6. Chapter 6
AMARIA
The void fell behind us. Eventually.
The grey gave way to brown, then to patches of stubborn green, then to foothills that rose like the spine of some massive buried creature. The air changed too—thinner, sharper, carrying a bite that cut through my leathers.
Mountains appeared on the horizon. Not the gentle slopes of the lowlands. These were teeth. Jagged peaks wrapped in cloud and snow, rising so high their summits disappeared into the grey above.
Skal'Varin.
Umbra's wingbeats steadied as we climbed. The temperature dropped. My fingers went numb where they gripped the spine-ridge.
"How much further?" Maxx called from behind me. His voice had lost its usual lightness. "Not complaining, just—my ass fell asleep an hour ago and I'm pretty sure my legs are frozen to the—"
The sky exploded.
A shape erupted from the clouds ahead—massive, blinding, terrifying.
Umbra banked hard. I nearly flew off her neck.
Screaming. Someone was screaming. Many someones were screaming. I definitely was one of them.
The thing—the creature—the dragon—hung in the air before us like a nightmare given form. But not Umbra's kind of nightmare. This was older. Stranger.
It was barely flesh.
Bone and ember. That was what I saw first. A skeleton wreathed in fire that burned from within, orange and white flickering between ribs the size of tree trunks.
Its skull was massive, elongated, eye sockets blazing with light that hurt to look at.
Wings of ash and flame spread wide enough to blot out the peaks behind it.
Heat rolled off it in waves. My skin prickled. My eyes watered.
The dog woke up and started barking hysterically.
"WHAT THE FUCK—" Maxx.
"DREADSCALE—" Serenya.
Caden said nothing. Just made a sound like all the air had been punched out of him.
Behind me, Eryndor had drawn a blade. As if steel would matter against that.
Umbra leveled out. Steadied. Made a low rumbling sound in her chest that vibrated through my entire body.
The bone dragon rumbled back. The sound shook the mountains.
And Dreadscale...
Dreadscale sighed.
"Everyone," he said, in the same tone he might use to introduce a mildly inconvenient acquaintance, "meet Pyrrath."
The bone dragon's skull swung toward us. Those blazing eye sockets fixed on our little group. Its attention pressed against me like a physical force—measuring, seeing.
"Pyrrath," Dreadscale continued, "is the reason I was exiled from Skal'Varin."
"Because you—" My voice cracked. I tried again. "Because you bonded a Soul-Fire?"
"Because I bonded two dragons." Dreadscale's voice was flat. "Simultaneously. Umbra and Pyrrath. The Mirror-Fire judged me broken. The Soul-Fire judged me worthy." A pause. "Both were right."
Pyrrath's jaws opened. For one heart-stopping moment I thought it was going to breathe on us—end us in a pillar of ancient fire.
Instead, it spoke. Directly into my mind like a brand pressed to flesh.
Truth-speaker. Shadow-walker. You bring strange creatures to the mountain.
The voice burned. I gasped. Beside me, I heard Serenya make a choked sound.
"They are mine," Dreadscale said. Out loud. For our benefit, I realized. "Under my protection."
The broken one. The one who carries two Marks.
Those burning eyes found me.
We know what you are, Rupture. The mountain has been waiting.
I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Could barely breathe.
Pyrrath's skull tilted. Considered.
Then the fire in its eye sockets dimmed. Just slightly. The pressure in my head eased.
Welcome to Skal'Varin. Try not to lie. It irritates me.
The bone dragon turned and dove toward the peaks below. Umbra followed without prompting, and the mountains rose up to swallow us whole.
The landing platform rushed up to meet us—a massive disc of grey stone carved into the mountainside, worn smooth by centuries of claws and wind. She hit it hard. The impact shuddered through my bones, rattled my teeth. I grabbed the spine-ridge and held on as she folded her wings and settled.
Pyrrath landed beside us. The platform shook again. Cracks spiderwebbed out from where his claws met stone.
I lifted my head and tried to take it all in.
Skal'Varin.
The city rose around us in layers—carved into the cliff face, built from the mountain itself.
Stone towers climbed toward the clouds, connected by bridges that swung in the wind.
Dragon perches jutted from every level, some occupied, some empty.
Below, the central square glowed with firelight.
Braziers. Torches. The warm flicker of hearths bleeding through carved windows.
Dragons watched from neighboring platforms. Four. Five. More in the mist above, circling. Their eyes tracked our arrival with glacial patience.
