24. Chapter 24
AMARIA
We buried the moment and kept going. Over the ridge, down the descent, through the thinning forest until the sky opened up. Side by side because the tether demanded it. Mouths shut because we did.
I could still feel his mouth on mine. Still feel the way the bond had cracked open and poured him into me—his longing, his surrender, the ache he'd been carrying for gods knew how long. Every time our shoulders brushed, the memory flared hot beneath my skin.
He wasn't looking at me. I wasn't looking at him.
The tether purred between us like a satisfied cat.
Traitor.
I'd reached for him. That was the part that wouldn't quiet down. The deliberate, clear-eyed decision to close the distance. I'd done it with full knowledge of what I was doing, no enchanted water, no tether dragging me forward. Just me, choosing.
Something had shifted on that ledge and I wasn't going to be able to shift it back. I wasn't sure I wanted to.
The treeline finally broke, giving way to the vast chasm we’d been tracking for the last ten miles.
It was massive. The earth simply fell away, dropping into a chasm so deep the bottom disappeared into shadow, so wide I couldn't have thrown a stone to the other side.
The walls were sheer—red and orange rock striped with veins of darker stone, plunging straight down for what had to be a thousand feet.
And on the other side, rising from the mist like a promise I wasn't sure I believed—
Liraeth.
Spires of white stone caught the dying sunlight, gleaming like bones against the green. Waterfalls cascaded down terraced cliffs. Bridges spanned impossible gaps between towers. The whole city seemed to grow from the mountain itself, organic and ancient and achingly beautiful.
Home. Or what had been home, once, before everything went wrong.
"So." Maxx had joined us at the edge, peering down into the chasm. "How exactly do we get across? Because I'm seeing a distinct lack of bridges."
"There used to be bridges." Dreadscale stood beside me, arms crossed, studying the far side. "They were destroyed generations ago. The canyon is Liraeth's first line of defense now—especially with so many refugees fleeing the King's territories. Neither army nor siege engine can reach it."
"Great for them. Less great for us." Maxx gestured at the empty air. "So what, we sprout wings?"
"There's one way across."
"Which is?"
Dreadscale didn't answer.
A sound behind us. A crack of branches.
We all turned.
The Hunter emerged from the treeline.
He marched forward, each step identical to the last, carrying him out of the shadows and into the open. The metal mask faced us—blank, eyeless. The spikes on his shoulders jutted like a crown of blades.
He stopped maybe fifty paces away. Tilted his head in that unsettling way.
Watching.
Behind us: a thousand-foot drop. Ahead: the monster built for pursuit, ruin, and killing.
The Hunter took a step forward. Then another.
Eryndor moved in front of me, sword drawn, positioning himself between me and the approaching threat. I wanted to shove him aside, to tell him I didn't need protection, but my body still hadn't fully recovered from the last time the Mark had flared. If the Hunter triggered it again—
"Ideas," Maxx said. "Now would be good."
Dreadscale said nothing.
He just walked to the edge of the canyon.
"What are you doing?" Maxx's voice cracked.
Dreadscale looked back at us. His brutal features revealing nothing.
"Getting us a ride."
And he stepped off.
Three seconds of horrified silence.
Then Maxx made a sound like a dying animal. Serenya clapped both hands over her mouth. Even Eryndor turned, sword half-lowered, staring at the empty space where Dreadscale had been.
I held my breath…
A roar split the sky and shook the earth we stood on.
It came from below, from the depths of the canyon. A wall of heat hit us first, then wind, then—
The dragon erupted over the lip of the chasm like a sunrise made of scales and fire.
She was enormous. Bigger than the standing stones, bigger than anything living had a right to be.
Her scales were obsidian—so dark they swallowed the light, so polished I caught my own distorted reflection sliding across her flank as she moved.
A ridge of spikes ran the length of her neck, and a massive crest of horns crowned her head.
Her eyes found mine—gold-flecked, ancient, knowing.
Wings that could have shaded a village unfurled once, then settled.
Dreadscale sat astride her neck, looking mildly inconvenienced. Like he'd just stepped out to fetch the horses.
"On," he said, as the dragon landed on the canyon's edge with a grace that seemed impossible for her size. "Now."
Behind us, the Hunter had broken into a run.
