7
The sky had not changed in days. Or perhaps it had never changed at all. Gray light filtered through the clouds, too soft to cast shadows. The ground was dry, though the air smelled like rain. Not fresh rain—old rain, left behind.
Castella walked the worn path with slow steps. The place was familiar, though dulled now. She thought it had once been a garden. There had been flowers, bright ones. She couldn’t remember what color.
She paused by the low wall where he used to wait for her. There was no warmth left in the stone. She brushed her fingers across it anyway, as if habit could call him back.
He hadn’t been here in some time. That much she knew, even if she couldn’t measure how long. The silence had changed. Not empty—sealed.
“They’ve closed the way,” she murmured, to no one.
She traced the edge of the stone beneath her hand, feeling the chill sink into her palm. The ache stayed, quiet and steady, wrapped around a hope too fragile to name. They’d found her. Maybe that meant he could be saved. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
But she hadn’t been enough on her own. The fire she kept had flickered, too small to break the dark. To protect—not destroy. To endure. To hold the light when others couldn’t. That was what it meant to be Keeper. And yet, she hadn’t saved him.
The silence pressed closer now—thicker, more final.
She left a way so that his dreams could reach her—a fragile tether between waking and the quiet that held her here. He had been the only thread, the only warmth that broke through the hollow dark.
Now, without him, the waiting felt endless.
She sat on the low wall, letting the gray light settle over her like a thin shawl. No sound but the distant hush of wind through nothing. As the quiet stretched, her thoughts returned to him—from a time when the world had felt wider, before the stillness settled in.
The ridge above the valley was quiet. The trees here grew thin and crooked, shaped by wind and time. The stones underfoot held no memory of settlement. That was why she liked it. No eyes. No expectations. Just the slope, the wind, and the sky.
She sensed it before she saw it—the stillness, not natural. A shift in weight. A pause in the air.
Then movement through the brush. Low, steady, tracking.
The beast stepped into view. Lean body, blackened coat, jaws too long for any native predator. Its breath came slow and silent, its gaze fixed. Not a hunter from these lands. Not anything that should have been this close to the wards.
She didn’t move. She knew better than to run. One wrong step and it would spring.
A sudden shape cut through the brush. Steel flashed—not wild, not rushed. One clean stroke, arcing down behind the creature’s head.
It dropped without a sound.
He rose from the motion in a single step, sword still ready. Lean frame, golden-brown hair pulled back, gray eyes sharp under the edge of his brow. Light on his feet, built for speed—not a brawler, but trained.
His tabard was worn from travel, the colors dulled by dust and distance. A golden lion was stitched at his shoulder, worked over deep red—sharp, deliberate, and clearly meant to be seen.
She stayed still, wary. A human knight? Here, of all places? Outsiders never came this way—not to these quiet, unmarked paths.
“That’s odd,” he said, looking down at the beast. “Shouldn’t be this far west. They don’t like stone underfoot.”
He prodded it once with his boot, frowning, still watching the trees as if the forest owed him an explanation.
“Maybe something pushed it out,” he muttered. “Didn’t think there was trouble this close.”
Only then did he glance at her. Not startled. Just assessing. One quick pass from eyes trained to sort threat from bystander.
“Did it get close?” he asked.
She shook her head once, slow.
He gave a short nod, more to himself than to her, then wiped the blade clean in the grass.
“Well,” he said, glancing at her again, the corner of his mouth tilting just slightly, “glad I showed up when I did.”
He slid the sword back into its sheath, then looked at her properly.
“You’re a little far out,” he said. “I can walk you back, if you’ve got a way home. It’s not safe out here.”
She studied him, noting the weight in his stance. The discipline. The wear. His eyes looked older than they should.
“I came here to breathe,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Must be nice,” he said. “I usually get told to breathe faster.”
He said it like a joke, but it didn’t land that way. Not in his eyes.
She watched him for a moment, quietly.
“You make it sound like there’s a race.”
He gave a short breath through his nose—not quite a laugh. “Feels like one. I was trained to be the best. Turns out you can say almost anything, as long as you keep winning.”
There was no pride in it. Just fact.
She looked away, toward the edge of the ridge. The mist was thinner out there.
“And if you’re not the best,” she said, “they just wait for you to fail.”
His head turned slightly. He didn’t speak, but something in his posture shifted—quieter, less guarded.
“They expect you to live up to things you never asked for,” she added. “And if you can’t… it doesn’t matter. You don’t stop being what they named you.”
