Page 16 of The Last Dragon (The Great Burn Chronicles #1)

I prefer peace and quiet. But with Nida stepping on my toes and always around me, it’s hard to find a moment to breathe.

Instead, she chirps like a little bird, always angry that I’m keeping things from her or annoyed that I’m ignoring her.

I don’t feel like I owe her anything. For the past three days, she’s been trying to talk to me about anything but training.

But I shut it down quickly. We can talk about training.

Anything outside of that is a waste of breath.

After a drill session, I move with silence, weaving through the stony halls, barely meeting anyone’s gaze.

Out of everyone I pass, her boots echo the loudest. I’m keen enough to recognize every step, every friction against stone or gravel when it comes to her.

I grit my teeth at the sound. My hand twitches, and I force my mind to go silent.

She’s already in front of me, blocking my path before I can disappear into the shadows.

Eyes gleaming brownish-red, soft copper curls caressing her cheeks.

She pulls one away from her mouth, forcing me to look at her lips for a split second.

She says something, but I don’t register it until her fingers snap in front of me, bringing me back from a trance.

“You know you got real nerve,” she says, crossing her arms.

I clench my jaw, slowly curling my fingers into a fist.

Calm. Calm .

“What now?” I narrow my eyes. Maybe if I let her speak, vent, yell, then I can have some quiet. It’s bad enough I have to be her Hunter.

“It would be nice if you actually treated me as your Tracker instead of avoiding me every chance you get,” she snaps back, taking a step closer—more than I’m comfortable with.

“You put yourself in this situation.” The words slip out of me faster than I can contain them, a subtle bitterness left rolling on my tongue.

She lifts her brows. A scoff follows. “You think I asked for this?” For a moment, it sounds like she’s actually asking me this. As if she doesn’t know the answer herself. “I’m not exactly a fan of having to track for you either.”

“Well, that’s one thing we have in common then.” All this time, our eyes are locked. I break it as soon as I realize that. I glance above her head, her wild, untamed hair blurring in my vision as I scan the halls for the nearest exit. Soon. Soon, I can get out of this.

“You’re unbelievable,” she hisses, anger seeping through her words like a wild animal about to go feral.

“After disappearing for eight years and making me think you’re dead, this is how I’m treated?

” She sneers, looking me up and down. “So much for a long-lasting friendship.”“We were kids,” I say through my clenched jaw.

“And friendships come and go. There’s no room for that in the Corps. ”

She blows a curl from her face, and I just stare at her. Patiently waiting for her to move. Why can’t she understand? Why is she so bitter about it? Just because she’s my Tracker now doesn’t mean we have to be friends or talk about our past. We were never… friends.

“The only thing that kept me going was rumours about a soldier in the Corps who killed dragons with his bare hands. Pale as snow. I wasn’t sure it was you. I didn’t think you’d be alive.” She rakes me with her eyes again. “I had to join the Corps to see for myself.”

“Nobody told you to join,” I say coolly, but the twitch in my lips warns me that this conversation needs to end. Now.

“I chose to join!” she snaps. Another step closer, and I feel her breath against my skin. A flicker of doubt clouds her eyes. “At least I like to think so.” A flood of thoughts crosses her face as she drifts back. The perfect chance for me to slip away.

I step to the side, finding an opening between her and the wall. But she quickly snaps back, now shoulder to shoulder with me.

“Hey!” she exclaims. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I glance back, meeting her eyes as she grits her teeth. “Well,” I say calmly, turning my chest to her. “If you won’t get out of my way, then I’ll get out of yours.”

A dry laugh travels across the hall. Her lip trembles as if she’s holding back thousands of curses she wants to spit at me.

Her eyes are feral, deadly. Not something I’m used to seeing in her.

In fact, not something I’ve ever seen in her.

It’s like staring into an uncontrollable wildfire. Rage. The type I had as a first-year.

“You really—”

“This is the reason I keep telling General Grogol he should implement Disciplinary during Assessment Year,” I snap, my voice cool.

