Chapter 22 #2
“It’s an investment,” Alina countered. “And it’s not charity. I expect regular reports on any geological anomalies you detect. Especially anything that might indicate another emergence site.”
“Slave driver.”
“Scientist,” Alina said firmly, grinning at her.
The day of departure found her surprisingly calm. She had expected to feel anxious about the transition. Instead, she couldn’t wait to get going.
Home, she thought. We’re going home.
Their crawler was loaded and ready by midmorning. She made her final rounds checking the equipment, confirming supply lists, and saying goodbye to allies she barely knew but somehow already considered friends.
Rhyx found her near the vehicle bay, his eyes thoughtful.
“Keep him grounded,” he said without preamble.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Adjar.” Rhyx’s wings shifted beneath the concealing coat he wore. “He carries more than he shows. Memories that don’t fit together. Purpose without direction. The ice will help—it’s his element, after all—but he’ll need something to anchor him. Someone.” A slight smile. “You’re that someone now.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Rhyx tilted his head. “Knowing it intellectually and feeling it in your bones are different things. He chose you, Jaz. Across millennia, across the death of everything he knew. His instincts recognized something in you worth surviving for.”
The words were unexpectedly heavy, and she swallowed hard.
“I’ll take care of him.”
“I know you will.” Rhyx extended his hand in an oddly human gesture. “Safe travels. We’ll speak again soon.”
She shook his hand, feeling the smooth scales beneath her fingers. Different from Adjar’s—warmer, somehow, less like ice and more like sun-heated stone. Another reminder that the dragons weren’t all the same, that each carried their own history and nature.
Found family, she thought again. We’re all building something new.
Then Adjar was beside her, his presence a familiar warmth even in the climate-controlled vehicle bay. He’d been quiet all morning—not withdrawn, exactly, but focused. Ready.
“It’s time,” he said.
“It’s time.”
They climbed into the crawler together. She settled into the driver’s seat, running her fingers over controls that felt as natural as breathing. The cargo sled with the mining rig was secured behind them, waiting.
Alina appeared at the window, her blonde hair escaping its usual messy bun. She pressed her palm against the glass.
“Be safe,” she said. “And keep in touch. I want to know everything.”
“Everything geological, you mean.”
“Everything interesting.” A smile. “Which, knowing you two, will probably be the same thing.”
She laughed and started the engine. The crawler hummed to life, its familiar vibration settling into her bones like an old friend.
“Ready?” she asked Adjar.
“More than you know.”
They pulled out of the vehicle bay and into the pale Martian sunlight. The settlement quickly fell away behind them, its clustered buildings and artificial warmth receding into the distance.
The first day was spent in populated territory with marked roads, occasional supply depots, and the scattered presence of other travelers heading to or from the various claims and installations that dotted the intermediate zones.
She drove with part of her attention on the route while the rest catalogued their supplies, reviewed their plans, and prepared for the challenges ahead.
Beside her, Adjar sat in silence. But it wasn’t the tense silence of the past week—the coiled alertness that came from being too close to another male, in an environment that felt wrong on every level.
This was something different. Something that felt more like peace.
They spent the night in an empty supply depot, but they were both too restless to sleep much and they were on their way again before daylight.
On the second day, the landscape began to change.
First subtly—the red soil taking on a paler cast, the temperature readings on the dashboard dropping by increments. Then more dramatically, as dirt gave way to bare rock, and bare rock gave way to the first glittering patches of surface ice.
Her tension began to ease. This was her world. These were the colors and textures she understood, the environment she’d chosen over everything civilization had to offer.
Almost there, she thought. Almost home.
They passed the last supply depot around midday—a lonely outpost that marked the unofficial boundary between settled territory and polar wilderness. Beyond this point, there were no services, no emergency response teams, no guarantee of rescue if something went wrong.
Most people turned back here.
She kept driving.
The ice fields spread before them now, a vast expanse of white and blue that seemed to stretch forever. The sky above was pale pink, shading towards purple at the horizon. Nothing moved except their crawler, its treads crunching steadily over the frozen surface.
