35. Lucy #2
The only sound for a long time was the matching beat of our wings and the flow of air carrying us southeast. “I thought of something earlier today.” My voice came out quieter now. “What do you know of the missing Guardian?”
“The four of us were like brothers before… before Fuerlis happened at all. When we came to this world after Lyric’s Fury was killed, he either lost his will or his ability to speak to any of us. But it’s important to know Lyric’s bond with Celeste was different.”
“Different how?”
“Before she died, ages ago, Celeste and Lyric...” He trailed off. “That was a long time ago anyway.”
“No, please tell me. I know nothing.”
We cleared the mountains, and only the deep vast ocean remained below us.
“Remember a dragon can have two bonds. One with their Fury, and one with their mate.” He dove lower, pulling me with him. “Lyric only ever bonded with Celeste. Both bonds. Tilouri and Fyrian.”
“What does that mean?”
“Furies are deeply emotional beings. Dragons are born of magic, fury-born from their mothers taking mortal lovers, but a real Fury isn’t born at all.
They come into existence through intense emotion.
Usually anger. Sometimes grief or despair so profound it tears a hole in the world and they step through it. ”
“And Celeste?”
“Celeste came into being out of sadness and sorrow and that softness formed a kind of love for her Guardian,” he said quietly.
“And Lyric loved her back. When she was killed by the Fourth Prince, when the demons betrayed the Sisters...” He went quiet for a moment.
“The three surviving Sisters fled. Tore through the veil with grief at their backs and enough stolen power to seal the princes behind a barrier. Three dragons followed their Furies, as dragons do. But Lyric had no Fury left to follow.”
“So he chose to leave?”
“He was swept up in the exodus against his will and deposited into this realm alongside us. A dragon without his Fury has a wound that doesn’t close.
The Fyrian pulls at nothing. And Lyric, who had given both bonds to the same soul, who had no second self, no door to retreat into, was simply, completely broken. ”
Riot knew a level of that pain now too.
“Are you broken?” I whispered.
“No, my Tilouri. Missing Aureth is an ache that will never go away. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop searching for the other end of that bond we had.
But Lyric? He went silent when Celeste died.
Whether grief consumed his voice or just his will to use it, no one knows.
He became his own kind of legend before he disappeared entirely. ”
He began to hum, that same haunting melody from before, and I latched onto it like a lifeline. I wondered if that was the melody people claimed they could hear echoing through the Sorrow Mountains. If that was Lyric’s song. I let it anchor me to Riot, even if it was only through a cracked door.
But his song stopped abruptly. “Keep speaking to me,” he said through our connection, and there was something different in his voice.
“I want to try something. The more we do this now, the stronger it might become. Maybe strong enough that one day we could still reach each other even when you’re behind the wards.
What questions are lingering in that beautiful mind of yours? ”
I tried to find the words. Tried to pull the questions forward through the haze of instinct that wanted nothing more than to fly beside him forever where nothing was pressing and dire, but rather as calm as he was.
But those thoughts would get me nowhere and my time with him was limited. “I’ve never seen another dragon that appears as a shadow, where my scales are hidden beneath the void. Is that… are they something you’ve seen before?”
“There are times when you seem to only be shadow,” he said carefully.
“Dark and mysterious and hardly there in the night at all. But even in those moments, when I touch you, I feel the scales beneath. You’re not a shadow, as I initially believed in the cave.
The shadows consume you. And I’ve never seen that on a dragon before.
Not in all my years. Perhaps the Sisters will know.
Or perhaps we can find answers in the Hollows. ”
I should have asked what the Hollows were.
The question was right there, formed and ready.
Instead I noticed the space between us, too much of it, and not enough, and felt the wanting settle into my bones like it lived there.
I was already leaning toward him and when my wings brushed his, my shadows spilled across him like they’d been waiting for permission.
He didn’t pull back. Didn’t even hesitate.
His tail swung slow and deliberate, sliding against mine, and I felt it everywhere. That single point of contact. I didn’t retreat either. My tail curled toward him instead, tracing the edges of him the way I wasn’t allowing myself to, learning the shape of what I couldn’t yet reach for.
