Chapter 39 #2
Wind screamed past my ears, tore at my clothes, tried to rip me from Silas’s back.
But the spell held, and more than that, I trusted him.
Trusted the bond between us with the kind of certainty that came from years of silent understanding, of protection offered and received, of choosing each other over and over again.
Below us, the Ash began to change. Black trees gave way to scorched earth, to patches of land still bearing scars from Burnings centuries old. Monsters moved in the shadows down there, things with too many teeth and not enough conscience, but they couldn’t reach us here.
Higher. Higher still. Until the air turned thin and cold and the entire world spread out beneath us like a map coming to life. The Ash stretched in every direction, dark and wild and beautiful, illuminated only by the Erelith, turning the ground into a sea of glistening purple.
We chased a dragon into the sunset, into the unknown, into whatever waited beyond the blank spaces on the map, and for the first time in days, maybe forever, I felt something close to peace.
Just me and Silas. The wind and the sky and the endless horizon. No walls. No rules. No one watching, judging, waiting for me to make a mistake that would justify their hatred.
Just flight.
Chasing a ghost city. But for now, in this moment, suspended between earth and stars, I let myself just be free. And the beast below me’s hum of approval was the only thing that mattered.
Sunrise found us descending.
The world had transformed while we flew.
Vestra’s barren outlines had given way to Noreya’s harder landscape.
There were almost no trees here. Hardly any vegetation.
Just the skeletal remains of a land that had burned and never recovered, where even the ground looked like it had given up trying to be anything but dead.
The Sorrow Mountains loomed closer now, no longer distant threats but immediate obstacles, their peaks snow-capped and foreboding.
Riot descended first. He set Wickett down carefully before landing himself, claws scraping against rock that rang like iron beneath his weight. His wings folded, and after his passengers dismounted, he began to shrink, scales rippling as he shifted back into his human form.
Silas landed beside them, and I slid from his back with legs that barely remembered how to hold weight. The adhesion spell released me gently, fire magic dissipating into nothing, leaving only the echo of warmth where it had been.
The Ash stretched in every direction, a monument to destruction.
The ground wasn’t earth—not anymore. It was a patchwork of ash, fused glass and carbonized stone, smooth in some places, cracked and buckled in others where the heat had once been so intense it melted the world into waves before freezing it in place.
Colors swirled beneath the surface of the glassy patches, sickly greens and bruised purples.
Purples that held the memory of the flames.
The cold hit like a physical thing. Not clean winter cold, but something older, meaner.
It carried the scent of charcoal and something sweet and rotten, like fruit left too long in a basket.
Around us, twisted rock formations jutted from the ground at odd angles, their surfaces smooth as melted wax.
We crowded together, seeking what little shelter our bodies could provide against the streamlined wind.
“I’ve been in the south too long,” Lucy said through chattering teeth, rubbing her arms. “I forgot what real cold feels like.”
“I can’t feel my... everything,” Pip announced, extracting herself from Calder’s pocket with visible effort. Her bowl-helmet sat askew, her blue hair wild. “Is that normal? Should that be normal?”
Something small skittered across a nearby rock, bone-white and many-legged, there and gone before I could properly see it.
Calder scanned the horizon. “Nothing here will feel normal. Keep your guard up. We’re in the Ash.”
Riot surveyed the barren landscape, then knelt. His hand pressed flat against a large stone half-buried. Fire erupted from his palm, not wild, not destructive, controlled. Dragon fire sank into the rock until it glowed faintly red.
Heat radiated outward immediately. Blessed, wonderful heat that made my bones stop aching quite so much.
“Another one?” Pip flew closer to the warm stone, her tiny hands extended. “Please? Just one more?”
Calder’s voice was firm. “No. Heat draws monsters. One stone is a risk. Two would be an invitation.”
Pip’s wings drooped, but she didn’t argue.
We settled onto the ground around the warm stone, and for the first time, I wished I knew more about my fire magic. I wished I could warm them all, without them knowing where it came from. I wished I could give Wickett a modicum of comfort as he healed from that blade.
