Chapter 10
Ember
The darkness presses in from all sides. I follow the sound of Luke’s breathing; steady and controlled, even after hours of walking.
My own comes harder, ragged at the edges.
From time to time, he’ll turn the torch on, the dim light sweeping across walls slick with moisture, revealing rough stone that gleams like black glass in the narrow light.
Every few minutes, a metallic echo drifts through the tunnels from somewhere behind us. Distant but distinct. A reminder that the Syndicate hasn’t given up.
My legs shake with exhaustion. Each step feels heavier than the last, like I’m wading through water.
“Easy.” His voice cuts through the darkness when I stumble for the thousandth time. “Breathe.”
The calm in his tone steadies me more than it should. “I’m fine.”
He doesn’t argue. Just keeps moving, and I force myself to follow.
He moves like the dark belongs to him. Sure-footed on uneven ground, reading the stone and shadows like a language I don’t speak. I just follow blindly, thankful that at least one of us knows where we’re headed. I hope.
The passage narrows. The air grows colder with each step, frigid enough to leave my lips numb and my eyes aching. My breath fogs white in the torchlight on the rare occasions that he switches it on.
“Luke—” I barely recognize my own voice. “Just… give me a minute.”
He stops immediately. Scans the passages branching left and right, then nods toward a narrow split in the rock wall.
“Through there.”
We crawl through the gap. The stone presses against my shoulders, and my jacket catches on something sharp. I hear fabric tear, feel the brush of cold air against skin. Then the passage opens into a small alcove; dry and protected, barely tall enough to stand if I crouch.
Luke checks the airflow first. I watch him lift his hand, feeling for drafts, his fingers steady, even though he must be as exhausted as I am. He looks for signs of old soot on the ceiling, calculating whether we’re safe from detection.
“We hold here,” he decides.
“I’m slowing you down.” The admission is torn from me.
“You kept pace with a dragon who’s been doing this for centuries.” He kneels by his pack, pulling out compact rations wrapped in silver foil. His movements are efficient, economical. No wasted motion. “That’s not slowing down.”
The statement catches me off guard. Not what he said, but how he said it: matter-of-fact, without judgment or reassurance. Just information.
He hands me a ration bar and water. “Eat.”
I take them, settling against the wall. The stone is cold through his oversized jacket, but at least I can breathe without feeling like my lungs might give out.
I unwrap the bar with shaking fingers, force myself to chew even though I’m too tired to taste anything.
My body craves fuel to keep me warm right now.
Luke unwraps his own ration but doesn’t eat. Just watches the entrance to the alcove, head tilted, listening to sounds I can’t hear.
The silence stretches. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Just… heavy. Like there are words between us that neither of us knows how to say.
Eventually, I can’t resist the urge to break it. I take a drink of water. Clear my throat.
“You said you’ve been doing this for centuries.”
He glances at me. Waits.
“How many?” The question sounds small in the darkness. “Centuries, I mean.”
“Three.” He caps his water bottle, tucks it back into the pack. “Give or take.”
Holy shit!
Three hundred years. The number makes my head spin. I’ve always known dragons lived longer than humans, but knowing and understanding are different things. He’s lived lifetimes. Seen empires rise and fall. Survived things I can’t even imagine.
God, I’m such a child.
“What was it like?” I ask. “When you were young?”
Something flickers across his face, too quick to read. “Different world. Smaller. You knew every dragon within a thousand miles because there weren’t that many of us left back then.”
“What happened to them?”
“War. Politics. The same things that kill everyone.” His voice is flat, factual. But I catch the edge underneath. Old grief worn smooth by time. “We were never numerous. Even before humans started building cities, we were dying out.”
I think about what that means. Growing up knowing your kind is fading. Watching friends disappear one by one.
“That must have been lonely.”
“Lonely implies you expect something different.” He finally tears open his ration bar, takes a bite. Chews methodically before continuing. “I learned early not to expect much.”
The words are casual. Too casual. Like he’s said them so many times, they’ve lost their meaning.
“Is that why you’re…” I search for the right word. “The way you are?”
His mouth quirks. Almost a smile. I find myself wishing I could make him do it.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” he says.
“Controlled. Detached.” I pull my knees up to my chest, conserving heat. “Like nothing touches you.”
“Things touch me.” He meets my eyes in the torchlight. “I’m just good at not showing it.”
“Why?”
“Because showing it doesn’t change anything. Doesn’t make you safer or the situation better. It just gives your enemies something to use against you.”
The honesty in his voice cuts deeper than the words themselves. I think about growing up with my mother; learning to hide what I felt, to present the right face for every situation. Always performing, never quite real.
“My mother taught me the same thing,” I say quietly.
“How to smile when I was terrified. How to seem confident when I was falling apart. How to be whatever people needed me to be.” I glance down and trace patterns in the dirt beside me.
Avoiding his eye. “I thought I was good at it. But you… You’re on another level. ”
“That’s not a compliment.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Then Luke shifts, angling toward me slightly.
“Tell me about her. Your mother.”
The request surprises me. “Why?”
“Because I’ve known Vanya Arrowvane by reputation for some time: Shadowhand operations, political maneuvering, information networks that most governments would envy.” His voice is thoughtful. “But I don’t know her as your mother. And that seems like the more interesting story.”
Something in my chest loosens. Not completely. But enough to breathe a little easier.
“She’s…” I search for the right words. “She’s two people. The Shadowhand—cold, calculating, always three steps ahead of everyone else. And then there’s my mom. The woman who sat on the edge of my bed and told me stories about dragons who could touch the stars.”
“Which one is real?”
“Both. Neither.” I wrap my arms around my knees. “I don’t think even she knows anymore.”
Luke is quiet for a moment. Then: “What kind of stories did she tell you?”
