17. Lucy #2
“Frieda Jaharis you put that necklace back on and stop fussing with it before I send your father after you,” a woman yelled from an open front door, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to stave off the cold.
A child in the center of the group of children she’d addressed stiffened as I passed, slipping the necklace back over her neck without saying a word.
They all wore Life Runes. But something was missing.
Not a single hedge-charm hung over a doorway. No warding runes scratched into the thresholds, no salt lines, none of the small protective craft a witch left behind without thinking. Whatever magic lived here, no witch’s hands had ever touched it.
I’d been watching for it since I arrived.
So far, I hadn’t seen a single shifter beyond the dragons.
No sprites darting overhead. No nymphs weaving through crowds.
Just scorched and dragons. And, oddly enough, all of the dragons were men, as far as I could tell.
I remained the only female dragon I knew of in this entire damn world.
The thought should have made me feel special.
Instead, it made me feel like a mistake. An outcast.
How could the scorched and the dragons that made up this imprisoned city have Life Runes if there were no witches and no connection to the outside world?
I knew there was magic here. I’d seen the scorched doing small things, speaking their spells, charging small runes.
But only highly skilled rune weavers like Syneca Black could produce Life Runes.
The sound of cheering pulled me from my thoughts, growing louder as I followed it around a corner and down a street that ended abruptly at what looked like a natural amphitheater carved into the mountainside.
An ice rink stretched out below street level, massive and gleaming, surrounded by crowds pressed against the barriers.
For one small second I let myself stop and feel. I closed my eyes and listened to the crowd, felt the charge in the air, pulled from the love of a sport. The challenge of one. But this game wasn’t just on the ice.
Dragons circled overhead in full form, colliding mid-air with brutal force while below them, scorched players moved across the ice with speed that shouldn’t have been possible. Two games happening simultaneously, connected somehow I couldn’t quite understand.
Calix. This must have been the game Finn had been playing with the other boys.
The crowd was electrifying. A woman next to me clutched a brown paper cone of roasted nuts, shouting at a green dragon who’d just taken a hit that sent him spiraling toward the ice.
People scattered as it crashed down hard, shaking the ground before launching back into the air seconds later. The ice hadn’t even cracked.
Vendors moved through the masses selling honey cakes and something that smelled like spiced wine. People, dressed in various team colors, ate and drank and screamed their support, caught up in whatever was happening below and above.
I pushed closer to the edge, earning a few annoyed looks that died when people recognized me. They made room without being asked. I was the anomaly, I reminded myself. Not a Varrow. A stranger in a world of none.
My athlete’s brain tried to track the patterns.
The dragons battled for control of the airspace while the scorched fought for position on the ice.
When a dragon went down—either forced or deliberately—it affected the game below.
The dragons above could lift the scorched from the ice, but when one fell, sometimes they didn’t get back up, and I watched healers rush onto the ice to drag them to safety while play continued around them.
This had to be Tavian’s worst nightmare.
A familiar flash of copper hair caught my attention.
Emrys, lean and quick, moving across the ice.
A scorched man he was protecting spoke words that sent sheets of ice rising to block opponents, but Emrys was playing aggressively, too close to the edges where the barriers were marked with dangerous spikes.
A dragon above him took a hit and plummeted. Emrys dove aside, barely avoiding being crushed, and slid toward the edge. His hand caught the barrier at the last second.
The crowd gasped, then roared as he barely avoided impalement and immediately rejoined the game, blood streaming from where he’d scraped his arm. The game was brutal. Beautiful in the way violence could be when it was controlled. Purposeful and practiced.
I found myself leaning forward, hands gripping the barrier, caught up in the energy of it, despite not fully understanding what I was watching.
When it finally ended the crowd erupted.
People celebrated like they’d been the ones playing, pumping fists and exchanging coins as bets were settled.
Others grumbled and threw off their hats and scarves in disappointment.
For a fan, it was never about the love of the game the way it was for the player.
Losing was horrible, but it gave life to the challenge every athlete needs.
I slipped through the masses toward where players were gathering off the ice and found Emrys collapsed onto a bench, accepting a flask while blood still dripped from his arm.
He grinned through the exhaustion. “Enjoying the show, newcomer?”
“You nearly took a spike through the torso.”
He laughed, then winced, pressing a hand to his ribs. “Broke a rib too. But nearly doesn’t count.”
“Why Calix?” I gestured back toward the ice where dragons were landing and shifting to human form. “Tavian’s apprentice playing the most brutal sport in the city seems... contradictory.”
“The girl dragon who fell from the sky is asking me about contradictions?”
“I didn’t fall from anywhere.”
“That’s what I figured.” He took another drink, grimacing. “You don’t seem like someone who just appeared out of nothing. You seem like you’ve been somewhere else. Seen things we haven’t.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The way you watch everything. Like you’re taking notes. Comparing it to something.” He gestured vaguely at the arena. “Most people here think this is all there is. The city. The fog. The mountains. But you look at it like it’s temporary.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that and his smirk at my hesitation was far too mischievous. “I knew you had secrets, Lucette Varrow.”
“I don’t have secrets,” I said far too defensively.
He nudged me with a shoulder, grin still in place, then leaned forward slightly, hissing at the movement.
“I’ve seen pictures of something called the ocean in old books.
Found them in the mountain tunnels where nobody goes anymore.
Water that goes on forever, waves bigger than buildings.
” His voice went distant. “I’m going to see the real thing someday. Maybe that’s where you came from.”
The certainty in his voice made my chest ache. “No one leaves, Emrys.”
“Not yet.” He grinned, bloody teeth and all. “But someone will figure it out eventually. Might as well be me.”
A teammate called his name from across the arena.
Emrys straightened, rolling his shoulders. He glanced back at the rink. “You like sports?”
I followed his gaze. Watched players still celebrating, some tending injuries, others already reliving the best moments.
“I used to.”
“Then you should join us next time.” He was already walking away, tossing the words over his shoulder. “We could use someone with good instincts. Better learn to fly first.”
A man walked past the edge of the amphitheater, carrying a crate. There was nothing remarkable about him. Just another resident going about his day.
Except for the necklace he wore.
Another Ossira. With runes I couldn’t make out from this distance, but I knew were there.
I started following him. Not close enough to draw attention, just near enough to see where he went.
Maybe Tavian’s had gone dormant after all this time and mine wasn’t strange. If I could catch the man, I could—
My Ossira flared hot.
I glanced up. The sun was dropping behind the mountain peaks, barely visible through the filtered fog.
No.
The compulsion pulled, insistent and absolute and immediately the woman within me was gone.