Chapter 10 Kara
KARA
The beast’s carcass slumps heavy against the gap, wedged half into the shelter. Already the storm is burying it grain by grain, sand hissing over scales, piling into crevices. Every gust drives more grit through the cracks, sharp as thrown glass. The air scratches my lungs raw with every breath.
We’re jammed shoulder to shoulder, five bodies crammed in between stone in a space that feels smaller by the heartbeat. My knees ache from being drawn tight, my arm burns where the venom seared, but it’s not the pain that makes me shiver. It’s the storm.
It doesn’t just shriek outside—it presses in.
The sound fills the narrow chamber, high and thin, like knives dragged across glass.
Sand pours through the cracks in soft, steady streams, worming into clothes, teeth, hair.
I taste it every time my tongue touches the roof of my mouth. I breathe it even when I try not to.
Joran hunches low beside me, spitting grit, wiping at his face with a sleeve already caked in dust. His curses are ragged, half-muttered, like he doesn’t want to admit how scared he is.
“We’re going to choke in here,” he repeats, louder and angrier, as though anger could bluff the storm into easing.
On my other side, Harlan rocks forward and back, lips moving quick.
His prayers tumble one after the next, desperate beads on an unending string.
I can’t hear the words over the wind, but I feel the cadence in his breath—fast, uneven, cracking at the edges.
He clings to the rhythm like it’s a rope that will pull him through.
The younger Zmaj crouches near the gap, wings twitching against the stone with restless snaps.
He mutters to himself in guttural tones, too low for me to understand.
Once, his clawed hands flex, scraping grit from the floor as though he’d tear the storm itself apart if he could only get his fingers on it.
His eyes burn when they cut toward the scarred warrior—defiance, frustration, a need to act that has nowhere to go.
And then there’s him.
The scarred Zmaj doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t curse or pray or pace.
He doesn’t shake grit from his scars even as it gathers in pale ridges across crimson-edged scales.
He sits braced at the gap, lochaber across his leg, back pressed into the stone like he’s part of it.
The storm claws at all of us, but he stays rooted, steady, as if his silence alone could hold the shelter together.
I clutch my blanket tighter, pulling it up over my mouth in an attempt to block the sand, but it doesn’t help much.
The grit finds every gap, stings every strip of bare skin.
My arm throbs beneath its makeshift bandage, but it’s only one ache among dozens—hunger gnaws hollow, thirst rasps my throat, exhaustion presses lead into my bones.
Despite the storm, or perhaps because of it, I see the others clearer.
Joran’s curses aren’t just noise—they’re fear wearing the mask of anger.
Harlan’s muttering isn’t just babble—it’s the only thing keeping him from breaking.
The younger Zmaj’s restless fury isn’t aimed at me, not really—it’s his skin crawling at being trapped, wings and tail pinned when he was meant to run free.
I’ve been too focused on myself to notice. Too busy bristling at how they dismissed me, how they made me feel small. I never bothered to see them beyond the way they hemmed me in. Held me down.
But here, pressed into stone with the storm pouring itself down our throats, I see them unraveling. I see how fragile they are. And next to them—him.
The scarred warrior is silent, steady. Scars white against crimson. Black eyes fixed on the storm as if it’s something he’s already faced a hundred times before. His stillness fills the space like a wall against the wind, and for the first time, I realize how much I’ve been leaning on it.
The storm wants to grind us down to nothing. Joran curses it. Harlan begs it. The younger Zmaj tries to fight it.
But him? He just endures.
And caught between choices, with the sand seeping into my lungs and the grit stinging my skin, I find myself enduring too.
The storm isn’t easing, it’s building.
Wind screams sharper, higher, until the stone seems to vibrate with it. Sand hammers the outer wall in waves, sifting through cracks in steady streams. The air grows thicker, grit swirling like smoke, catching in my lashes, burning the corners of my eyes.
I press my blanket over my mouth and nose, but every breath still tastes of sand and dust. My throat rasps raw. My tongue feels swollen, dry as bone.
Beside me, Joran hacks hard, spitting up mud-dark grit.
“We’re going to smother in here,” he gasps, face streaked with sand and sweat. His curses have lost their edge, ragged now, fraying at the ends.
Harlan rocks faster, prayers tumbling into nonsense, his voice barely more than a wheeze. His fingers dig so hard into his knees I think he’ll draw blood.
The younger Zmaj snarls low, wings scraping against the stone as he jerks upright. He wants to move, to fight, to do, but there’s nowhere to go. Every flap sends grit cascading down on us, making the air worse.
The space shrinks with every breath. My chest tightens, heat and dust pressing me into the rock. My arm burns when I shift to brace against the wall, but it’s swallowed in the larger ache of hunger, thirst, and fear clawing at me all at once.
A shadow moves in front of me.
The scarred warrior rises from his crouch, filling the space like a wall against the storm. He plants himself squarely in front of the gap, shoulders broad, body braced. His wings fold tight, sealing cracks I hadn’t even noticed were bleeding sand.
The wind howls harder, shrieking through the narrowest fissures. He leans into it—silent, immovable—and suddenly the spray cutting into my skin eases. The worst of the storm hammers against him, not me.