Controlled. I don’t need to yell or tense my body for her to listen.

I know she has to listen. Wants to listen.

“Because every damn year, we get soldiers like you,” I continue, taking a step closer, forcing her to retreat.

Whatever look I have on my face, it quickly puts out her fire.

“Emotional,” I say. Another step. “Weak. Volatile.” Her breath catches, and I can faintly hear her heart pounding in her chest. Her stance falters for a minute.

I take a step back, creating distance— comfortable distance.

“Disciplinary would crush your doubts, strip away your softness and recklessness. Turn you into a soldier. But I guess the battlefield will teach you. Hopefully in time.”

I turn on my heel, letting my footsteps break the silence—only my footsteps. I can nearly sense the fresh air on the rooftop that I long for. Thick air, to be more precise. But air nonetheless.

“What makes you think I can’t be a soldier?” Her voice travels across the hall—calm. Sharp. Different. It pulls me back and forces me to halt. I’m unsure how or why—but I stop. “What makes you so fucking special to tell me that I don’t have what it takes?”

Our eyes lock, and for a moment, everything else fades—the cold air, the distant clattering of metal against metal from the training ground, even the weight of what I just said. I can’t tell if it’s anger or something else written on her face, but it unsettles me more than I expected.

Why does this get under my skin?

I don’t usually care what others think. I don’t let their fire reach me.

But there’s something about her—maybe it’s that stubbornness, that refusal to break, even when I’m sure she should.

It reminds me of my old self a little bit too much.

But I’d rather see her break—desert—than face the battlefield.

Not when she’s like this. Emotional. At times she could be spiteful and wild.

But whenever someone got hurt or screamed in pain, she would let her softness break through and be the first to offer a helping hand.

That’s what’s going to get her killed. It’s in her nature—like her mother.

I let out a sigh. I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say. Instead, I’m pulled further away, straight across the hall. Further. Just a little further. A click echoes. Her steps.

“So what? You’re just going to walk away?” she says bitterly.

“Go back to Pirlem. You’re better off in a place that thrives instead of—”

“Thrives?!” she yells out. “What the hell are you talking about? Pirlem doesn’t…” Her breath hitches, rage forcing the truth up. “I starved every night living in rot and ruin!”

Her words are like a dead end in a long and treacherous corridor.

For a heartbeat, I’m caught—the silence in my skull suddenly loud.

Only then do I really see her. The flicker dying in her eyes, dirt packed beneath her nails from clawing bark and grass to quiet the hunger, the bruised crescents smudging under her lashes from sleepless nights, lips cracked like brittle parchment.

Color faded like paint that’s seen too much sun.

I swallow hard. My tongue feels carved from wood, and the words catch in my throat and lodge there like a splinter I can’t cough free.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, confused.

She lets out a dry scoff, a bitter smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she slowly shakes her head. “You mean you don’t know?” she says, folding her arms. “About Pirlem?”

My brows knit together. “What about it?”

“Pirlem was never rebuilt.” Her voice is careful—gentle—but no words have ever stung this much before.

“We were left to fend for ourselves,” she continues, taking a step forward, closing the distance between us.

“After the dragon that gave you your mark. We arranged funerals—buried empty caskets… buried you.” Her eyes flick to mine.

My heart pounds, sinks, screams—I can’t tell. I thought Pirlem was fine. I thought my home was rebuilt.

“I didn’t know,” I force myself to say, swallowing dry. “If I’d known I would’ve—” A lie. Or is it the truth? Would I have returned to Pirlem if I knew? Would I have actually tried to do something? I did try. I did try to do something.

He promised me.

I stare at her, the words lodging in my throat.

“I thought you knew,” she says.

I shake my head. “No. I—” I trail off, trying to tug at a distant memory, and I struggle to to push it away.“I haven’t seen the place since I left.”

“More than half of the resources we had were destroyed, Zel. And the rest were taken by the Corps so that they could use them to expand. We had nothing,” she says, her voice tinted with deep-seated pain.

