4. Chapter 4
AMARIA
We gathered in a loose circle on the rocky outcrop where Umbra had landed.
The dragon had settled behind Dreadscale like a mountain that breathed, her tail curled around the perimeter of our little war council.
The dog had finally stopped barking at her and was now plastered against Serenya's ankles, shivering.
"We hit him now."
The words came out of me before anyone else could speak.
I was pacing again—couldn't help it. One of my stars kept appearing between my fingers and vanishing again, snapping back to the vambrace hard enough to click.
The Fury that had been banked since the ceremony was clawing its way back up my throat.
“The King just lost his greatest weapon. His pretty little face for the public.” I gestured toward the distant smudge of smoke still rising from the eastern fields. “And we stole his prince on the way out. He’s reeling. We strike before he recovers.”
"And then what?" Eryndor's voice was flat. He stood on the opposite side of the circle. "We walk through the front gates? Fight through the Oath-bound guard? The Suppressors? The Enforcers who would die before letting us near the throne room?"
"We have a dragon," I shot back.
"Umbra is not a scalpel. She is a reckoning." Dreadscale stated. "Fly her into the city and she kills the King. And the servants. And the children in the streets below. And everyone who had the misfortune of living near a tyrant."
"So we make him come out," I replied.
"He won't. Not now. Not after this." Eryndor shook his head. "He'll burrow deeper. Surround himself with more protection. Wait for us to do something stupid."
"Like attack?"
"Exactly like attack."
I wanted to scream. Wanted to close the distance between us and shake him until he stopped being right. But I couldn't close the distance.
Maxx cleared his throat. "So... not to interrupt this lovers' quarrel happening from opposite ends of a field, but does anyone else have a suggestion that doesn't involve immediate fiery death?"
No one laughed.
Maxx's shoulders dropped. "Tough crowd."
"Skal'Varin. The Dragonborn territories." Dreadscale said.
"Running?" Eryndor said.
"Positioning." Dreadscale looked at Caden. "The boy needs our healers. Ones who understand this level of obliteration. He won't survive without them."
His gaze swept the group.
"We're not hiding. We send spies into the capital. We watch. The moment the King leaves his walls—treaty, ceremony, hunt—we bring dragons down on him in the open. No innocents. No collateral. Just him."
Maxx raised an eyebrow. "And they'll just let us in? You're an exile."
"I was." Dreadscale's eyes hardened. "Then I burned a princess dragon killer alive before a thousand witnesses. By tonight, my name means something it hasn't in decades. We go under my protection. My word. My blood."
"Liraeth," Caden said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him.
He stood apart from the group—not as far as Eryndor, but separate. His arms were crossed over his chest, hands gripping his own elbows. That flexing thing again. Open, closed, open, closed.
"We go to Liraeth," he said. "It's where you found sanctuary before. The elders there, they helped you. They could help us plan. Help us heal." His eyes flicked to me. "Help me."
My heart felt like it was catching fire. He was asking for something. My brother, who had spent years as a weapon, who had forgotten how to want things for himself—he was asking.
I wanted to say yes. Wanted to give him Liraeth and safety and whatever else he needed. Wanted to wrap him in cotton and hide him somewhere the world couldn't reach.
"Caden—"
"Liraeth cannot help you." Dreadscale's voice rolled through the clearing like distant thunder. He hadn't moved from his position near Umbra's flank, but somehow he seemed larger now. More present.
Caden clenched his hands into fists. "You don't know that."
"I do." Dreadscale's eyes were fixed on my brother with an intensity that made me want to step between them. "I have been watching you since we landed. The way you hold yourself. The way your hands shake and your magic flickers at your edges like a candle in a draft."
"I'm fine."
Eryndor's mouth hardened. He knew that lie—he had told it himself.
"Your spirit is dying. Fractured."
Caden went rigid. "I'm not—"
"Slowly," Dreadscale continued. "Perhaps years.
Perhaps months. The damage is not just in your flesh, boy.
It is threaded through your life force. You were a living vessel for displaced corruption.
The fae body was not meant to hold what they poured into you.
That is on top of what the King did to you before. To make you The Hunter."
I couldn't breathe.
"Liraethian healers are skilled," Dreadscale said. "But this is beyond their knowledge. Beyond their magic." He paused. "It is not beyond mine."
Caden stared at him. "What are you saying?"
"I am saying your damage needs my homeland.
Our ways. Our methods." He didn't elaborate.
"It will give you what you need that others cannot.
" His gaze swept the rest of us. "And the King's forces cannot follow us into dragon territory.
It is the one place in this realm where his reach does not extend. "
“The prophecy—” Serenya spoke up. She sat between Maxx and the shivering dog, one hand resting on the animal’s back in slow, absent strokes.
“The prophecy says the bond has to be restored. Through trembling sacrifice, not conquest.” Her gaze lifted to mine, steady despite the strain around her eyes.
“If we go to Skal’Varin, we need to think carefully about the timing. The Veil won’t wait forev—”
She broke off.
Her fingers lifted to her temple.
“How long have we been here?”
Maxx went still.
“About an hour,” he said. “Since Amaria brought Eryndor back.”
Serenya held his gaze for one breath. Then two. “The thread slipped,” she said quietly, lowering her hand. “It’s back now.”
She resumed stroking the dog as if nothing had happened, chin tipped up against pity.
No one spoke.
The dog whined and pressed harder into her side. I looked at Maxx. He looked back at me. The same fear lived in both our faces.
Fear wouldn't help her. It wouldn't help any of us. I swallowed it and kept going.
"The Veil can rot a little longer," I said, catching Eryndor's eye across the circle. "We bond before the King's dead, he takes everything. So we wait. We plan. And when he finally crawls out of that castle—"
"We kill him," Eryndor finished.
"And then we finish the rest." I didn't look away. Neither did he.
The rest. Such a short phrase for dying together.
I looked around our broken circle.
At Caden, who needed healing I couldn't give him.
At Serenya, who was slipping through our fingers one memory at a time.
At Eryndor, standing ten feet away like the distance was a physical wound.
At Maxx, worrying over Serenya. At Dreadscale, who had just burned a princess to ash for us and was now offering his homeland as sanctuary.
The Fury was still there. Banked coals in my chest, waiting for fuel. I wanted to storm the palace. Wanted to gut the King with my bare hands.
But wanting wasn't enough.
Not yet.
I locked it down. Let it burn in my belly instead.
"Skal'Varin." I nodded. "We go to Skal'Varin."
Dreadscale inclined his head once. Across the circle, Eryndor exhaled, his shoulders dropping a fraction—relief or resignation, impossible to tell from this distance.
Caden kept his eyes on Dreadscale, his face gone slack, like he’d just been handed a death sentence and a pardon in the same breath.
Serenya leaned into Maxx’s side, and he put an arm around her without comment.
I turned toward the distant silhouette of the palace. The spires. The walls. The lights beginning to flicker on as evening crept across the sky.
“But we’re coming back,” I said fiercely. “And when we do, I’m going to gut him myself.”
No one argued.
Umbra rumbled behind us—a sound that might have been agreement.
The dog sneezed.