I smile at that. “There were so many. Legends of ancient dragons… creatures who could fly higher than clouds and dive deeper than oceans. About witches who could make flowers bloom in winter and call down lightning from clear skies.”
As I speak, I think about the way she’d stroke my hair and promise me I was special. That my magic made me stronger, not weaker. That someday I’d understand why she kept me hidden.
“Sounds poetic.” Luke’s expression is too neutral to wonder if he’s being sarcastic. “Did you believe her?” he asks.
“I wanted to.” The admission feels raw. “But I kept asking questions she couldn’t answer. Like why I could never meet other dragon children. Why my fire felt different from hers. Why she looked at me sometimes like she was terrified of what I might become.”
“And when you finally got answers?”
“They weren’t the ones I wanted.” I rest my chin on my knees. “Learning you’re the thing your entire society thinks shouldn’t exist… that changes you.”
“You’re not a thing,” he says. The certainty in his voice makes me look up. “You’re Ember. And you exist. That’s enough.”
The words affect me unexpectedly. Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and I blink them back furiously.
“Is it? Enough?”
“Has to be. There’s no alternative.”
It’s not comfort. Not really. But it’s honest in a way that nothing else has been, and somehow that matters more.
I watch him in the torchlight. Really look at him for the first time since we stopped.
The silver strands threaded through his sandy hair that catch the light.
The thin scar along his jaw—pale and old, barely visible unless you know where to look.
Details that make him seem less like the untouchable operative and more like someone who’s lived and bled and survived.
God, he’s good-looking.
The thought comes out of nowhere. But I can’t help myself.
Hard, honed, the lines of his face seem carved from granite. And yet again, I feel like a child.
He’s out of your league, little girl.
“How did you get that?” I gesture toward the scar, pulling my thoughts away from how broad his chest is beneath that vest.
His hand lifts unconsciously to touch it. “Knife fight. Venice, 1723. I was young and stupid and thought I was invincible.”
“What happened?”
“I learned I wasn’t.” His mouth curves slightly. “Cost me three broken ribs and a punctured lung. But I lived.”
“Must have hurt.”
“Everything hurts at some point. You just learn to keep moving anyway.”
The philosophy should sound cold. Harsh. But coming from him, in the darkness with exhaustion pulling at both of us, it just sounds true.
My eyelids feel like lead. Each blink lasts longer than the last.
“You should sleep,” he says, reading my body language with unsettling accuracy. “We’ve got a couple of hours before we need to move again.”
“You haven’t taken a break since the crash.”
“I’ll sleep when we’re out of here.”
“Luke—”
“Don’t argue, Ember.”
I want to push back, want to insist that he needs rest as much as I do.
Want to tell him he’s not my dad and can’t tell me what to do…
which is just ridiculous. But exhaustion wins.
So does common sense. My body sags against the cold stone, and I pull my knees tighter to my chest, trying to conserve what little warmth I have left.
The temperature drops. Even in this pocket of still air, the cold seeps through my clothes, settling into my bones like an ache. My breath fogs thicker now. I can’t stop shivering. My teeth chatter so hard that the sound is audible in the small space.
“Get closer to me.”
I stiffen. “What?”
Luke shifts position, angling his body toward mine. “Body heat will keep you warmer than any material.”
Heat floods my face. Not from fire, but from memory. Him grabbing me outside the cave. The split second when I saw him completely naked in the moonlight, before we realized we couldn’t shift, and the panic set in. The feel of his hands on my shoulders, solid and sure.
The way my skin tingled when he pressed against me.
“I’m fine,” I manage.
“You’re shaking.”
I can’t deny it. I feel the tremors running through my limbs; cold and exhaustion and fear all tangled together.
Luke doesn’t wait for permission. He settles beside me, tugging the jacket off me and draping it around us like a blanket. Then drawing me against him with careful, deliberate movements.
The warmth of him hits me first. Not his dragon, but human warmth. Body heat. The solid presence of him wrapped around me like a shield.
I go rigid. Can’t help it. Because he’s everywhere suddenly. His chest against my back. His arm circling my waist. His thighs bracketing mine. The scent of him fills my lungs with every breath.
“Relax,” he says quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
That’s not what I’m afraid of.
His chest moves slow and steady against my spine. Each thump of his heart sends awareness rippling through me… of his arm heavy across my ribs, his breath stirring my hair, the way his body curves around mine like we were made to fit together.
It doesn’t mean anything, Ember.
This is survival. Practical necessity. Nothing more.
So why does my pulse kick harder every time he shifts position? Why do I notice the exact moment his breathing evens out, the way his fingers rest just below my ribcage, the warmth bleeding through fabric to reach my skin?
I should be thinking about escape routes. About what we’ll do when morning comes. About the fact that my magic is still gone and we’re being hunted by people who could have any number of twisted plans for us.
Instead, I’m focused on the way his thumb brushes accidentally against my side when he adjusts his grip. The rasp of his jaw—stubbled after days without shaving—catching on my hair. The solid weight of his arm anchoring me in place.
“You don’t have to hold me,” I whisper.
“Yes, I do.” The words are quiet. Absolute. Like there’s no other option he’d consider.
I try to make sense of it. Try to understand why those three words settle something restless in my chest. But exhaustion pulls at me, dragging me down.
My muscles loosen by degrees. First my shoulders, then my spine, then the tight knot of tension that’s lived in my chest since the helicopter went down.
His warmth seeps into me, chasing away the worst of the cold. His arm stays loose around me, not restraining, just settling. Solid and sure and utterly reliable in a way nothing else has been since this whole nightmare began.
I close my eyes. Let the sound of his heart soothe my thoughts.
And for the first time since the crash, I’m not afraid.