That doesn’t make any sense. He promised me. Grogol promised me he would rebuild. Pirlem is crucial for our survival, he said.

“But we haven’t expanded,” I say, furrowing a brow, the words like bitter ice in my mouth.

Anger surges through me like wildfire. If Pirlem was never rebuilt and we didn’t expand, where did all the resources go?

For eight fucking years. I have to know the truth.

I need to know the reason I believed a lie for so long.

I turn on my heel and head toward the general’s chambers. A soft gasp catches my attention, halting me in place.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her hand hovering under mine as if she’s ready to grab me. Stop me.

I meet her gaze. “I have to know something. Go back to the others.”

She doesn’t say anything or follow me as I take determined steps throughout the hall. Up the heavy stone stairs. My hand twitches and my jaw aches from gritting my teeth.

This is the closest I’ve ever come to losing control.

Berim jolts upright as I barge into the general’s quarters. His knee slams the coffee table—wood scrapes stone, crystal glasses clatter. I don’t look at him. My eyes lock on General Grogol.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand, my voice firm, desperately trying not to let any emotion slip through. Each step I get closer, I try to convince myself that there’s a reason. A proper reason. “About Pirlem.”

His shoulders roll back as he inhales a sharp breath. He holds it for a moment. Yet his expression is carved from stone, the same way it always is when he’s deciding what I should know instead of what I need to know.

“You stood there. You looked me in the eye and told me that Pirlem and everyone who lived there would be safe,” I say calmly. “You said you would rebuild.”

Long, powerful strides echo behind me. The keys from Berim’s belt chime as he stalks toward me. But before he can reach me, the General lifts his hand, gesturing toward the door.

“Leave us.”

Without a word, Berim halts, salutes, and exits, shutting the door behind him.

The general exhales and then softly clears his throat.

“This was not my decision to make,” he says, lifting his head.

“The King made the decision to halt the efforts of rebuilding Pirlem. The focus shifted to expansion. We did not—and do not—have the materials to expand and rebuild at the same time.”

“We never expanded,” I say. Is he lying ? Is that something he’s capable of?

He nods. “Yes, the expansion had to halt, too. But that’s only because there’s one dragon left. I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to focus on your duties, not worry about your village.”

“So you made me believe a lie?” I say through clenched teeth, anger burning in my chest.

“No. That was never my intention. I still intend to keep that promise.”

I scrunch my nose. “A bit too late for that.” My head snaps away from him.

I hate even looking at that man right now.

A man I trusted with something so vulnerable.

It stings. Pirlem and its safety are the only things I care about.

People I passed by in the streets. Friends.

Families. Children. I thought I left a town that would be just as the way it was when I was born—thriving.

But now, if what Nida says is true, it’s in ruin.

A strange feeling swirls in my gut, something I know I shouldn’t be feeling. Something that can kill me on the spot. Even though it’s small—easily suppressed—it makes me let go of that anger and turn it into something else. Something more dangerous in a world like this.

Doubt.

“We didn’t have the resources. The lands are dying.

The King wanted to expand, he wanted us to push up the expansion for a bigger one at that.

We had to save resources for that. My priorities lay there.

I’m sorry, son.” He leans forward in his chair, shoulders slumping as if he means it. But I don’t believe him.

“Resources or not. You could’ve told me,” I say, stepping away toward the door, wrapping my hands around the cold handle. “And I’m not your son.”

I leave with those words hanging in the air, and I know they are as sharp as a knife to him. But they are to me, too.

He’s the general. Everything from expanding in the Front to looking over the Third is his responsibility.

Everything behind the Third—the Center and the Middle—is the King’s responsibility.

He’s the one who made this decision. And the King only complied.

The King is just funding. Resources. The other Strongholds provide material.

The Third is always the one that expands first. If we don’t have material or resources or funding—then where is it?

This breaks something in me. Something I can’t let anyone see. But it’s something I won’t attempt to patch up. I want to keep it for myself.