Chapter 20
Harper
Two days of nothing but ocean and sky. Two days of dried fish, cheese, hard bread, and getting wind-chafed in places I thought were immune to the elements.
Two days of Ebron leading the pack, and Rosanthra, pink and proud, close on his tail.
I wake up on the morning of Day Three with drool on my chin and a stiff neck.
I’ve learned to sleep sitting up, even though it wasn’t comfortable.
The first thing I see is a smear of dark on the horizon. Not a cloud, not a weather front, but the unbroken outline of land. Real, actual land.
My lungs burn with the urge to scream it, but Ebron’s already shouting the thought straight into my skull. Land, land, land!
I pop upright in the saddle, hands fisting the harness. “There! There, look!” My voice is ragged and wild, but I don’t care. “Volcaris. That’s got to be it.”
Gareth, flying ahead and a little above me, cranes back with an arched eyebrow. “You sure?”
“As if there’s anywhere else on this side of the world,” Sevrin yells. “That’s Volcaris!”
Alaric lets out a whoop, slapping his dragon’s back. “Thank every goddess. I was ready to murder someone for a fresh loaf of bread.”
Lucien, because he’s Lucien, just flips his hair and shouts, “I have a feeling we won’t find any better eating there!”
“There are many good things to eat there,” Sevrin explains, a lightness to his voice I haven’t heard in days. “It’s very different from Dravari lands, but wonderful in its own way.”
My heart is beating like a war drum. Ebron’s pulse floods my body, and I know he wants to be the first to land, to plant his claws in that scorched earth.
I let my gaze linger on Sevrin longer than I should.
Pink dragon beneath him, black clothes clinging to him, a perfect jaw beneath his face paint.
Even from a distance, I see how he leans in when Rosanthra banks, how he grips with knees instead of fists now.
It’s embarrassing how much I want to tell him he looks good up there.
That he’s making history just by existing.
That he’s the first Hollowborn to be a dragon rider.
But I keep the words quiet, for now. There’ll be time when we get to land and rest. Time to say a million things that have been running through my head these last few days.
We are almost there, Ebron tells me, excited.
As we get closer, the details start to sharpen.
The continent is massive. An endless range of mountains, every ridge black and alive with red veins of molten rock and lava.
The landscape pulses, literally pulses, with energy.
Between the volcanoes are valleys of glassy, shattered earth, spidery rivers of lava winding toward the sea.
Above it all, a haze of steam and smoke, orange in the sunrise, makes everything look like it’s burning in slow motion.
Not a single tree for miles. No green, no lakes, no sign of civilization. I think of Sevrin saying “home” and my chest aches for him.
Gareth pulls even with me, and I see the tension in his jaw. “You ever imagine something like this?”
“Not in a hundred lifetimes,” I admit.
He nods. “No turning back now, huh?”
I glance at the dragons trailing behind us. “Not a chance.”
He smiles.
My eyes are locked on the lava flows, those liquid arteries splitting the black land. “Is it weird that it’s… beautiful?”
“Yeah,” Gareth says, with something like awe. “It is.”
“Over there!” Sevrin shouts. “That’s where the sacred lava rivers are, and just over the hill is a small town. They should be able to help us with supplies. I warned them that if everything went well, I’d be back with dragon riders.”
We come in low, following Sevrin’s lead.
Rosanthra banks and swoops toward a crescent of higher ground, a ridge cut by three distinct rivers of molten stone.
There’s a dip in the land, and at its center there’s an impossible lake, glowing so red it hurts my eyes.
A dozen smaller pools cluster around the main one, some shimmering silver, others blue-white, all radiating a heat I can feel even from the air.
The whole place is ringed by crystalline rock, jagged and sharp as the teeth of a predator.
Sevrin signals. We spiral in, single file, until the dragons find enough space to land on the blackened earth.
The ground is cracked, patterned like the scales on Ebron’s back, but beneath the cracks I catch flashes of color, flashes of movement, motes of gold and something like electricity.
