Chapter 37
“Let’s get this show in the air—my wings are aching to soar.”
Lakota had been rushing me since the sun dipped behind the horizon.
The four of us gathered in the Golden Crest with travel packs slung over our shoulders and weapons aplenty.
Ever since we’d pulled them out of Mageia, Tatum and Davis had trained daily.
The Hollow had granted them their own gear.
Davis favored swordplay, while Tatum preferred an arsenal of hidden daggers—turning her combat into something intimate and lethal.
A gust of wind tossed Davis’s sandy blond hair, a blush creeping up his cheeks just before he winked at Tatum.
She twisted, grabbed, and yanked his ear in response.
Lakota landed to my right with a quake that rattled the earth.
My pulse spiked at the sight of him. His crimson scales gleamed beneath the moonlight, each spike along his back and limbs catching the glow like molten armor.
He looked every bit the terrifying force he was born to be.
Moments later, Noemi touched down ten feet away, followed by Echo and Spear.
His massive head swiveled toward me. Steam hissed from his nostrils, stinging my nose with sulfur. “This place has grounded you for far too long,” he growled. “Tonight, we fly.”
I didn’t answer. I slammed my mental gates shut before he could sense the truth stirring inside me. I hadn’t flown since before the Hollow—since before Shayde drugged Laney and me and delivered us to that mountain peak where the Grim shattered the last fragile pieces of who I thought I was.
I hadn’t told him, or anyone, that I felt unworthy of the Mareki’s gifts.
Unworthy of the sky I once loved. Unworthy of the fire in my veins—the very element that bound me to Lakota.
What had once felt like power now pressed on me like a burden I hadn’t earned.
The thought of soaring again felt less like a right and more like a lie.
What had once filled me with adrenaline now burned me with shame.
A strong, warm arm wrapped around my waist and spun me. I landed in Rhodes’s arms, his gaze searching my face like he could feel the hesitation I hadn’t spoken aloud.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, low enough only I could hear.
I exhaled, fingers gripping the edges of his winter cloak. “How are you not connected to my mind and always know what I’m feeling?”
“Because I know you like the back of my hand, my thorn. Now tell me—what is it?” His tone left no room for deflection.
My eyes flicked to Lakota. He watched us with piercing intensity, golden eyes unmoving.
“I’m… anxious to fly,” I admitted in a whisper.
Lakota slammed a clawed foot into the ground, tearing up grass and dirt. A plume of sulfur rolled over us as he reared his head, neck stretching into the moonlight.
“Nonsense!” he thundered.
“Understandable,” Rhodes countered.
My head snapped to Rhodes—did he just contradict a dragon? Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Lakota’s slight jolt.
“Completely understandable,” Lakota rumbled again, agreeing with Rhodes this time.
A laugh bubbled from my lips before I could stop it. Elements, I missed this side of Lakota.
Rhodes stepped forward, peeling away from me to face the massive dragon. He stood tall, grounded, his voice steady with quiet authority.
“It’s been a long time since she’s flown. A lot has happened. A lot she’s continued to survive. Just… be cautious with her.”
My jaw dropped. Davis and Tatum froze mid-step, their heads snapping toward the scene. Rhodes had just given a dragon an order—a dragon he wasn’t even bonded to.
I braced myself for backlash, but it never came. Through the bond, I felt no fury. Only… calm. Respect.
Lakota closed his eyes for a moment, then dipped his chin in a small nod before turning. He angled his massive foreleg toward me, offering a step up as his vast, leathery wings unfurled toward the stars.
“Mount up, my human. I’ve missed our flights.”
A grin tugged at my lips, and I did as I was told.
Climbing Lakota felt like breathing—natural, instinctive. My hands found their old rhythm along the ridged spikes of his forearm. The tether of our bond thrummed, steady and sure, guiding me upward until I reached his shoulder. I slid into the saddle built for me and secured my satchel behind it.
