3. Chapter 3 #3
"The dragon," Maxx said, because Maxx always asked the questions no one else would. "Where's your big scaly friend?"
Dreadscale’s nostrils flared once. A subtle thing. Anyone who hadn't trained with him would have missed it.
"She cannot enter."
"Cannot?"
"The Dead Zone rejects living magic." He gestured behind him, toward something we couldn't see through the grey haze. "She has returned to Skal'Varin."
"Returned?" Logic trickled back in.
"She flew out," I said slowly. The words came thick, my thoughts struggling through fog. "She flew somewhere else. Somewhere with magic left to pull from?"
Dreadscale's eyes met mine. He saw where I was going.
"The void doesn't go everywhere," I ventured, pushing myself to standing, legs unsteady beneath me. "This is... contained?"
"For now." He inclined his head—the closest thing to confirmation Dreadscale ever offered. His gaze swept toward the horizon, toward the wall of static-colored nothing that swallowed the sky. "The corruption is spreading. But it has not consumed the realm."
Serenya's hand stilled on Eryndor's bandages. Maxx stopped pretending to examine his flask.
"Beyond the Dead Zone," Dreadscale continued, his voice low and certain as bedrock, "the world still breathes. Still hums."
Still has magic.
I looked at Eryndor. At the black veins frozen beneath his skin, the shallow rattle of his breathing, the way his body was fighting a war it couldn't win without fuel.
"How far to the border?" I rasped.
"Three days. Maybe less if we push." Dreadscale's gaze was steady. "Once we cross into land with the ambient magic he will recuperate his ability to regenerate."
Three days. We had to drag a corpse through hell for three days and hope it turned back into a fae on the other side.
"And after that?" Serenya asked. "Once he's stable?"
"Liraeth is another few days past the border. Through the Sensorium Wood." Dreadscale's expression darkened slightly.
Home. The word surfaced before I could drown it. I swallowed it back down.
"It's the closest civilization. The elders will have answers we won't find anywhere else," he finished.
"Not just for him." I looked at Serenya—at the way her hands still trembled, the fog that kept drifting behind her eyes. "They might help her too. Her memory. Whatever the storm shook loose."
Dreadscale went still.
Then he did something I'd never seen him do. He crossed to Serenya, cupped her face in one rough hand, and held her gaze like he was memorizing it.
I glanced at Maxx to gauge his reaction, but his eyes just softened and he let out a slow exhale of relief.
"Perhaps," Dreadscale murmured.
But the way he said it sounded more like I'm sorry.
Perhaps. If. Maybe. A lot of words that didn't commit to anything—for his life or her mind. But it was a direction. Something to move toward instead of sitting in the ash, waiting to see which of them I'd lose first.
I stood up. My legs screamed. The hollow place in my chest ached like a wound that wouldn't close.
I reached down and grabbed my end of the litter.
"Maxx. Can you walk?"
He was already pushing himself up, that terrible broken smirk sliding back into place. "Darling, I can dance if it gets us out of this monochrome hellscape."
We needed to get to Liraeth. They might even be able to sever this tether, before I turned him into ash like everything else I touched.
Eryndor was trying to rise. His arms shook with the effort, muscles straining against a body that had nothing left to give.
"Don't." Dreadscale pinned his glare on Eryndor.
He didn't ask what happened to him. He didn't have to. He crouched beside the stretcher, his eyes tracking the black veins spiderwebbing up Eryndor's throat. He placed a hand near the wound—hovering, testing the air.
"The decay is accelerated," Dreadscale stated. "His internal reserves are fighting the atmospheric drain. He is burning himself to stay alive."
The cords in Eryndor’s neck strained—I felt the humiliation pulse through the tether before he could strangle it.
"I can—"
"You are empty, Crownforged. And you are bleeding out." His dark eyes held no room for argument. "You go back on the litter, or I carry you over my shoulder like a sack of grain. Choose."
For a moment, I thought Eryndor would fight it. His gaze found mine—dark, furious, ashamed—and the tether sang with his hatred of being seen like this. Weak. Dependent. A burden to be carried.
Then his body made the decision for him. His legs buckled. He collapsed back into the ash, chest heaving.
Dreadscale lifted him onto the litter like he weighed nothing.
"Amaria." Maxx jerked his chin toward the front of the stretcher. "You and me. Dreadscale takes rear guard."
I grabbed the handles without argument.
Eryndor's eyes were closed, but the tension in his face said he wasn't unconscious. Just refusing to look at me.
Fine. I could work with that.
"Move out," Dreadscale ordered.
We started walking.
Behind us, the tremors continued. The Void kept swallowing. The grey kept spreading.
But somewhere ahead of us, possibly, hopefully—a world that still had color.