Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Cade left with the same casual arrogance he always wore like armor, his parting words still echoing with too much truth. The door clicked softly behind him, and the quiet that followed felt heavier than it should have.
Zander stood at the hearth, hands moving to unbuckle his chest plate. The lamplight caught the gold in his hair, his jaw clenched in thought. Wordless.
I moved beside him, my fingers finding the clasps of my own armor, leather creaking and metal groaning as I peeled each layer off, setting it on the chair. Beneath the steel and sweat, I was just tired. Bone-deep. But not enough to walk away from the only place I’d ever truly felt safe.
Zander looked up just as I pulled my tunic over my head. His breath hitched, just slightly, but he didn’t hesitate.
In three strides, he was in front of me, one hand at the curve of my neck, the other sliding around my waist as he pulled me against his chest. His mouth found mine in a kiss that started soft—tentative, questioning, but quickly turned to something deeper. Desperate. Real.
I pressed into him, my hands running along the ridges of his ribs, his spine, until they tangled in the fabric at his shoulders and pushed it off. He groaned into the kiss as I shoved it past his arms.
“I thought we were going to sleep,” I whispered against his lips.
“I need you,” he breathed.
We moved to the bed with a kind of urgency we hadn’t felt in days—maybe weeks. He guided me down with reverence, his fingers tracing the line of my collarbone, my stomach, my thighs, like he was memorizing a map he already knew by heart.
The sheets tangled around us, heat rising fast as I arched into his touch.
His mouth left a trail down my throat, across my chest, his magic flickering between us like a pulse of flame and shadow, brushing my skin with every kiss.
My own power responded, rising to meet his—light mingling with dark, storm against fire.
“Zander…” I gasped as he pressed into me, his body aligning with mine like we were made to fit this way, gods or fate or war be damned.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, his voice low and rough against my ear. “I always have.”
The world faded. There was no war. No throne. No prophecy. Just his mouth on mine, his name tangled in my breath, the sound of skin against skin and the fire we couldn’t outrun any longer.
When it was over, we lay in the silence.
He curled behind me, arm draped over my waist, breath slowing against the back of my neck. I reached for his fingers, laced them with mine.
Let me stay here, I thought. Just for a little while longer.
Sleep came slowly. But when it did, it took us both.
Get up!
Kaelith’s voice screamed through my skull like a whip of lightning, shattering the silence. I jerked upright in bed, heart hammering.
Get up! Siergen is gone!
“What?” My voice cracked as I shoved the sheets away. Zander bolted upright beside me, reaching for the dagger on the bedside table before his senses caught up with his instincts.
“How is that possible?” I asked, swinging my legs off the bed and grabbing the tunic I’d thrown across the floor just hours ago.
He went to investigate a magical surge near the Hollow, Kaelith said, her fury barely contained. And now he’s cut off. I can’t feel him. Neither can the horde.
Zander was already strapping on his leathers. “Shit,” he muttered, jaw tight. “Where’s Hein?”
Calling the Thrall Squad dragons, they will wake their riders, Kaelith answered grimly. They’ll fan out from your positions. We don’t have much time.
I yanked on my boots, still dazed from sleep, but adrenaline was already burning that away. Zander met my gaze, eyes hard and focused. “We’ll split.”
“No,” I started, already shaking my head.
He caught my wrist. “We’ll cover more ground this way. I’ll fly the western coast—keep near the cliffs. You fly south, more inland. If he’s grounded or caught in something magical, you’ll find the trail faster. Kaelith is his clutchmate. Their bond is the strongest.”
I hated it, but he was right. I gave a quick nod.
We ran down the stairs together, boots thundering against the stone, the early morning mist clinging to the corners of the castle like breath held too long.
The Ascension Grounds loomed ahead, already glowing with torchlight. Wind rushed as Kaelith descended like fury incarnate, her wings snapping outward with a violent gust. Hein landed beside her, his form a blur of pale silver and coiled Storm Fire.
The other dragons were already on their way—shadows darting from the east, scales glinting in the thinning moonlight.
Zander turned to me one last time. “We find him,” he said.
“We will.”
And then we launched.
Kaelith’s wings surged beneath me, catching the air with lethal grace. We rose high, the wind screaming past as I veered away from Zander’s path, angling southeast—inward, toward the cursed lands near the Hollow. The coast vanished behind me.
Hold on, Siergen, I thought, gripping the saddle tight. We’re coming.
The sun crested the horizon, allowing a flicker of light.
Can you feel him? I asked, my voice quiet in the storm of wind rushing past us.
Kaelith didn’t answer right away. Her wings beat steadily beneath me, every motion purposeful, but I felt it, her mind stretching outward. Searching. Like a pulse of magic sent through the threads of the world, reaching for Siergen’s presence like a beacon in a storm.
The bond between dragons was ancient, primal, and even deeper than ours.
And what came back was silence.
Not distance. Not resistance.
Absence.
