt like.
Bertha walked past them like she was returning from a normal shift.
She adjusted her hood.
Then looked up at me.
“Well,” she said. “Go on then. Ye’ve got a girl to steal back.”
I stared at her.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“I’ll be on my way now,” she said, already turning.
My dragon snarled inside me.
My voice dropped into something dangerous.
“Where are you going?”
Bertha looked over her shoulder, unimpressed, as if I were a child asking why the sky was blue.
“Somewhere warm,” she said flatly. “I’ve had enough o’ freezin’ kingdoms an’ foolish kings.”
She started walking.
I stepped forward, rage and disbelief tangling in my chest.
“You are leaving now? This is the Shadowlands. Nothing for miles.”
Bertha stopped. Turned fully. Looked me up and down like she was inspecting a weapon she didn’t like but might still use.
Then she marched closer until she stood directly in front of me. Close enough that I could smell the herbs on her breath. The faint smoke in her cloak.
“Listen, Dragon King,” she said, voice low. “I’ve survived winters harsher than yer temper and men uglier than yer attitude.”
Her gaze flicked to the darkness behind me, then back, unimpressed.
“This place ain’t nothin’ but dirt and bad decisions.
I’ve walked worse roads for less.” She jabbed a finger into my chest, like she wasn’t touching a king at all, just a particularly stubborn mule.
“And if I stay, I’ll end up watchin’ one of ye idiots get heroic and die dramatic.
” Her mouth twisted. “I don’t do dramatic. ”
I started to speak.
She cut me off instantly, like she’d been practicing the interruption her whole life.
“Elara saved me once,” she said. “Pulled me out of that sinking ship caused by yer foolish ideas when the sea wanted me dead and the ancestors didn’t give a damn. So I’m payin’ it back.”
Her eyes narrowed, fierce and almost tender in the same breath.
“Now go get her.”
She stepped back, already done with the conversation. Already leaving.
“And if ye bring her home in a box,” she added over her shoulder, “I’ll haunt ye myself.”
“Understood,” I said.
The word came out clean. Cold. Final.
Bertha gave a single nod, like she’d just hammered a nail into place and was satisfied it wasn’t going to wiggle loose. Then she turned and headed out of camp as if the dark owed her rent.
I watched her go anyway.
Because it was hard not to.
Hard not to stare after the only person in this entire cursed world who could knock out a Warden Lord with cookware, drug three guards with tea, and still complain about stew temperature like she was doing everyone a favor.
Isolde moved beside me, silent. Focused. Her eyes tracked the dead horizon like she was already calculating how many bodies she’d have to drop before sunrise.
Therynne shuffled after us, clutching her pack tight enough her knuckles went pale.
We slipped through the last line of tents and out into the dark, the camp shrinking behind us with every step. No shouts. No alarms. Just Therynne breathing like she’d forgotten how.
Ahead, the boundary waited, a wall of cold pressure that made the air feel too thick to swallow.
Therynne swallowed hard and tightened her grip on the Rime Sigil like it might try to escape.
“Okay,” she whispered, half to herself. “Okay. Don’t melt. Don’t reject me. Don’t humiliate me.”
I shot her a look. “Just walk.”
Isolde didn’t slow. “Stay close.”
We crossed the last stretch of open ground, the world narrowing to frost, silence, and that invisible line we were about to break.
The dragon circled once overhead, a shadow carved out of smoke and night, then dropped low enough that the ground blasted sideways in a furious spiral.
The air shook. My bones vibrated with the impact of his wings.
The boundary behind us shimmered like a living threat, and I could feel it watching, waiting for the smallest misstep so it could snap shut with our bodies still half inside.
My dragon landed hard.
He did not land like an animal.
He landed like war.
His claws gouged frozen earth. His breath steamed in thick, furious waves. His head swung low, eyes burning as they locked onto the boundary as if he could tear it down with his teeth alone.
Now, he demanded inside my skull. Now. Now. Now.
Therynne stood at the edge of his wing like she’d been asked to step onto a god.
Her eyes were wide behind her lenses, not with fear, but with the frantic gleam of someone standing too close to a legend and trying not to combust from excitement.
