Page 4

ZARVASH

Ignarath’s borderlands sprawled, wild and pitiless, every shadow a blade, every shimmer of heat a warning. My wing burned; it was a punishment I’d earned, a badge I’d wear until the gods grew bored of my pain. I tuned it out. Weakness was a mouthful of blood, and I spat it.

Vega moved near me, not behind, not truly beside, but in that liminal warzone where equals prowl, always testing the boundary between trust and violence. Her anger was a spill of hot metal, her vigilance riding the edge of a blade. I tasted it in the air as keenly as any enemy’s scent.

I wanted her at my back, in my teeth, out from under my skin. It twisted into warning until I couldn't tell the difference.

We slipped through sharp stone and scattered bones, chasing shade like hunted things, every step another wager against Volcaryth’s hate.

I logged every detail: the wind’s yowl, grit under my claws, the staccato cadence of her breath.

The city was close. I could taste it on the wind: smoke, hot iron, and ambition stripped clean of mercy.

She kept her silence, but her eyes carved lines in my skull. Calculating. Turning every possibility until the outcomes bled dry. I stalked ahead, forcing focus, because letting myself look at her, a mistake, every time, would strip flesh from bone and leave only need.

“We hold to the gully.” My voice was sand and stone. “The shadows should shield us. If patrols catch us?—”

“They’ll skin us for boots.” Her lip curled, half a sneer, half a cutting smile. “I’m not here to die slowly, Zarvash.”

“Neither am I.” My tail lashed, anger my only armor. “Keep moving. Quietly. Luck’s the only thing we’ve got left.”

Her laugh was knife-edged. “If that’s the plan, dig my grave shallow. Don’t waste the effort.”

I grunted, no warmth in it. “You want a guarantee, find a softer world.”

She flung a look at me, sharp, burned-out amusement sparking under the sand, and something in me twisted with it, ugly and unfinished.

Ahead, the land caved into a saddle of blackened bone, crusted by fire. Beyond was Ignarath’s skyline, spires like spears stabbed through the world’s throat, banners raking the sky so high even the light seemed to bleed.

She stared at the city’s edge. Her mouth was all iron, but her fingers flexed like she was already closing them around someone’s windpipe. “How do we get past the walls?”

I stopped, jaw locked. My scales itched to move, to drag her away and leave the damn city behind. “Flying’s suicide. There are archers all along the walls, and you’ll find your wings nailed over the gates for trying to fly in without permission.” Not that we could try it with my injured wing.

She wiped sweat from her brow, jaw set hard. “So, we go in the front door?”

“We'll have to try it. But they’ll gut you for breathing wrong.”

“Figures.” She hiked her pack higher. “Going to charm us through?”

“Charm’s wasted here.” I jerked my chin at the haze over the wall. “They see you, they see fresh meat. They see me, and they see a threat. It doesn’t matter. No one's looking for friends.”

She moved in my shadow, step for step. “Do you have a trick tucked away? Some secret passage you forgot to mention?”

There was no trick. Only lies. “I'm still thinking.” It tasted like dust. I could think of only one way to get Vega into the city, and she wouldn't like it.

Her laugh was a cough, bitter. “Improvising in the wastelands. That's sure to work.”

I almost spat something back, but I heard it, a shift in the wind, the drum of beating wings. The world shrank to a blade’s width, every sense on a blade’s edge.

“Down.” My snarl was more threat than word. “Two Ignarath.”

She slid her knife out and crouched, eyes narrowed, murder in her stillness.

My mind raced, marking escape and kill-zones. “Stay behind me and put that thing away. They see you, you die. That simple.”

She bristled, met my eyes with open defiance, but slipped the knife away again.

The two Ignarath cut across the sky, wings out wide, showing off. The big one had a whip wrapped around his wrist, promising stinging violence.

They landed with a flourish. They weren't wearing guard uniforms, but that didn't matter. Everyone in Ignarath was a threat.

“State your name.” The big one’s voice was all bark and bone. “You don't belong here. And what’s that thing ?”

It took everything in me not to growl and lunge at them. How dare they presume. But I had to play this right.

I dropped my eyes, played the lesser. “I'm a trader. Raiders took my cargo, and this thing is all I managed to salvage.” I nodded Vega's way but didn't dare look at her.

I needed her to trust me, to play along.

We could still save this. “They call themselves humans. Aliens from some savage world. I heard the council likes toys.”

It tasted like acid and defeat.

The smaller one sneered. “Why not crawl through the east gate, trader?”

“Where do you think I was going?” I let my gaze flick to Vega. She didn’t move. “I just wanted one last moment to … enjoy this thing.”

They exchanged a look of disgust.

The little one spat at my feet, and his hand went to his blade, muscles tensed for violence.

I watched his eyes, read the twitch, and barely got a warning out before it erupted.

The big one lunged, whip uncurling from his wrist with a crack that split the air.

Sun flashed along its length, and I twisted beneath the lash.

The tip caught the edge of my bad wing—pain, fiery and blinding, kicked through every rib.

