Chapter 22
ESME
Dayn finally releases my hand to approach the rune. He traces its outline with his fingers, his movements slow, cautious.
“These doorways were designed to respond only to dragon blood,” he says. “And there's likely at least one ancient defensive mechanism.”
“Excellent,” I mutter, folding my arms. “You know how much I enjoy ancient draconic surprises. Should I expect spikes, fire, or something more imaginative this time? A collapsing corridor? A ceremonial crushing?”
His mouth shifts faintly. “I imagine you’d prefer the latter,” he says, “provided I were underneath it.”
My gaze flicks over him before I can stop it. “Focus, dragon.”
His eyes meet mine, steady and hot. “I am.”
He draws a small knife from his belt and slices his palm. Dark blood wells at once, thick and gleaming with that golden undertone unique to his line. A familiar hunger rises in me at the sight of it, and I have to struggle to tamp it down.
“Now, stand back,” he says quietly, pressing his bleeding hand to the rune.
I stare with held breath, trying not to look directly at the blood. For a moment, nothing happens. Then the stone begins to hum, a low, resonant vibration. The rune beneath Dayn's palm glows until it's pulsing with a light that casts his face in sharp relief.
A grinding sound tears through the night as the doorway begins to shift. Dust and fragments of lichen rain down as ancient mechanisms awaken after who knows how many years of silence.
Dayn steps back, watching the door. It slides fully open, revealing a dark passage that seems to lead straight into the heart of the mountain. A cool draft emerges from the blackness.
I follow close behind Dayn as he enters, my hand instinctively hovering near my dagger, although it’s probably the last thing that would be useful here.
The passage is narrow, forcing us to walk single file. The ceiling is low enough that Dayn has to duck slightly. The walls are smooth, polished stone, carved with intricate patterns that catch the light from Dayn's palm in hypnotic ways.
The air inside the mountain feels weirdly pressurized, as if the weight of the peak is trying to squeeze the breath out of my lungs.
“Stay exactly in my shadow, Esme,” Dayn murmurs, his voice dropping an octave. “This isn’t a welcoming mat. More likely a gauntlet.”
“You say the sweetest things when we're about to die,” I mutter, though I step closer, my chest nearly brushing his back. The heat coming off him is his usual localized weather system, the only thing keeping the damp chill of the tunnel at bay.
We reach a circular chamber where the floor is composed of interlocking obsidian tiles, each etched with a different celestial alignment.
Familiar constellations gleam faintly in the black glass—the Hunter’s arc of stars, the Seven Sisters clustered tight, the long curve of the Serpent…
Dayn stops dead. He holds out an arm to bar my way, his muscles tensing beneath the linen of his sleeve.
His head tilts slightly, eyes tracking the floor. “Dragons trust the heavens,” he murmurs. “Stars mark the paths that matter. Walk them wrongly, and the sky itself rejects you.”
I glance down at the constellations—Hunter, Serpent, twin moons caught mid-cycle—and feel the scale of it.
My breath catches. “That’s very poetic. How do you walk them… rightly?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze moves over the obsidian like a navigator reading a chart only he can see, following the faint gold inlays where constellations nearly touch but never quite meet.
He closes his eyes for a second, then opens them.
“By remembering the sky as it was meant to be,” he says.
Before I can question further, he steps forward. His boot lands with a precise, echoing click on a tile etched with a solar flare bursting from the Hunter’s arc.
Nothing happens.
No grinding stone. No falling darts. No sudden plunge into darkness.
He reaches back without looking, his hand finding me, fingers locking hard with mine.
“Follow my lead,” he says. “Exactly.”
I nod, and we begin to move.
Left, diagonal, two steps forward. We dance a slow, cautious path across the obsidian.
Right, diagonal, three steps forward. I’m not sure whether to press for more details about the rules.
I’ve learned enough about dragons by now to know their solutions are never simple when they can be impossibly elaborate.
Every time I wobble, Dayn’s grip tightens, pulling me toward him until I’m practically draped against his side.