He looked at her then. Not studying. Just seeing.
“That why you’re out here?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“I don’t like being watched while I fail.”
That made something in his expression crack—faint, but real.
“Same,” he said.
They stood in silence again, but this time, it felt different. Not between them. Around them. A space neither of them had to fill.
Justin sat motionless.
The words had been spoken. The truth confirmed—not softened, not excused. They were dragons, wearing human shape. And Eliane had known.
His fingers tightened around the amulet at his chest.
“So it’s true,” he said. “I’m alive because dragons chose not to let me die.”
No one answered. The room held its silence.
He didn’t look up. “And you knew.”
“Yes,” Eliane said.
He gave a breath—not laughter, not disbelief. Just something sharp enough to keep the edges from splitting.
“All this time,” he said. “Rotting in a noble bed, dying piece by piece—just wasting away, knowing it was never going to end.”
He looked at her then. No anger in his voice—just something colder.
“And you wouldn’t let it end. You kept me breathing when it should have been done. You wouldn’t just let me go.”
Eliane said nothing.
His voice dropped further. “And when that wasn’t enough, you brought them in—fed me their magic while I slept. You said nothing.”
“You weren’t ready to hear it.”
“No,” he snapped. “You weren’t ready to say it.”
That landed. He saw the flicker in her eyes, and it didn’t feel like a victory.
“You stood by,” he went on. “While they touched me. The same kind that took my arm. The same kind that carved through my face, tore the bone clean open, and left a curse burning through what was left.”
His breath caught. He forced it steady.
“And now I wake up half a corpse, with a face I don’t recognize, and I’m supposed to believe this is mercy? That I’m alive because they decided I was worth salvaging?”
He didn’t raise his voice. He was too tired to, and too far gone to care.
“They didn’t save me,” he turned to the dragons now, face sharp with contempt. “They just kept me breathing long enough to use what’s left.”
His breath had already begun to fray, shallow and uneven beneath the words. He pushed through it, not with strength, but with the last edge of will.
“What do you want from me? Gratitude?” His voice was tight, too thin. “You broke me. You bled me down to the bone. And now you expect me to thank you for scraping what’s left off the floor?”
His shoulder twitched—a ghost motion, a half-remembered reflex where his arm should have been. His other hand slipped slightly from the blanket, fingers loosening.
He looked back to Eliane. His gaze had dimmed, unfocused, but his voice still held when it came—low, bitter, worn thin at the edges.
“If you were going to kill me for the court,” he said, “you should’ve done it properly.”
Eliane said nothing. Her hands had clenched at her sides, but no sound escaped her. Not denial. Not protest. Only silence.
Justin’s breath caught again, then faltered altogether. The strength bled out of him, his body sinking into the pillow, eyes half-lidded, chest rising in short, hollow pulls. He didn’t try to lift his hand. He barely moved at all.
Vaeril spoke first, his gaze steady.
“You speak as if all dragons are your enemies.”
Sira’s voice was quiet, unflinching.
“Even now, after all you’ve seen—when you know not all humans are your allies.”
“Ignivar took you apart,” Vaeril said, “But you took your own arm.”
The words were even, but they landed like a blade turned sideways.
Eliane turned sharply toward him. “What?”
Justin’s head lifted, slow, disbelieving. His brow furrowed, but no words came. Just a faint narrowing of his eyes, as if the meaning hadn’t landed—or couldn’t.
“We found the remnants at the site,” Sira said. “Traces of fire. And something older. Human magic—rough, incomplete. Runes scratched into the ground by hand. Hastily done, but deliberate.”
Vaeril’s voice followed, calm and precise.
“You called something final. You didn’t know what it would take—but you offered it anyway. That was the shape of the magic. Purpose without clarity. Desperation over control.”
“Your arm wasn’t taken,” Sira continued. “It was given. The spell demanded cost. And you gave it.”
Justin shook his head, once. Not firm—just instinctive, unsettled.
“No,” he muttered. “That’s not—”
Vaeril spoke over the silence that followed. “It’s the only wound that closed.”
Justin looked up.
“The rest of you was rotting. The fever. The curse in your blood. All of it resisted healing. But this—” He nodded, once, toward the empty sleeve. “That closed cleanly. No infection. No rot. Just a scar, and nothing left to chase.”
Sira finished it.
“Because it wasn’t an injury. It was the price.”