I’d learned so little from Gran about fire magic.
A few things here and there, but all of my knowledge came from the need to hide who I was, rather than what I was capable of.
I pulled a rune from my pocket, one I’d always tried to have on hand for Calder.
Simple concealment work meant for exactly this kind of situation.
I tossed it to him. “For watch duty. Since I know you’re going to insist.”
He caught it, examining the carved slate.
He knew exactly how much work went into it and that small crinkle in the corner of his eyes as he studied it with approval stroked my pride.
Then, to everyone’s surprise but mine, he pulled a knife from his belt, swiped the blade across his forearm, and pressed the rune into the wound.
Lucy sucked in a sharp breath. Pip made a sound somewhere between fascination and horror. I watched the rune sink beneath skin, watched flesh knit back together around it. The whole process took maybe five seconds.
“I knew it!” Pip flew up, pointing at Calder with her tiny sword. “I knew you didn’t eat them! You’ve been lying this whole time!”
“I never lied,” Calder said. “Okay, I might’ve.”
“You absolutely did lie, Calder Grimm,” I smiled. “Poor Pip has been wondering how you still have teeth this whole time.”
She looked over at me, scrunching her nose. “How’d you know that?” Then at the Oracle. “Did you tell her that?”
Aureth laughed and threw her hands up in mock surrender. “I said nothing. I promise.”
Lucy leaned forward, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten as she nudged Calder. “That’s how Rune Eaters work? You just... put them inside you?”
“More or less.”
“That’s weird,” Pip said. “And also kind of amazing. But mostly weird.”
“Interesting. But then how did you get the name?” Lucy pressed. “The Heartless One. That’s not a name you earn from being secretive about your nature.”
Pip flew in, curiosity stealing the cold from her bones as it took over. “There are stories. Scary ones.”
Calder was quiet for a long moment, staring at the glowing stone as though it held answers he wasn’t sure he wanted to share.
I truly didn’t think he would. Then he sighed, long and resigned, like he’d known this conversation was coming eventually and had been hoping to put it off until we were all dead. Which... fair.
“After the last Burning, the charidryn were hunted for our association with witches. Most didn’t survive.
The few who did learned to hide what we were, became mercenaries to survive.
We’d consume runes to track targets or artifacts conventional hunters couldn’t find.
Made us valuable enough that people overlooked what we were. ”
He flexed his hand, watching the new rune settle beneath his skin with the kind of familiarity that spoke to decades of practice.
“My father recognized my talent early. Started training me at five. It was...” He paused, searching for words.
“Brutal. He’d make me consume progressively more powerful runes, force my body to adapt to channeling magic it wasn’t meant to hold.
The backlash nearly killed me more times than I can count.
But I survived. Got stronger. Became exactly what he needed me to be. ”
Wickett shifted slightly, his attention fully focused now despite the pain he had to be in. Because he and Calder had a similar start in life. Lucy and Riot hadn’t so much as breathed, unwilling to interrupt now that answers about the mysterious race were being delivered on a platter to them.
“When I was sixteen, we took a contract. Hunting a lycan who’d stolen something from a nymph family.
High pay, simple job.” Calder’s voice went flat.
“It was a setup. They wanted the last Rune Eaters eliminated because of our protection of witches. So we would stop hiding them. My entire family walked into an ambush.”
“Terrible,” Aureth said, though she’d turned away from us, facing the brightening horizon, likely drinking in any trace of warmth from the growing sunlight.
“I’d been sent ahead as bait. Standard strategy for us—youngest goes first, draws out the target while the family flanks.
So I was hiding when they were slaughtered.
Watching. Unable to help. When the group of assassins had gone, I went in, hoping I could save someone.
Anyone. But as my father was dying, he pressed a runestone toward me, and I’d never seen anything like it.
I took it. Consumed it right there while his blood was still warm on the surface. ”
“What did it do?” Pip’s voice was barely a whisper as she hovered closer to the warming stone, rubbing her tiny hands together as she listened.