The air smelled of smoke and pine and sulfur-laced stone. Volcanic. The cold bit at my exposed skin, but beneath it—warmth. Rising from the stone itself, from vents carved into the rock, from the mountain's living heart.
People spilled from doorways.
Warriors first. Scales-cloth armor, blackened leather, weapons already drawn. They moved in formation, fanning out across the platform's edge, blocking the bridges that led deeper into the city. Their faces were hard. Watchful.
Behind them, others. Civilians. Children peeking around legs. Elders with silver hair braided heavy with metal. All of them staring.
At us.
At the two dragons.
At Dreadscale.
He dismounted in one fluid motion—sliding down Umbra's flank. His boots hit the stone without a sound. He straightened. Rolled his shoulders once. Then walked forward to meet the wall of blades pointed at his chest.
The warriors didn't move. Didn't speak.
Dreadscale stopped three paces from the closest sword.
Silence. The wind howled through the peaks. A dragon rumbled somewhere in the mist.
A wiry matriarch pushed through the line, her face a map of scars, her hair more metal than grey. She moved like someone who had earned every year the hard way.
She stopped in front of Dreadscale.
"You were exiled."
Not a question. A verdict.
"Yes, Morrha. I was."
"The council's word was final. Return meant death." Morrha’s eyes cut to Pyrrath, then Umbra. A thick vein pulsed once in her neck. "You bring both abominations back to our peaks."
"They are not abominations."
"The council named them so."
"The council was wrong."
A ripple passed through the warriors. Hands tightened on weapons. Someone shifted forward half a step.
Morrha raised a hand. Stillness.
"Wrong." She tasted the word like poison. "You stand on sacred stone and call your elders wrong."
"I stand on the stone that raised me. I call a lie a lie."
"And what would you call yourself? Oathbreaker? Exile?" Her voice hardened. "Traitor to the mountain that made you?"
Dreadscale didn't flinch. "I would call myself the Dragonborn who burned the dragon-killer."
The wind cut between us. Cold and sharp and waiting.
"What did you say?"
"Princess Vivienne of the Crown." Dreadscale's voice carried across the platform, pitched for the warriors, the watchers, the children peeking from doorways. "She built monuments from our kin's bones. Called them vermin. Mindless beasts. Claimed she had exterminated them to save her people."
Morrha didn't flinch. Her pupils contracted into razor-thin slits, shrinking until her eyes were nothing but pools of molten gold.
"She stood on a dais covered in dragon skulls," Dreadscale continued. "Turned their remains into decorations. A garden for the lowlanders to admire."
A sound from the crowd. Low. Guttural. The rumble of anger spreading.
"I burned her where she stood. On her own stage. Before a thousand witnesses." Dreadscale held Morrha's gaze. "Umbra's fire. Pyrrath's blessing. Both abominations, working as one."
Morrha held his stare right back. The murmurs died instantly. The silence was sudden and absolute, leaving only the high, thin whistle of the wind through the rocks.
"You killed the princess."
"I erased her. For our dead. For the nesting grounds she poisoned. For every dragon she slaughtered to fuel her false miracles." His chin lifted. "I am not asking forgiveness for my exile. I am telling you what I did with it."
Morrha's face was stone. Unreadable.
Then her gaze swept across our group—the ragged collection of lowlanders huddled on dragon-back. Her eyes lingered on Caden's scars. On Serenya's pallor. On me.
She looked back at Dreadscale.
"The council exiled you for bonding two dragons."
"Yes."
"You return with those same dragons, having used them to avenge our fallen."
"Yes."
The lethal edge vanished from her eyes. She didn't smile—she probably didn't know how—but she stopped looking at him like an intruder.
"The council is not here." She glanced at the warriors flanking her. "But I am."
Dreadscale waited. Morrha stepped forward. Close enough to touch. Her scarred hand came up and gripped his shoulder.
"Welcome home."
The tension drained from the platform. Warriors sheathed blades. Someone laughed—short, surprised, the sound of relief escaping.
Then Eryndor dismounted and the temperature dropped.
It happened in stages. The nearest warrior clocked the movement first—head turning, eyes narrowing.
Then recognition hit. It rippled through the ranks like a shockwave.
One by one, bodies went rigid. Hands dropped to hilts again.
The curiosity vanished, replaced by the heavy, silent promise of violence.
Weapons came back up.