He’s not dead, I told myself. He can’t be.
But Kaelith recoiled from the void she found, and for the first time since I’d known her, I felt something raw erupt through our bond—panic. Not fear. Not dread.
Fury.
Not the wild, snapping kind she directed at our enemies or even at me in our early days. No, this was different. The usual dry irritation she always held for Siergen, his riddles, his smugness, his wry humor, was gone. In its place was a cold, calculating rage. One that chilled my bones.
The others revere him, she murmured in my mind. But I…
You love him, I finished for her.
She didn’t reply. She didn’t have to.
I leaned low over her neck, my fingers threading into the thick, warm ridges of her scales. “We’ll find him,” I said aloud, more to her than myself. “We have to. He’s the only one who can unite them. Especially the lost horde.”
Kaelith didn’t speak again, but her wings angled downward, sharper now, like her fury had become fuel.
We glided lower, the forest spreading beneath us like a shivering sea of green and gold.
The early light helped—dawn bleeding slowly across the horizon, gilding the trees and cliffs, igniting the edges of the rocks with fire.
I scanned the canopy, searching for any flash of red scales, any sign of broken trees, or scorched earth.
But the Hollow was vast, the land uneven, mist still clinging to the lowlands.
And there was no sign of Siergen.
Not yet.
Kaelith stilled mid-flight.
Her wings didn’t falter, but her body tensed beneath me like a drawn bow, every scale alert with sudden awareness.
What is it? I asked, already bracing.
A void, she whispered through the bond, her voice low and hollow. But not like Siergen’s absence. This is… something else.
She angled her wings, gliding into a steep dive that forced the breath from my lungs. Wind roared in my ears as we cut toward the earth, toward the edges of the Hollow where trees grew twisted and silent, their leaves blackened at the tips as if they’d once burned and never healed.
The land below warped as we approached. Not in shape—but in feeling.
The air grew dense, heavy, wrong.
“It’s like we’re flying into a heartbeat,” I muttered, fingers tightening around the saddle’s edge.
Kaelith didn’t reply, but I felt her revulsion through the bond. It’s magic, she finally said. But not alive. Like something that was once alive... and was hollowed out from the inside.
We neared a ridge of stone, as jagged and black as obsidian, and that was when I saw it—coiled between the roots of the twisted trees, just beyond a craggy outcrop near the Hollow’s rim.
A disturbance.
It shimmered in the light like a smoky veil stretched tight across the earth. Wisps of dark mist clung to its edges, rising in slow, hypnotic swirls. The air above it crackled with thin threads of reddish light, like veins beneath skin.
Kaelith landed with a ground-shaking thud a few paces back, her body tense, head low, tail lashing the earth in warning.
I slid off her back with my eyes fixed on the strange veil.
“What is that?” I asked, stepping forward, my boots crunching the dead undergrowth. “Kaelith… have you seen anything like it?”
She crouched low, sniffing the air. No, but it feels… contained. Artificial. As if someone had made a hole in the world and stitched a shadow over it.
The smoky surface rippled as if something within had stirred.
I reached for my blade without thinking. “If Siergen’s inside that…”
Kaelith growled, low and dangerous. Then we find a way to rip it open.
I stood just shy of the smoky veil, its shadow curling over my boots as if it wanted to taste me. My fingers tightened around the hilt of my blade, but instinct told me this wasn’t something that could be cut. Not by steel.
What do I do? I asked Kaelith, my voice barely above a whisper.
She was silent for a breath. Then another. Her mind, usually quick and sure, rippled with uncertainty.
I don’t know, she admitted. This… whatever this is, it doesn’t feel like a ward. It doesn’t repel—it invites. That’s what makes it dangerous.
I turned slightly, eyeing the veil again. It pulsed at the edges, as if it were breathing. “So it’s a trap.”
Or a prison, she said darkly.
I exhaled slowly, mind racing. “We can’t leave it untouched. If Siergen’s in there—”
Then waiting could kill him.
Kaelith circled the edge of the disturbance, claws digging into the dry earth, tail low and lashing. I followed the shimmer with my eyes, tracking where it thinned, where the dark smoke bled into the air like torn silk. That was where it faltered. Weaker there.
“There,” I said aloud, pointing to a spot where the luster flickered—a soft crease in the fabric of it. “I think that’s the weakest part of the veil.”
Then strike there, Kaelith said, but not alone.
Her claws dug a deep groove in the soil. I’ll flood the edge with dragon fire. You strike at the center while the veil is thinning. But you must be quick—if it’s reactive, it could close or worse, trap you.
I nodded, adrenaline already licking down my spine.
“I’ll go in if I have to.”
No, Kaelith growled. Only if it opens. We draw it open—we don’t force it. This kind of magic doesn’t like violence. It answers curiosity, not war.
“Then we give it both.”
I raised my blade, the edge catching the rising sun. Kaelith stood beside me, her body vibrating with magic.
On your word, she said.
I took one breath. Then another.