“Jaz.”
She glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead, but there was something in his expression she hadn’t seen before. A softening around the eyes, a loosening of the perpetual tension in his jaw.
“Stop the crawler.”
She complied without question, bringing them to a gentle halt in the middle of nowhere. The silence that followed was absolute—no engine noise, no settlement sounds, nothing but the whisper of wind against the hull.
He unbuckled his harness and stood. In the cramped cabin, he had to duck slightly to avoid the ceiling, his shoulders filling the available space.
“Come outside with me.”
They exited through the rear hatch, stepping out onto ice that crackled softly beneath their boots. The cold hit her immediately—a sharp, clean bite that made her skin tingle and her lungs ache. She pulled her thermal hood closer and looked over at Adjar.
For a moment he just stood there, bare-chested in the sub-zero air, his silver-white scales catching the pale light and scattering it like prisms. The wound in his side had healed completely, leaving nothing but a faint discoloration that would probably fade with time.
Muscles shifted beneath scales as he rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms, tilted his head back to face the sky.
Then his wings unfurled.
Her breath caught despite herself. She’d seen his wings many times before, but this was different. This was release.
Fifteen feet of white membrane stretched towards the sky, crystalline blue veins catching the light like stained glass. The icy blue spines along his tail extended fully, and for the first time since leaving the habitat, he looked completely relaxed.
“Better?” she asked.
“You cannot imagine.” His voice was rough with emotion.
“Hiding them… it’s like holding your breath for days at a time.
Possible, but not comfortable. And the warmth, the dryness, the constant presence of others…
” He shook his head. “I was made for this, Jaz. This cold, this space, this silence. Everything else feels like a cage.”
She moved to stand beside him, slipping her gloved hand into his scaled one. The temperature difference should have been uncomfortable—her warmth against his cold-adapted skin—but somehow it felt right. Complementary.
“Welcome home,” she said quietly.
He turned to look at her, his blue eyes luminous in the pale light.
“Our home.”
They stood there for a long moment, two figures against the endless white, surrounded by the kind of silence that most people couldn’t bear.
But it wasn’t an empty silence. It was full of possibility—of futures yet to be built, of challenges yet to be faced, of a life that neither of them had expected but both of them had chosen.
The wind picked up, sending a spray of ice crystals dancing across the surface.
In the distance, something glittered—the first hints of the deep ice fields where her new claim awaited.
Where the minerals Adjar had mapped still waited to be extracted.
Where the remnants of an ancient civilization might yet yield secrets they couldn’t imagine.
“We should keep moving,” she said reluctantly. “The claim site is still four hours out, and we need to establish shelter before nightfall.”
“I know.” But he didn’t move immediately. Instead, he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss against her gloved fingers. “Thank you, Jaz.”
“For what?”
“For understanding. For wanting the same things I want. For choosing this—” he gestured at the vast white expanse “—when you could have chosen comfort and safety and the company of others who are not territorial dragons with inadequate social skills.”
She laughed. “Your social skills are fine. Mostly.”
“Mostly.” His smile was like sunlight on snow—bright and cold and beautiful. “I will work on the rest.”
“We both will.”
She squeezed his hand once, then released it and headed back towards the crawler. There was work to be done, a life to build, a future to secure. But for the first time in longer than she could remember, those tasks didn’t feel like burdens.
They felt like possibilities.
He followed her into the vehicle, folding his wings with obvious reluctance but no complaint. As she started the engine and pointed them north towards their new claim, she caught him watching the ice fields through the window with an expression of quiet contentment.
We’re going to make this work, she thought. Whatever comes next, whatever challenges GenCon throws at us, whatever other dragons emerge from the ice… we’re going to make this work.
The crawler hummed beneath them as they drove deeper into the polar wilderness.
Behind them, the settled territories faded into memory.
Ahead, the ice waited.
They were going home.