It’s wild, a place that wants to eat you alive and then send you home on fire.
We touch down and I nearly collapse from the sensation. My legs are rubber. My mouth is dry as ash. But I’m alive, and so are my men, and so is every dragon in our flock. I want to fall to my knees and kiss the earth, even if it singes my lips.
I dismount and slide down Ebron’s side, while he uses his wing to help me get to the ground, and the heat nearly knocks me out.
It’s like stepping into a furnace, but the air smells sharp and clean, not like burning.
More like… lightning, or the moment after a thunderstorm.
Behind me, the others are getting their bearings.
Alaric is already rubbing his neck. Lucien strips off his gloves, fanning himself.
Gareth inspects the cracks in the ground, boots crunching on what looks like diamond dust.
The female dragons circle the big lava lake, keeping their distance.
“Sevrin?” I ask.
He’s smiling, but refocuses at the sound of his name. “These are the lakes. The dragons can go in safely. The lava won’t hurt them. But, just to clarify, it’ll hurt us.”
“Good to know.” Not that I was planning on taking a dip in lava.
Do we go into the lakes? Ebron asks.
I guess so.
Ebron leads the way to the side of the lava pool, three of his mates close behind, each pausing to sniff the air before slinking closer.
Rosanthra hangs back a moment, nudging Sevrin’s shoulder, and I swear she’s making sure he’s all right before moving on.
But Ebron doesn’t go in. He seems to still be processing the sight before him.
I guess he’s seen just about everything in the world. Just not this.
“Does this place have a name?” I ask, not expecting an answer.
Sevrin gives it anyway. “The Old Pools. Nothing on the continent like them. Do you like it?”
“It’s incredible,” I say, and I mean it.
He walks to the edge of the main pool. The others join him, and we stand there, five people trying to change the fate of dragon kind. Us, on enemy lands. Sevrin, home.
Sevrin crouches, picks up a rock, and tosses it into the lava. It sizzles, floats a second, then bursts into blue flame.
“Show-off,” Lucien mutters, but he’s grinning.
The female dragons drop from the sky and gather around the lakes, all of them staring at the pool as if waiting for a sign. There’s tension in the air. A kind of hunger. I’m not sure if it’s theirs or ours.
Alaric nudges Sevrin. “Should they go for it?”
Sevrin looks at me, then at the dragons, then at the churning lava. “It’s what we came to do.”
The dragons don’t need to hear anything else.
One by one, the dragons wade into the lava.
It’s not quick or graceful; there’s resistance, a struggle, as if every instinct is telling them not to go.
But Ebron plunges ahead, and when the molten rock washes over his claws, he shudders, then roars—a sound that splits the clouds above.
Sylvara follows, then Verdraxa, then Nythera. Rosanthra hesitates, just long enough to meet Sevrin’s eyes, then leaps after the others. The dozen wild females hang back, but the magnetic pull of Ebron is too strong, and they follow, yelping and bellowing as the lava closes over them.
I watch, heart thudding, as the surface of the pool is broken by wings and spines, then goes still. The heat grows more intense, but not in a painful way. It feels like a fever breaking, like the world is holding its breath.
We wait. Nobody speaks.
Alaric fidgets, then asks, “How long do they stay in there?”
“However long it takes,” Sevrin says.
Gareth grins. “That’s not very specific.”
Sevrin shrugs. “It’s more magical than logical.”
I almost ask him how he knows this will work, but the look in his eyes tells me he doesn’t, not really. He’s gambling everything. So are we.
We sit together, on a chunk of glassy rock, watching the pool. It’s beautiful and terrifying, and I think for a second about all the moments that led to this one. All the things that had to happen to lead all of us together, to saving the dragons.
Alaric leans closer to me, his hair already curling from the heat. “You think they’ll be all right?”
“They’re dragons,” I say. “If anything can survive this, it’s them.”
Gareth picks up a chunk of black rock, tosses it to Alaric. “You ever seen anything this… strange?”