I blink through the grit, stunned. My blanket slips lower. The sand still stings, still grinds into my teeth, but less. Just enough less that I can breathe.
His eyes catch mine through the dim haze. Black, unreadable. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move except to hold the storm back. But in his silence I hear the truth clearer than words—I see you. I will not let this take you.
Heat prickles up my throat, not from fever or venom, but something much more dangerous. Feelings.
I look away quickly, dragging the blanket higher, but the memory of his gaze presses deeper than the grit. The storm rages on. The stones shake. The others mutter and cough and snarl. But in the press of bodies and dust, I feel the shape of his presence—unyielding, unbroken—and it keeps me upright.
Time stretches thin in the storm’s grip.
I don’t know if minutes or hours scrape past. The shrieking never stops.
The sand never stops. It pours through every seam in the stone, grinding against skin, coating tongues and teeth.
My throat feels carved raw, my stomach a hollow knot that won’t unclench.
A sound breaks the rhythm. My belly growling. Loud.
Shame sears my cheeks hotter than the grit-sting. I curl my arms tight, blanket pulled higher, but it’s too late. The sound cuts through the storm, sharp as a blade.
Joran’s head jerks up. His face is streaked brown with sand-sweat paste, eyes rimmed red. He bares his teeth like a dog snapping for the last scrap.
“Figures,” he rasps, voice raw. “All noise and no use. Your knife nearly got us killed and for what? Not a mouthful of food to show for it.”
The words slice deeper than the storm. I open my mouth to snap back, but before I can, the younger Zmaj growls, wings flaring wide enough to knock grit loose from the walls.
“Watch your tongue, human.” His voice is rough but steady, stronger than mine would’ve been. His glare could burn holes straight through Joran.
Joran coughs, but spits grit between his boots, defiant.
“She’ll only slow us down. Same as you—wings don’t make you any less of a burden if you can’t bring meat.”
Harlan’s prayers stutter, falter, but he doesn’t speak. He just rocks harder, as if faster words will drown the fight out. The younger Zmaj leans forward, claws scraping stone. I feel the tension in the air rising—the snap about to come, only one wrong word away.
And then it breaks.
Not in shouts or blows, but in silence. The scarred warrior shifts.
He doesn’t stand, or raise his weapon. He doesn’t even speak. Only moves his head, black eyes cutting across us like the edge of a blade.
The storm still shrieks, the sand still pours, but in that gaze the fight dies before it can begin.
The younger Zmaj’s wings fold tight, his jaw clenching hard. Joran’s curses wither in his throat. Even Harlan’s muttering stills for a heartbeat, as if his prayers recognize a stronger will.
I sit frozen, every nerve buzzing. My heart slams hard against my ribs, not from fear but from the raw power in that silence.
Once more he commands without a word. The storm rages outside, but inside, his presence bends us all around it. And I realize—that it bends me too.
I blink and focus on breathing. I’ve been fighting the perceptions of others for so long that this shift inside myself is strange and uncomfortable. I drop my eyes, unable to continue looking at the scarred warrior, but the image of him is burned into my mind’s eye.
The rustle of his wings. The way his tail twitches as he narrows his eyes, tightens his jaw, not speaking, but able to command the respect and attention of all of us.
The tightening sensation deep in my core.
The wetness that I don’t want to admit to.
I clench my eyes shut, exhale sharply, and pull my focus into the moment at hand.
The silence holds. Fragile. Thin.
Even Joran isn’t breaking it. He’s hunched down, coughing grit into his sleeve. The younger Zmaj curls his claws tight, jaw working. Harlan’s whispering stirs back up, quieter, like a stream trickling over stones.
The storm fills the rest.
The wind wails through the cracks, higher, thinner, until it’s less like air and more like a scream. Sand scrapes down the walls in steady sheets. It gathers in the folds of my blanket, works under my collar, fills my ears until I can’t tell if the sound comes from the storm or inside my own head.
I shift, pulling the cloth tighter over my mouth. The bandage on my arm chafes, grit grinding into the raw skin beneath, but it’s drowned in the bigger ache—my chest burning with every breath.
And then—something changes.
It takes me a moment to notice. Not less noise. More. A new note threading under the shriek. Low. Resonant. Too steady to be wind.
My head jerks up, heart hammering. I strain to listen, but the sound seems to come from everywhere at once—the stone, the sand, the very air. A deep vibration crawling through the storm’s scream, rising and falling like the draw of some great breath.
No one else reacts. Joran rubs grit from his eyes. Harlan rocks on. The younger Zmaj mutters under his breath. But the scarred warrior… he hears it too.
His black eyes cut to mine across the dim space. Just once. A flicker, but enough. He shifts his weight, hand resting deliberate on his lochaber.
The storm lashes harder, pouring sand in streams thick enough to sting bare skin. And beneath it, that undertone swells—closer, louder.
I lean forward despite myself, peering past the carcass wedged in the gap. The storm swirls sandy-gray, a living wall of grit and shadow. In its churn I see something move—heavier than air, slower than sand.
A mass. A shape. Vast, there and gone in the same heartbeat.
I suck in a sharp breath, and sand scours my teeth. The scarred warrior doesn’t look away. He shifts forward, lochaber rising.
And I know—whatever else hunts out there in the storm, this isn’t finished yet.