Page 58 of The Last Dragon (The Great Burn Chronicles #1)

I haven’t spoken to Nida for three days now.

Every time I draw near, she freezes. Her breath catches, before she turns on her heel and slips away, leaving me stranded with my own thoughts.

It’s infuriating. The silence, the distance.

It’s painful. Not knowing what’s going on in her head claws deep into my gut until it feels as though I’m unraveling from the inside out.

I can’t do anything to help her. And I don’t want her to turn into me .

Instead, I bury myself in duties, trying to ignore or outrun the pain in my chest and the lump in my throat.

I’m either looking over maps with Sam or shouting commands at the recruits with Lieutenant Wain—pushing them until they’re drenched in sweat and gasping for air.

They need to get stronger. And they need to do that fast.

My eyes are sore, my back aches, and my insides feel like a dragon scooped out my guts and threw them across the five Strongholds. I feel empty. Numb. And sometimes I can’t feel my own heartbeat even in the most stressful situations.

I inhale sharply, staring at the map with various dragon sightings scattered all over the place. There’s still no pattern. And we’re running low on food. If the expedition shook the Third, the attack on Pirlem shook the entirety of Karalia.

Trade between the Front and the Third has become less profitable—and more dangerous.

With more force and resources poured into protecting and strengthening the Hold, there’s little left to spare for new cadets.

Trade with the other Strongholds has dwindled too, and no one knows why.

That’s why Sam and I are here—he’s here analyzing the outcome and the effect, while I’m planning future expeditions.

Sometimes, other commanders join, providing us with their own experiences and plans for expeditions, but it doesn’t always align.

Some commanders prefer defensive formations, others more offensive.

I prefer neither. A more neutral formation has the benefits of both—but also the disadvantages.

“Scouts can’t hunt game beyond the perimeter that the general has drawn for us,” Sam says, his eyes tracing the map— maps scattered all over the table. I press my finger on my temple, trying to suppress the pain lingering there.

“If we can’t hunt further in, then we’ll have to ration.

The people at the Front already know they’re not allowed to leave beyond a mile from the village,” I say and grab a stack of paper with notes for days of strategic plans.

All of them, useless. How am I supposed to lead the next expedition when more than half of my soldiers are dead and the rest are starving?

“Depends for how long,” Sam says, furrowing his brow. “Starvation is more probable. That can lead to a riot. The Front will start asking questions. It’s a problem we don’t need right now.”

“It’s a problem we already have,” I grunt, slamming the stack of paper back on the table, nearly spilling a jar of ink. “We should ask the Center! I’m sure food that’s only a few hours old won’t be missed—they’ll just throw it away anyway.”

Sam sighs with a slight eye roll. He’s getting agitated. My chest and head are aching, and I’m starting to lose clarity on all this. Maybe I’m not as strong as I thought I was.

“If the Center finds out we don’t have the situation entirely under control, they might cut our finances.”

“Why on the soil we walk on would they do that?” I exclaim.

“Knowing them, and their obsession with power, they’d think lack of resources is what’s going to make us desperate,” he says, reaching out across the table, placing a few figurines on the map.

“In their mind, lack of resources means faster results.” He takes back the figurine.

“Those who think that way have never seen a dragon.”

I scoff. The Center is rich. They don’t bother to lift a finger, and no man or woman from the Center would ever consider joining the Corps.

They let the Front rot and the Strongholds do all the fighting, while providing enough for the Middle to feel honored when joining the Corps.

The Center worships The Mountain and treats The Mother as their Divine, pretending the reason why no dragon enters the Center is because The Mountain repels the beasts—completely ignoring our efforts to fend them off.

I swore one day to drag a dragon skull to the King, for all rich scum to see exactly what all of us are up against. Not just the Corps and the Front.

Sam squeezes his eyes shut. “In all my seven years as a strategic analyst, this is probably the hardest problem to solve without casualties.”

“You’ve been doing this longer than you were at the Corps?

” I ask, puzzled. Sam’s always quiet. He doesn’t speak much about his present, let alone his past. But these long, tedious days working with him have taught me a thing or two.

He’s allergic to basil—it makes his eyes water and sends him sneezing until he has to step outside for air.

Whenever he’s focused or puzzling out a strategy, he always has a cup of tea.

He says it helps him think. Whenever we disagree on something, he lets me speak first, allowing me to state my points—only to have it brought up as a counterargument.

I don’t doubt that he’s going to be great at handling Karalia’s commerce and trade one day.

But at the same time, perhaps if there’s anyone who should take up General Grogol’s position, it should be him.

“My father was an analyst at the Corps,” he says, skimming through some pages. “He was one of the few that was allowed to return home and bring his work with him. He’d show it to me. That’s when I knew I wanted to be like him.”

“I never knew that,” I say.

He smiles, revealing his dimples. “Nobody really asked.” He writes a note, only to scribble it away. That’s another thing I’ve learned about him. He needs to write his ideas down for them to escape his mind, to find out whether or not a strategy will work.

“I worked at a small shop in my town—handling commerce, planning strategy, analyzing trends, even predicting winter losses when necessary,” he continues.

“My father let me join one of his jobs for the Corps. It made me realize that I could do so much more here. The general put me up for this because he was working closely with my father. I believe they were friends.”

“You’re from Medyn?” I ask. I’m surprised I never did before. Guilt makes itself known in my chest. I never bothered to get to know my unit before. I only focused on being a soldier and ignored all that sentimental crap. Now I only wish I could’ve spent more time with them.

“Yes,” he responds softly.

“You actually enjoy this line of work.” I smile.