His wing shifted, just slightly. Enough that the membrane pressed warm against mine, enough that I could feel the slow rise and fall of his breathing in it.
I wanted to know if his skin ran as warm as his scales.
Wanted it with an ache that had nothing to do with the silence he gave me and everything to do with the man who’d devoted himself to me on a cliff.
The thought of his hands instead of his claws sent a shiver down my spine.
I forgot what we’d been talking about.
I forgot there was anything to talk about.
There was only the place where we touched, and the unbearable, aching distance of everywhere we didn’t. But this was a distraction. Admittedly my own, but a distraction nonetheless.
He’d said something about the Hollows. There had been words before the tail, before the wing. Important words, probably. Words I needed.
I pulled myself back to the surface of the conversation like climbing out of something warm.
“The Hollows?”
His voice shook as he also recentered. “Aureth’s prophecies consumed her unless she released them.
She carved them into the Hollows—every vision, every warning, every glimpse of what might come.
They’re preserved there in stone and shadow, written between what is and what will be, waiting.
” His voice grew heavier. “Absolutely no one has access. Not the Sisters. Not the other Guardians. Not even me, except on the rare occasion Aureth needed someone to witness a particularly dangerous vision being recorded.”
“Then how will we—”
“I know where it is. And I think I know how to get in.” He paused.
“But Aureth always told me that knowing the future is like holding a snake. The tighter you grip, the more likely it is to turn and bite you. We must be careful not to linger in the Hollows. The longer you stay, the more the visions try to claim you.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t go looking for answers there.”
“We won’t,” he promised. “Not unless the Sisters have none to give.”
He stopped mid-flight, pulling us both to a hover above the ocean. His eyes found mine with an intensity that made my breath catch.
Lucette, I would never put you in danger.
Not willingly. Not ever. His words melted over my mind like honey, and something about that way of speaking made them feel far more sacred.
Time froze around us. The waves below went still.
The wind stopped pulling at my wings. I felt the promise in my soul.
He was mine. Whatever fate existed in this broken world, I’d been given this man, this dragon of unwavering loyalty and impossible patience and a bond I didn’t know what to do with.
So I raced onward, wings beating hard, leaving him suspended in the stillness.
He caught up quickly, a burst of purple scales and controlled power. We flew side by side, wings nearly touching as we climbed higher. The stars stretched above us, endless and bright, and every time our scales brushed, I felt the connection between us strengthen.
The silence he brought. The peace. The certainty that I wasn’t alone anymore.
We flew like that for what felt like hours. Racing through the night. Two dragons connected by something neither of us fully understood but both were willing to follow.
The horizon changed ahead of us.
Land rose from the ocean in the distance, miles away and sharp in my vision.
Black sand beaches stretched along the coastline, barely distinguishable from the dark water that lapped against them.
Beyond them, pale mountains jutted up, imposing against the night sky.
Smaller than the mountains near Bitterpeak, and lighter in color despite the endless ash that covered everything else.
As we drew closer, the city came into focus.
Pure white. Every building, every street, gleaming even in the darkness.
Architecture that curved and soared, carved from stone that seemed to glow from within.
Perches had been built into the structures, places designed to accommodate dragons in their full form, wide platforms that jutted from towers and walls.
But the city was silent.
No lights in the windows. No movement in the streets. No Guardians circling overhead or resting on their perches. I looked to Riot, waiting for the calm he usually gave me before I shifted. Waiting for him to land so I could become human again.
He didn’t. He circled the city, his movements growing more erratic.
Frantic. Then he dove and shifted mid-descent and hit the ground running, racing toward a great pillar building at the city’s heart.
I followed, landing carefully and folding my wings tight so I wouldn’t destroy the sculptures that lined the approach, figures carved from the same white stone, their faces serene and beautiful.
I waited outside, afraid to enter. Afraid of what Riot had seen. Then I saw the blood. Dark streaks across the threshold. Riot walked out slowly, his movements heavy as he fell to his knees.
He looked up at me, his eyes dark. “They’re gone. Everyone is gone, and the Hollows have been destroyed.”