I roared, fueled by spite and adrenaline, and drove forward.

My claws found his forearm, wrenched the tender joint with all the hate pent up in me.

Something gave with a wet, soiled click.

He shrieked and spat broken teeth into my face as his whip tumbled from useless fingers.

His tail lashed low. I took the hit on my knees, legs crumpling for half a breath, hard grit chewing at my scales.

I punched upward, claws digging into the chord of his neck, feeling the pulse thudding there, wanting to rip.

He swung a fist, catching my cheek, but the blow only dragged me deeper into bloodlust.

Metal hissed. The little one darted for Vega, fast, all sinew and wicked steel.

His blade flashed, an arc slicing for her throat.

She twisted, rolled with a dancer’s beauty, and let him overextend.

Her elbow cracked into his ribs. He doubled, and she pivoted, leg sweeping his feet from under him.

He hit the ground hard; she followed, driving her blade into his thigh to the hilt.

His scream ripped through the rocks, higher than any war cry. He didn't drop the knife. Vega snarled, teeth bared, and twisted the blade, turning his cry to a bubbling, ragged moan punctuated by curses in Ignarath dialect.

The big one thrashed under me, trying to buck free.

I hammered his wrist with my heel until bone crunched.

His other hand fumbled for the whip, too slow.

I snatched the coil and snapped it across his face, split a scale, tasted his blood on my tongue.

He rallied, slammed his skull into mine.

Spots burst in my vision, but I clung on, forehead grinding down into his jaw.

Cartilage crumpled; he spat blood and bile, face slick and trembling now.

The little one, leg pumping hot blood, went for Vega’s eyes with clawed fingers, but she caught his hand, twisting until knuckles turned white.

She planted a knee into the meat of his tortured thigh again and again, drawing fresh shrieks from between his chipped fangs.

But even wounded, he was Drakarn. His wings flared.

Sand exploded into the air, spraying Vega’s face as he heaved her sideways and sprung, using the last surge of agony to launch himself out with a broken, lurching flap, wild blood streaking down his leg.

My own enemy bucked beneath me, fury giving him strength, but I locked my claws in the hollow of his neck, pressed until his scales changed color. He gurgled, spat more defiance. “Coward! Traitor?—”

“Keep talking,” I hissed. “I’ll peel your tongue from your mouth.”

He stilled, hatred burning in his golden eyes. For a moment, the world held its breath. Vega and I, panting and blood- smeared, Ignarath blood soaking the sand between us, broken bodies steaming in the fierce light.

With one last shove, I slammed his skull against the ground. He stopped fighting. My claws still dug in until I was sure he wouldn't be getting up again.

Vega crouched low, knife ready, watching the one who’d fled become nothing but a smudge on the sky.

Blood dripped off my knuckles, hot and sweet and proof we were still alive.

Her blood hit my nose, thin, metallic, too close. Instinct yanked me toward her, nearly shoulder to shoulder. “Are you hurt?” My voice rumbled, lower than a growl.

She rolled off the stone, breath heaving. “It's just a scratch.” Her palm dug into her shoulder, blood slicking her clothes. “I’m fine.”

The urge to check, the need to see, to taste threat or fate, roared in me. I grabbed her arm, rougher than I meant, and held until her eyes locked on mine. The world shrank to her pulse beneath my claws, the heat between us a forge, fever and fear tangled.

She didn’t flinch. She held my stare, bared her teeth, a challenge caught somewhere between dare and victory.

She broke it first, voice ground out through dust. “That one’s going to sing all the way to the city; we’ll have every vulture with scales after us soon.”

Cold logic tamped down my urges.

My claws ached as I let go, skin buzzing with the ghost of her. “We need to get into the city fast, before he has a chance to talk.”

Her nod was all edge and bite, a predator’s snarl back in her eyes. “And have you come up with a plan?”

I ripped my hand away, fingers flexing in the heat. I sifted through the dead Ignarath’s satchel, turned out tokens, a council chit, some ragged bit of favor, not enough, not with blood on the sand this fresh.

Our options were ash, every one worse than the last. “We need to be what they expect to see. Slave and trader. A Drakarn with a leashed pet.” The words burned, shame and violence braided tight.

Her eyes went dead black, danger flaring cold and pure. “You just want me to trust that you won't actually sell me? I remember the damned mating trials. You've been trying to push humans out of Scalvaris for months! Why the hell should I trust you?”

“No one’s selling you.” The words were stone. “And whatever my feelings about your presence in Scalvaris, I would not dishonor myself by lying to you. You've saved my life. I owe you a debt.”

The air between us buzzed, venom and challenge drawn tight as a nerve. Her jaw flexed under her bruises, eyes daring me, daring the world, to say one wrong word.

“There’s the leash, or there’s a grave.” My voice scraped like broken glass. “No third option. Not with the Ignarath.”

Her eyes burned, hot and cold, afraid and furious. She would never kneel, never give in. Not for them.

Not for me.

“Trust me. Play the part. Or we die.”