Lakota rose to his full height beneath me, a living mountain of scale and power. Across the clearing, Rhodes, Tatum, and Davis were already mounted, each nodding in silent readiness. I curled gloved fingers around the pommel and the small spike in front of me, anchoring myself like I always had.
One by one, our group lifted into the sky—wings catching moonlight, slicing through the dark. Then Lakota surged forward, and we rose too—leaving the Hollow behind as the stars opened above us. At altitude, I finally drew a deep breath. The frigid air sliced my lungs, but I embraced the sting.
My thoughts drifted to the passages I’d read aloud to Rhodes earlier. They weren’t tomes at all, but true journals. On the first page, a faint dried stain marked the lower right-hand corner—like the author had been crying as she wrote.
Her name was Kiye, and she felt lost.
The first sentence read: I don’t know how or why I’ve felt called to begin journaling my thoughts… but maybe there’s someone out there who needs to hear them.
She wrote about her kingdom, which she loved deeply, but had begun to realize not everything was as it seemed.
Her parents, the king and queen, forced her to hide the starlight that manifested the day she was born.
As a toddler, it was impossible; they kept her in isolation until she was old enough to understand her magic could never be revealed.
Even then, she spent most of her life locked in her tower—always waiting for someone else to decide how she would live. Always a pawn in someone else’s plans.
That truth struck uncomfortably close to home.
We pivoted between jagged peaks, threading the needle of the sky until we passed through the protective ward of Hollow Summit. Leaving its boundary felt like pulling free of invisible threads, eerily similar to crossing into the Shadow Glade.
Within the hour, the mountains faded, and we soared over the sleeping lands of Kalymdor.
I leaned over the saddle, trying to glimpse the world below, though night obscured most of it.
Wind lashed my face, whipping my hair into wild streams. My nose burned.
My ears stung. Tears leaked from my eyes and froze almost instantly on my cheeks.
It was fucking freezing—but I didn’t care.
“Can we go a little higher?” I asked Lakota.
His serpentine neck twisted, golden eyes glinting in the dark. “If I fly any higher, you’ll freeze before we land. And I doubt the Wylder boy would appreciate that.”
I laughed. “Higher.”
With a huff of sulfur, Lakota ascended, cutting upward into the night. The higher we climbed, the brighter the stars burned—unfiltered by the world below. One gleamed brighter than the rest, far ahead, like a beacon. I fixed on it, rose tall in the saddle, and stretched my arms wide.
I reached deep and called to my fire. It awakened, warming my veins—heat surging from frozen toes to fingertips and face as my body thawed. The brightest star seemed to answer. I threw my head back and closed my eyes.
Flames burst from my shoulders and fingertips, dancing in the wind—alive, wild, free. For a moment, I was a phoenix—reborn, blazing through the cold sky. Lakota beat his massive wings, propelling us faster, sparks crackling in our wake like embers from a forgotten fire.
I screamed and laughed into the stars.
For the first time in my life, the weight was gone. The guilt. The fear. The doubt. I felt it lift—shed like old skin. My darkness no longer shamed me. It had forged me. Sharpened me. Made me.
I was not less because of it.
I was more.
Lively music stirred in my memory—and Laney’s voice rose with it.
“Thank you for accepting all of my darkness.”
“Thank you for seeing all of my light.”
My eyes snapped open. I locked onto that brightest star and yelled into the sky with everything in me, “I am the light, Laney! I am the light!”
A dark figure rose to my right, then two more to my left. The others had joined me, igniting their fire and stretching their arms into the wind just as I had. We laughed and cried out to the stars as our flames danced, our voices echoing like a battle cry of freedom.
Then the moment shattered.
A jolt of panic sliced through my chest like a blade drawn across bone. My flames vanished. I folded forward in the saddle, clutching my chest, gasping as if all the air had been torn from my lungs.
Lakota sensed it instantly.
With a sharp, controlled dive, he dropped to a safer altitude, knifing through the cold with fierce precision. The wind roared; my mind was louder. My body trembled. My heart thundered.
Confusion hit first—sharp and blinding.
Then fear.
“Scarlet!” Fallon screamed through the marekem.