Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
Z ander stood beside his massive dragon as we pulled up on horseback.
It had taken half a day to ride to the base of the mountains on the outskirts of the forests of Warriath.
The jagged peaks rose like monoliths, their presence oppressive beneath the moon.
I dismounted, adjusting the dagger at my hip as Zander motioned to the cavern ahead.
“Walk through, and I will meet you at the exit.”
“What does the Tear look like?” I asked, as I dismounted.
“You will see, Prospect Rebec.”
Yup. He still hadn’t forgiven me for that punch.
The wind howled, whipping through the skeletal trees lining the cavern’s entrance.
The mouth of the cave swallowed the moonlight, leaving only a yawning darkness.
This was the beginning of the Dragon Tear Trial.
None of us knew what the tear was, only that we had to make it to the other side of the mountain.
“Enter as a squad, ” Zander said, his sharp gaze pinning each of us in place. “But do not mistake cooperation for dependence. Your dragons will not carry you through this. You must earn their knowledge, or you will fail.”
We stepped inside.
The air changed.
Thick. Suffocating. Heavy with something ancient. Something grieving.
The second my boot touched the stone, the cavern breathed. Magic rippled through the walls, sinking into my bones, filling my head with voices, not in words, but in memories. Their memories.
Know our suffering. Know our loss. Only then will you be worthy.
The ground beneath us shifted—sand one second, jagged obsidian the next, slick ice the moment after. The cavern was alive, warping itself to break us. To weaken us. To teach us what pain truly was.
“Run,” Jax yelled as we attempted to sprint to the other side amidst the ever-changing landscape.
“Ashe, keep up!” Riven barked, vaulting over a ravine with an ease that only came from a dragon’s favor.
I clenched my jaw, breath heaving. My bond with Kaelith wasn’t like theirs. It was jagged edges and silent wars. But for the first time, I reached for her. For the presence I’d fought hard to hold onto.
And this time, she answered.
Pathetic. You stumble like a hatchling barely out of its shell.
I froze. The words cut, not through the bond, but into my soul.
You—
Move, or I will let this cavern devour you.
A warning. A threat. A promise.
The ground gave way beneath me.
I fell.
Jagged rock scraped my arms, my legs, burning pain searing through me as I tumbled into the abyss. My body slammed onto hard stone; the breath knocked from my lungs.
And then?—
Whispers.
Low. Endless. Grieving.
I wasn’t alone.
Shapes drifted in the shadows. Dragons. Not whole, not alive, but echoes, their shimmering forms barely clinging to existence. Hatchlings curled in fear, their translucent wings trembling. Larger ones loomed behind them, their eyes empty voids.
A dragon stepped forward.
It looked at me.
Not through me. Not past me. At me.
Its voice, sharp and unbearable, filled my head.
Do you feel it, little halfling? The weight of our grief?
Pain slammed into me. Not physical, but something far worse—an agony so deep it was impossible to define. Loss. Grief. A mourning that had spanned centuries.
Flashes of their suffering burned into my mind—scorched eggshells, hatchlings trampled beneath iron boots, bodies torn apart, fire consuming them before they even took flight. A mother wailing as she shielded her young with broken wings, knowing it would never be enough.
A scream tore from my throat, raw and unbidden.
I fell to my knees.
“Kaelith—help me!”
She moved in my mind, but there was no mercy.
No. Feel it, halfling. Every moment. Every heartbeat of their suffering. If you cannot bear this, you are not worthy.
I gasped, but no air filled my lungs. The echoes moved.
A claw, spectral and cold as an open grave, slashed across my arm.
Pain erupted on my arm.
Another came—a talon across my ribs, a bite at my calf. My skin split, real, bleeding, as the ghosts of these dragons marked me. Not illusions. Not tricks of the mind. Real wounds for a perceived failure.
I screamed. But I couldn’t stop them.
One by one, they took their vengeance.
Slashes carved my arms, my back, my shoulders. They didn’t kill. They made me suffer.
I collapsed, my forehead pressing into the stone as I trembled. I deserved this. Because I had walked in here thinking this was a trial I could conquer. That there was some kind of artifact to retrieve.
It wasn’t a trial. It was an offering.
A test of whether we could hold their suffering within us—carry it—and still stand.
I tried to rise.
I failed.
The whispers surrounded me, closing in.
“I see you.” The words came out broken, torn. But they were from my soul. “I won’t let your story be forgotten.”
The echoes stopped.
Something shifted.