“Oh,” she breathed. “That is… significantly larger than the documented estimations.”
I grabbed her arm and hauled her forward.
“Get on.”
Her boots slipped once in the churned snow. She adjusted immediately, hands moving with brisk efficiency, climbing the ridged scales along his shoulder as if she’d studied the mechanics of dragon anatomy her entire life. She was shaking, but she kept going.
Isolde moved next, quieter, smoother, like she belonged in shadows. She climbed behind Therynne without needing help, her fingers finding holds like she’d been born scaling walls.
My dragon’s muscles bunched beneath me as I swung up last, my body settling into place the way it always did, the way it had since before the world knew to fear my name. The familiar pull of his presence wrapped tighter around my ribs, the bond humming between us like an old song.
Therynne clutched the Rime Sigil to her chest like it was sacred.
“I should inform you,” she said, voice strained with wind and adrenaline, “that interdimensional boundary crossing via authority tokens is not a stable phenomenon. It functions through recognition of diplomatic legitimacy, bloodline access permissions, and what I can only describe as a magical compliance protocol.”
“Therynne,” I warned.
She swallowed and pushed on anyway.
“The sigil appears to emit a resonance signature that the boundary interprets as lawful passage. Like an authentication key. But it’s not simply a key. It’s a command. A carved imperative. The boundary isn’t opening because it’s weak. It’s opening because it’s being told to.”
My dragon snarled low, impatient.
Go.
I leaned forward, one hand braced against his scales.
“Do it,” I said.
Therynne’s grip tightened until her knuckles went white.
“Hold it up,” I said. “And do not stop.”
Her throat bobbed.
“Yes,” she whispered, and lifted the sigil.
The boundary reacted instantly.
The shimmer sharpened, brightening like ice catching moonlight, and the air in front of us split with a soundless tremor that made my teeth ache.
A thin seam forced apart by authority.
My dragon surged forward.
The moment his snout crossed, the cold became a physical thing. It struck like punishment. Like the boundary had teeth and it was trying to bite the trespass out of our bones. The air thickened, grinding against us, and the world blurred into white pressure and screaming frost.
Therynne made a strangled sound behind me.
“The resistance is escalating,” she gasped, voice breaking. “The boundary is attempting to reject noncompliant entities. It is aware of you?—”
“I know,” I snarled.
Because the boundary hated me.
It hated Ashenveil.
It hated fire-blood and dragon-bond and everything I represented.
But it obeyed her.
For now.
My dragon forced himself through anyway, wings folding tight, shoulders scraping invisible force. His growl shook through my spine. His rage was a storm pressed into muscle.
Our queen, he roared. Our queen. Our queen.
I felt it, too.
Not the possessive madness.
The pull.
The need.
Elara was somewhere inside this frozen kingdom, and every second we wasted made my blood hotter and my control thinner.
The boundary screamed at the edges of my mind, pressure crushing inward, trying to snap shut while we were still inside it. My dragon shoved harder, claws digging for purchase against air that wasn’t air, against magic that didn’t want him to exist.
Therynne’s voice turned bright with panic.
“It’s destabilizing,” she said, the words tumbling out fast. “If the sigil slips even a fraction, it will seal and shear?—”
“Don’t let it slip,” I bit out.
“I’m not letting it slip,” she snapped, offended, and that alone told me she was barely holding on.
The sigil pulsed.
Ice-light flared.
The boundary gave one final violent shudder like it wanted to kill us for daring.
Then—
We broke through.
The air snapped back into reality.
Snow hit my face.
Icespire cold sank into my lungs like a blade.
My dragon landed hard on the frozen ground, skidding, claws carving lines into ice-slick stone. His wings snapped open once, wide and furious, then folded again with the contained violence of something forced to behave.
Therynne sagged forward against his spine, breathing like she’d outrun death.
“I did it,” she whispered, half-disbelieving. “I actually?—”
Isolde’s hand shot out, steadying her without a word.
I looked up at the surrounding forest.
My dragon’s thoughts hammered through me, relentless and feral.
Find her. Find her. Take her.