“You're enjoying this,” I murmur, my voice low as we pause on a tile carved with a strange crescent star.
“I enjoy any situation where you’re pressed against me, Esme.” He leans down, his lips grazing my temple. “Besides, you’re the one holding onto my hand like it’s a life raft.”
He shifts our weight without warning, guiding my foot across the seam between tiles. The obsidian beneath us gives a faint, glassy hum, and I go still.
“Easy,” he says near my ear. “You’re fine.”
“Define fine,” I whisper. “From here it looks like we’re walking across deadly, decorative astronomy.”
“It isn’t decorative,” he says. His gaze stays on the floor ahead. “Each tile holds the potential of a true alignment—the sky at a specific moment. Our path only holds if the sequence could actually occur.”
Understanding clicks, cold and clean.
“So if we step from… Hunter in eclipse,” I murmur, glancing down, “to moons in opposition when they were never opposite—”
“The chamber rejects it,” he says.
“Rejects how?”
His mouth curves faintly. “Decisively.”
I swallow. “Right. Real sky only. No impossible jumps.”
“Exactly.”
He draws me forward again—left, diagonal, two steps—threading us from one constellation into the next in a progression I can’t fully read but now at least sort of comprehend: time, movement, sky changing correctly…
“Dragons,” I mutter, “are insufferable.”
“We prefer thorough.”
“You built a chronological death maze based on astronomy.”
“A very elegant one.”
We halt on a reddish star.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Not really.”
He shifts again, drawing me onto a tile where the Serpent coils through a scatter of faint stars. The obsidian hum deepens under our feet and I feel it travel up through my bones, settling deep in my marrow.
“You seriously learned your astronomy,” I breathe.
“It’s part of navigation,” he says. “Dragons learn it early. The Serpent leads to the False North…” His grip on my waist tightens until I can feel the individual heat of his fingers through my jacket.
“It’s the vault’s deception. Many would step toward the Polaris tile, trusting it as the only fixed point.
But in the First Age, the northern light was a different star. ”
“That makes no sense to me,” I mutter. “But of course. A dragon trial wouldn’t be complete without a literal celestial misdirection. Why follow the truth when a beautiful lie is so much more on-brand?”
“Truth asks more of you,” he says softly. “Most choose the easier sky.” His voice drops nearer my ear. “Much like the way you pretend your pulse isn’t trying to match mine while you insult my heritage.”
“My pulse is reacting to the imminent threat of being vaporized by your ancient masonry,” I say, though the heat climbing my neck tells a different story. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
His thumb shifts against my side. “I don’t need to,” he murmurs. “You do it for me.”
He draws me forward before I can respond to that and we bypass the brilliant, pulsing Polaris tile—the “obvious” path—and step instead into a patch of… absolute blackness. An empty tile that looks like a hole in the universe.
“What? Why here—” I gasp as the floor seems to vanish beneath us, but Dayn’s arm remains a steel band around my middle.
“Trust the void, sometimes, Esme,” he whispers. “Not every true sky is marked.”
As our weight settles, the black glass beneath us ignites with a violent, white brilliance. To my astonishment, a hidden constellation flares to life, one that isn't on any map I’ve seen. An arc of jagged stars forms a crown-like curve, split by a brighter pair that intersect at its heart.
“What is that?” I manage.
Dayn’s gaze flicks down to the burning lines. “An old sky,” he says quietly. “Not one most remember. At least, not most humans.”
The hum in the floor rises to a crescendo. Then, the far wall shudders, before loosening. Stone draws back in a slow, grinding motion to reveal a smaller, circular sanctum beyond, bathed in soft golden light.
What the hell.
We’ve somehow crossed it.
But Dayn doesn’t release me. He keeps me against him, his gaze searching mine in the new glow. The gold in his eyes has sharpened, fixed wholly on me.
“You held the line,” he says softly.
“I held onto the only thing that wasn’t shifting,” I counter, my voice still rough. “Don’t turn it into poetry.”
His mouth curves faintly. “Too late.”
His arm tightens once at my waist, and then he draws me with him toward the new, opened sanctum.