Justin froze. Then his eyes widened—sharply, violently—as the words hit. His breath caught in his throat and stayed there.
“No,” he said, too fast. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” His voice cracked, as if the memory itself were clawing its way out.
But it was already there.
The circle. The blood. His own voice speaking the word.
And then the pain—white, blinding, unreal. The sickening heat of something tearing loose. The pressure, the sound, his own scream swallowed by the spell collapsing inward.
Victory, no matter the cost.
His hand clutched at the amulet as his body trembled, eyes wide with the terror of what he had done.
Vaeril’s voice broke the silence. Steady. Unmoved.
“It worked.”
Justin didn’t look up.
“The spell you cast. Whatever its shape. It killed them.”
Sira stepped forward, her tone no different than before.
“But not before they answered it.”
She let that settle for a moment.
“They cursed you before the last of them fell. A soul-mark—vengeful, deliberate. No accident. No remnant.”
Vaeril’s gaze didn’t waver.
“Your spell tore through them with raw force. No balance. No mercy. And their hate answered in kind.”
Sira finished it, the words clean and without judgment.
“The curse was stronger for it. Fed by the power you unleashed… and by the hatred it met.”
“It should have ended you,” Vaeril said. “The curse was strong enough to hollow you out before the night was done.”
Justin gripped the amulet tighter, the emptiness that had haunted him since waking aching through him, nameless and unshakable.
“Not that it would’ve mattered,” Sira said. “Nothing human holds against a dragon curse. You would’ve died anyway.”
Vaeril’s gaze shifted slightly toward the amulet beneath Justin’s hand.
“But she didn’t let you,” Vaeril said. “She gave herself so you could live. And if that is the Keeper’s will—we will see it carried through.”
Justin didn’t answer. His grip on the amulet loosened. He slumped to the side, shoulder sinking into the pillow—his body simply refusing to bear any more.
The orders were given in person—quietly, without witnesses. A precaution, they said. Rumors of movement near the western fringe. Unconfirmed, but worth a look. Isolate the threat before it reached the main force. He took the assignment without question, as he always did.
Outside, canvas walls whispered in the wind. The air was thick with the scent of pine and dry earth—familiar markers of the southern front. The wind carried the taste of dust, and the low, winding trails twisted through hills that had seen little rain. The sound of laughter drifted through from another tent.
“…First Knight because he’s the king’s dog…”
“…lowborn filth playing at command…”
He didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt. Just stared at the tent flap as the voices carved their way under his skin. They weren’t trying to hide it.
Stone gave underfoot as he walked the trail. Dust climbed over his boots, clinging to the folds of his tabard—red turned to ash, though the golden lion at his shoulder still caught the light.
The route veered west—too far west—past established lines, beyond the scope of active patrols. He’d been told to scout it. Just a routine check. No supply lines. No enemy scouts. No clear objective. But orders were orders. He followed the path anyway—and found nothing but an empty trail, and a stray beast where it shouldn’t be.
The sun hung low by the time he turned back. Shadows lengthened. Wind died down. The horizon remained empty—still too far from the garrison to see banners or fires.
Then the ground began to tremble.
A dull rhythm, slow and growing. The kind that didn’t echo. It pressed into the earth like something ancient moving beneath it.
He stepped back.
From behind the broken hill, they emerged—massive, scaled forms pushing through the rock and dust. Firelight flickered from their throats as they advanced, claws carving the earth with every step. Smoke curled in lazy ribbons around their shoulders, heat radiating like a forge left open too long.
One of them halted a dozen paces away. Its eyes caught the light—amber, molten, unblinking.
“What do you know,” it rumbled, voice thick with contempt, “the mongrel king’s pet really showed up.”
His hand went to his sword. Steel hissed free.
The fire came before he could raise it.
Justin woke with a ragged breath, the nightmare still clinging to his skin like ash. For a moment, he didn’t move. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven pulls. Then the tears came—quiet, uninvited.
He didn’t try to sit up. Just lay there, shaking.
He had followed. Obeyed. Bled.
And they had sent him.
The tears kept coming. Quiet. Unstoppable.
Everything he’d fought for felt distant now, unfamiliar. Like a story someone else had told him once, long ago.
There was nothing left to hold onto. Nothing left that held him back.
He reached for the amulet without thinking. There had been something once—he remembered it faintly. A warmth, soft and distant, brushing against his fevered mind.
And it was gone now. Whatever it had been, it hadn’t followed him into waking.
Only the emptiness had.