Lucien sniffs it, then licks it—of course he does—and makes a face. “Tastes like burnt sugar.”
After that, no one speaks. The silence is almost pleasant, until Alaric glances at Sevrin, eyes sharp. “So how did you learn about this place again?”
Sevrin releases a slow breath. “Found some old books. Tomes, really. They’d been mostly forgotten with time, but I was looking for something to save my people, and I knew the past had to hold the answers.”
Alaric presses, “To save your people?”
Sevrin looks at the lava, then at me. There’s a vulnerability in him that’s rare, precious, almost. “It’s not just the dragons that need saving,” he says, voice low. “Our people. The Hollowborn. We’re dying, too.”
The words hang there, raw and naked.
He keeps going as if afraid he’ll lose the nerve.
“We can’t thrive on these lands alone, only survive.
The sea’s not enough to support us the way we need.
The earth’s practically dead. We need the Dravari.
We need this peace. But I need your people to need us too, which is why I went digging for anything that might help us. ”
He’d said something about this, but he hadn’t fully explained it. “Why didn’t you tell us all of this?”
“I couldn’t have you know that you had more leverage than me. I wouldn’t have gotten as good of a deal, and I’m the leader of my people, I needed the best deal possible,” he says, matter-of-factly.
Gareth’s mind is working. “That’s why you risked so much. Why you tried so hard for the treaty.”
Sevrin nods. “We had to give the Dravari something they wanted to save my people. So I did.”
Lucien is quiet, for once. He takes my hand, squeezes it, and looks at Sevrin with respect.
Alaric’s face softens. “You should have told us sooner.”
Sevrin’s voice is barely above a whisper. “Maybe.”
I reach for him, tangling my fingers with his. He squeezes back, hard.
We sit like that for a while, the four of us, watching the lava and our dragons. The air hums with energy, and the ground trembles every few minutes, like something is trying to break free.
“How will we know if it worked?” Lucien asks eventually.
Sevrin shrugs. “If in a few months there are baby males.” He laughs, grim and hopeful all at the same time.
“I guess it’s as easy as that,” Gareth says.
Ebron roars, and the surface of the main pool stirs, ripples moving outward as the dragons start shifting.
Then, one by one the dragons start to emerge.
Ebron comes out first, his black scales glowing brighter than ever, heat rippling off him in waves.
Then the others, each transformed just a little, looking brighter, sharper, eyes burning with life.
Rosanthra climbs out last, steaming and glorious, and she shakes herself like a giant pink dog, spraying droplets of lava everywhere. Sevrin laughs, and for a second, nothing else matters.
Then, from over the hill a shadow moves. A dark, sinuous form, white and skeletal, slides across the dark earth on silent claws. It’s a bone wyrm, and on its back ride three Hollowborn in black armor, their faces hidden by bone-like face painting.
I tense. The others do, too. Even the dragons freeze, watching the newcomers with wary eyes.
Sevrin stands up, wipes his hands on his pants, and heads to meet them. He turns back just long enough to wink at me. “Be right back.”
He walks with a confident swagger that turns me on. He’s home. These are his lands and his people.
I watch him go, heart in my throat. I want this to work so badly it hurts. I want him to be the hero who saves his people. I want him to be the one who brings more male dragon babies, and the leader who secured peace between our people.
But mostly, I just want to have a long, happy life with him.
I turn to the others. “If this doesn’t work…”
Gareth shrugs. “We try something else.”
Alaric puts an arm around my shoulders. “We’re not going to let anything destroy this treaty. We’re a family. The only real family we princes have ever had.”
Lucien leans against me, warm and solid. “We won’t let anything happen to him, no matter what.”
I watch the Hollowborn reach Sevrin and slide off the bone wyrm’s back. They stand in a tight circle, heads together, words lost in the roar of lava and dragons. I see hands clasp and shoulders bump.
And I don’t speak “man,” but I think all of that is a good sign. Whatever we have to do here still, we should be safe.
With the Hollowborn.
It’s a crazy idea… but maybe not that crazy anymore.