"A LITTLE WARNING NEXT TIME," Maxx screamed as he scrambled up the dragon's offered foreleg.
"Where's the fun in that?" Dreadscale replied.
We all stared. Did Dreadscale just make a joke?
No time to process it. The Hunter was closing fast—forty paces, thirty, that mechanical stride eating the distance.
Serenya went up next, then Maxx pulled her the rest of the way. Eryndor grabbed my arm and half-threw me toward the dragon's flank before hauling himself up behind me.
We landed in a tangle of limbs on the dragon's broad back, wedged between two ridges of scales that served as natural handholds.
"Hold on," Dreadscale said.
The dragon launched.
The ground fell away.
My stomach lurched with it—that sickening spike of sudden altitude, the world tilting and shrinking beneath us. Wind screamed past my ears. The canyon yawned below, empty and hungry.
I grabbed for purchase. Found the ridge of scales with one hand.
Found Eryndor with the other.
His arm clamped around my waist, crushing me back against his chest. Too tight. Way too tight. But the dragon was banking hard, the wind was trying to peel us off her back, now was not the moment to be a stubborn ass. I held onto his arm for dear life.
His heart hammered against my back and mine answered in rhythm.
The tether practically preened.
Shut up.
"Everyone intact?" Dreadscale's voice, somehow carrying over the wind.
Various sounds of confirmation. Maxx's was more of a wheeze.
Serenya had wedged herself between two scale ridges, white-knuckled and wind-lashed, but her eyes weren't on the canyon below. They were on Dreadscale—on the way he sat on the dragon's neck like it was a chair he'd owned for decades, calm as stone while the rest of us clung and prayed.
I risked a glance down.
The canyon edge was already shrinking behind us—and on it, a single dark figure stood against the dying light. The Hunter stood motionless on the far side of the chasm, watching us slip beyond his reach.
Then the dragon banked again and he disappeared from view.
The flight should have been ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.
Every second stretched. The wind tore at my clothes. My thighs burned from gripping the dragon's spine.
Eryndor's arms stayed locked around me—because he had to, I told myself.
Because the wind and the speed and the dragon's movements made any other position impossible.
Every point of contact burned. His chest against my back.
His thighs bracketed mine. His breath warm against my ear when the wind shifted.
The kiss hung between us like a third passenger. The taste of him. The moment his walls had crumbled, the shock of his surrender flooding through the bond. His heartbeat hammered against me, hard and fast.
His arm tightened around my waist. Unconscious, probably. A response to the dragon shifting beneath us.
My hips pushed back automatically anyway and his breath caught against my ear.
The wind roared and the world blurred past. And his grip said something his mouth wouldn't—holding me like he'd fight gravity itself to keep me here.
Safe. The word landed strange in my chest. Foreign. I'd been held before. Pinned. Restrained. Caged.
This was different.
This felt like armor I hadn't asked for and couldn't take off.
Liraeth glittered on the horizon. Getting closer but not close enough.
Finally, the dragon descended in lazy spirals, dropping toward a landing platform carved into the mountainside. The city sprawled beneath us now—close enough to see people moving through the streets and smell the strange mix of incense, greenery, and flora.
We landed with a jolt that sent everyone lurching forward. The dragon settled her wings with a sound like sailcloth snapping in a gale.
"Off," Dreadscale said. "Before she decides she doesn't like you."
We scrambled down. The stone beneath my feet felt strange after the dragon's shifting scales.
Eryndor and I separated like we'd been burned.
He went left. I went right.
The tether caught us both at six feet, snapping taut with a warning pulse.
We stood there, backs to each other, breathing hard, refusing to turn around.
"Well," Maxx said into the silence. He was grinning—that sharp, knowing grin I wanted to slap off his face. "That looked cozy."
"Shut up, Maxx."
"I'm just saying—"
"Shut up, Maxx."
Serenya grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the stone steps leading down from the platform. Dreadscale was already talking to someone in robes who'd emerged to meet us—official business, sanctuary protocols, things I should probably care about.
His heartbeat pulsed through the bond. Too fast. Matching mine.
Six feet of empty air between us. An hour ago, there'd been none.
"This is going to be a fun few weeks," Maxx called over his shoulder.
The tether hummed.
I stared at the steps. At Serenya's retreating back. At anywhere that wasn't him.
Fun. Right.