A faint blush colors his cheeks, but the sorrow lingering in his grass-green eyes doesn’t fade.

“If predicting how many people will die can help prevent it, then I’ll do it until my last breath.

Even then, I hope what I leave behind will be a step toward humanity’s freedom.

” He offers a smile, the smile that I’ve only seen in kind people.

People who aren’t doing this for themselves, but strongly believe that humanity deserves to survive.

“What about your mother?” I ask. He pauses, his smile quickly fading as he furrows his brow. He lifts his hand toward the side of his neck, rubbing it with his fingers. This question seems to bother him.

“I don’t remember her.”

I refrain from asking more. He rubs his finger against a piece of paper he’s holding, his eyes darting between the empty spaces on the ground as he backs away a few steps. Then his face turns pale.

“What’s wrong?”

He looks up, startled—as if just remembering I’ve been standing in the room.

He draws a breath before offering a smile and returning to the table.

He quickly scribbles another note. Sam is probably the most strategic person I know.

And we soldiers who fight the battles for humanity are not the reason humanity has a chance of freedom. People like Sam are.

“Interesting,” he states, neatly stacking some papers side by side. “Seems like the trade from the Second and Fourth Strongholds is less profitable compared to the First and Fifth. This wasn’t the case before.”

I lean forward in my chair. He pushes away a few stacks of paper from my side of the table and places the records in front of me.

“Look here,” he says, gesturing toward a long list of calculations spanning the last five years.

“The Second provides cattle and grain. The First supplies fish and sea goods. The Fourth offers wood, and the Fifth, stone. Trade between the Second and Fourth is down twenty-five percent compared to two years ago.”

My eyes grow wide. “Twenty-five?” That’s a lot within two years.

“What’s more interesting is that the Second and Fourth are the closest Strongholds to the Third.

So why is trade faster and better from those that are farthest?

” Sam crosses his arms. I stare back at the numbers inked on the dull paper.

Twenty-five percent. That’s unlike anything I’ve seen.

We’re not moving forward—we’re moving backwards, to the time the Center was starving the elderly and killing the sick.

“Were there any dragon attacks?” I ask, hoping that will explain everything, but Sam shakes his head.

He reaches for another stack of papers tucked under a few books and scrolls.

As he pulls them out, there’s a loud thud as books and scrolls tumble to the ground.

He hands the stack of papers to me, highlighting the latest dragon attacks in the Second and Fourth.

There are none.

“What the—”

“It’s been over thirty years since the last sighting of dragons near the perimeter of other Strongholds,” Sam says, his voice low. “And there haven’t been any sightings since way longer around First and Fifth.”

I run my fingers over the pages, analyzing every fading word written on the crumbling paper. The candles on the table flicker, Sam’s shadow dancing on my arms and fingers. The silence is so loud.

“Are you telling me,” I begin, my fingers slowly digging into the papers, “that the beasts have only been attacking the Third ?”

Sam’s breath catches, his eyes darkening. “We are furthest into the Outskirts…and closest to the Northern Ravine. The last known dragon’s den .”

My stomach turns. I draw in a breath, as though the fire from the candles is depriving me of air. I think about everyone in the Front. My parents. Children. Elderly. All of them burned by the dragon that left me scarred.

“How’s the trade looking between the other Strongholds?” I ask as I place the record on the table. Sam is already holding them, as if he expected me to ask this.

“It has decreased, however, not as much as the other two.” He hands the papers to me with a worried look. “In the next couple of years, things will be more dire. Unless we do something about it.”

“You mean we need to force an expansion,” I say, the wrinkled papers still in my hand. Sam nods. Expansion means more expeditions—hundreds will die. And I will be leading them to their deaths. There’s barely any soldiers left. And with no Pirlem, there will be less who apply.

“The dragons have been preventing us from expanding for the past few decades. A hundred years before that, it was a lot easier. We weren’t close to their breeding ground.

Now, progress has stopped. If we can’t find a way to kill these dragons, other risks will come with it.

There’s no proper fertile land in the Second, and wood grows too slow in the Fourth.

Advanced boats can’t be built without proper materials from the Fourth and Fifth.

Fishing in deeper waters won’t be plausible.

Things will go slow. First, it will be the people at the Front.

Then the Third, followed up with the rest of the Strongholds.

The first two will survive longer with their fish and cattle.

The Middle will push itself back to the Center—causing riots and flooding the cities with fear.

Eventually, a civil war will break out, leaving thousands dead.

And then—” he pauses, taking a deep breath.

“The Center will fall. And so will humanity.”

I listen attentively to every word Sam says.

Every word, intonation, every carefully constructed sentence.

But something bothers me. I know him well enough to know that everything he says is with purpose.

Precision. And I’m wondering if he’s trying to tell me something else instead. He said dragons. Plural .

“Sam,” I say slowly, putting down the papers. My heart screams in my chest. I press my lips together, my mouth dry, and stare at his cup of cold, bitter tea. “How dire would the situation be if there were more than one dragon left?”

He blinks, but his facial expression remains calm. He doesn’t flinch or tense up. Instead, he stares at me, his eyes slowly dropping to the chaos on the table. He looks up at me again, taking a deep breath.

“Equally.”

The silence between us is heavy, speaking louder than words. He knows. He knows that there’s a possibility of more than one dragon out there. No. Not a possibility. A guarantee . He should have said worse . He. Should. Have. Said. Worse .

Equally.

He knows. I know. Nida knows. There’s more than one dragon. There has to be. But he also knows that if he were to say anything, he’d lose his head. We all would. Yet the general and lieutenants are so convinced that there’s only one. I cannot understand why. Are we wrong? Or is General Grogol?