"Crown." The word landed like a curse. The warrior who spoke it was young, scarred across the cheekbone, vibrating with barely-contained fury.
"That's the false prince." Another voice. Older. Colder. "Son of the tyrant king."
I vaulted off Umbra and boots hit the dirt with a heavy, warning thud, one hand already on Dawnrender’s hilt.
"Husband of the dragon-killer." A female near the front drew back to spit at his feet. "He stood beside her while she wore our kin's bones as—"
"Finish that sentence." My voice cut through the crowd like a blade. I had landed only two paces in front of her, close enough to see the shock register on her face. Close enough to watch her swallow the spit she'd been about to launch.
"Go ahead." I smiled. It wasn't friendly. "Tell me more about what he stood beside. Tell me about the choices he had while your people hid in the mountains and his father held a blade to everyone he loved."
The crowd shifted. Muttering. Uncertain. Good.
"Is that the one who helped her burn the nesting grounds?" A child's voice, somewhere in the back.
"No," I said sternly. "That's the one who severed his own soul to save my brother from the King's dungeons.
That's the one who married a monster so I could stay free.
That's the one who's been swallowing poison for months while you sat up here in your safe little mountain pointing fingers at the wrong enemy. "
I turned in a slow circle, meeting eyes. Holding them until they looked away.
"You want someone to hate? Hate the King.
Hate Vivienne—oh wait, she's ash now. You're welcome for that.
" I bared my teeth. "But if anyone else spits at him, speaks to him, or looks at him like he's something to be scraped off your boot, you'll answer to me.
And I promise you—I'm less forgiving than the dragon. "
Umbra rumbled behind me. The sound vibrated through the stone floor, sealing the threat. The female who'd tried to spit held my gaze for one heartbeat. Two. Then she stepped back.
"He's Crown," someone muttered. "They're all—"
"He's mine." The word came out savage and absolute. "And I don't share. Not with the Crown, not with the King, and not with anyone here who thinks they get to judge him for surviving."
The crowd went quiet again.
I turned. Eryndor met my eyes instantly, his expression locked down tight, but I saw the heat rising in his gaze.
Mine. I had said it loud enough for the gods to hear.
I had claimed him like a weapon I intended to wield, like a prize I refused to share.
He didn't argue. He just watched me with that terrifying focus, silent and complicit.
Dreadscale stepped forward. His presence alone pushed the crowd back another foot.
"She speaks truth." His voice carried without effort.
Murmuring. The anger was still there, but uncertainty crept in alongside it.
I caught movement at the edge of my vision. A Dragonborn Matron studying me with narrowed eyes. Her lips moved—words I couldn't hear. The lady beside her made a warding sign against her chest.
Awe on some faces. Fear on others. I caught fragments as the whispers spread: dual-marked and prophecy and the one who broke the Veil.
The Rupture.
I looked away. Focused on Dreadscale. On the confrontation still unfolding below.
Morrha stepped forward again. Her scarred face betrayed nothing.
"You vouch for the Crown prince."
"I do."
"With your name. Your honor. Your standing—newly restored as it is."
"Yes."
She studied Eryndor. He met her gaze without flinching. The mask held, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. The white of his knuckles where his hands stayed carefully, deliberately open.
"The council will want to discuss this."
"Then let them discuss."
"They may not agree with your assessment."
"They can take it up with me. And my dragons." Dreadscale didn't blink. "Both of them."
A long pause.
Her jaw tightened until a muscle jumped in her cheek. She stared him down, searching for a bluff and finding only granite.
"He stays." She held up a hand before the protests could erupt. "Under watch. Under guard. One wrong step, one hint of Crown treachery, and he answers to the mountain." Her eyes found Eryndor. "Understood?"
Eryndor inclined his head. "Understood."
"We'll be watching, princeling." The scarred young warrior hadn't sheathed his blade. "Every moment. Every breath."
"I would expect nothing less."
The crowd parted. Reluctantly. Resentfully. But they stepped aside.
Dreadscale turned and caught my eye. A small nod. It's handled. For now.
Behind me, Umbra lowered herself with a grudging rumble. Maxx slid down first, managing the drop with absolutely zero grace and muttering something about never feeling his legs again. Serenya followed with the dog tucked against her chest, and Caden dropped last.
They gathered around me. Then we walked through the gap in the crowd, warriors on either side watching. Judging.
Someone whispered rupture as I passed. Someone else whispered hope.
I wasn’t sure which one frightened me more.