And then, at the center of the cavern, a faint glow appeared.
A single drop of liquid light. Suspended in the air.
The Dragon’s Tear.
I forced my arms to move. My legs to obey. I crawled toward it, my body screaming, blood dripping from my skin.
And then, with one last ragged breath, I touched it.
Pain exploded in my skull?—
And the world vanished.
I didn’t walk toward the exit. I stumbled, battered, broken, the taste of agony still on my tongue. The other cadets emerged around me—some weeping openly, others hollow-eyed, all marked by what they had endured.
None of us spoke.
We couldn’t.
Because what we had felt would never leave us.
And we would never be the same.
The cold night air bit into my skin as I stumbled out of the cavern, my vision swimming with exhaustion.
My legs barely held me upright, and every breath sent fire lancing through my ribs.
Blood—my blood—was drying in jagged lines across my arms, my back, my shoulders.
The marks burned, a deep ache that felt like it had seeped into my bones.
Zander stood near the horses, arms crossed, his dragon looming behind him like a living fortress. But the second his gaze landed on me, something cracked in his usual mask of indifference.
“Ashe—”
He moved before I could process it, striding toward me with something dangerously close to urgency. He grabbed my jacket from where I had left it draped over my saddle and swung it around my shoulders, his hands firm but careful.
“What in Korham’s name happened to you?” Jax’s voice cut through the stunned silence, his eyes wide as he took in my wounds.
I barely had the strength to shake my head. Despite Jax’s question, the God of War had no say in this. My squad stood around me—hollow-eyed, shaken—but unharmed. No gashes. No blood. Their dragons had shielded them.
Only I had been left to bleed.
“The dragons,” I whispered, the truth settling like a rock in my gut.
Tae let out a low whistle. “Damn, Ashe. Your dragon should have protected you.”
I snorted, though it hurt like a bastard. “Kaelith is not the coddling type.”
“At least she’s talking to you,” Tae muttered, shaking his head. “But that could have killed you.”
Ferrula, who rarely spoke, crossed her arms, his piercing gaze raking over me like he was assessing the damage. “Pretty sure that’s what she wants.”
A shiver rippled down my spine, but I wasn’t sure if it was from her words or the creeping numbness in my limbs.
The wounds still burned.
Not just normal pain—something else. Something deeper. My knees nearly buckled as a fresh wave of dizziness hit me, and suddenly, Ferrula’s words didn’t seem so ridiculous.
I had heard the stories.
Some dragons of the past had been poisonous. Their fangs, their claws, even their blood. If they marked you, it meant death.
But that was folklore, wasn’t it?
Kaelith wasn’t a Catalan. And besides, ghosts couldn’t hurt me. At least, they weren’t supposed to.
Yet here I was, bleeding from wounds that shouldn’t exist.
Poisoned?
I had never tested whether my abilities could handle venom. And now, probably wasn’t the best time to start.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice thin. “But if I don’t get back to my bed soon, I may pass out.”
The world tilted.
Zander cursed under his breath. A second later, his arm was around my waist, holding me upright, his grip solid as he half-dragged, half-supported me toward the horses.
I was too exhausted to argue. Too drained to do anything but lean into his warmth and pray that whatever was crawling through my veins wouldn’t kill me before sunrise.
“I’ll take her on my horse.”
Jax’s voice cut through the thick silence as we stood near the horses. His stallion, a beast nearly twice the size of our mares, pawed at the ground impatiently. He was built for endurance, meant to carry warriors clad in armor through battlefields.
Zander hesitated. His jaw tightened, his gaze flickering toward me, where I swayed on my feet, barely holding myself upright. Blood still clung to my skin, and the pain coiling through my veins made my limbs feel like lead.
Jax arched a brow. “She won’t make a four-hour ride on her own, surely leaving her to endure the pain instead of giving her a lift on your dragon is penance enough.”
Zander’s gaze snapped to him, dark and dangerous. But Jax, simply smirked, taking his hesitation as proof that Zander had actually considered the alternative.
After a beat, Zander exhaled and gave a curt nod.
Jax mounted his horse easily, then reached down.
Zander stepped forward, his hands gripping my waist as he lifted me effortlessly onto the stallion.
His touch was careful but firm, his warmth bleeding through my thin clothes.
Even in my dazed state, I noticed how he lingered for just a second longer than necessary before settling me in front of Jax.
I glanced down at him. He did not look pleased.
“I will do better next time,” I whispered, though my voice lacked any real strength.