Because the dragon who saved me got captured by the people I was running from.
This is fine. Everything is fine.
“Water?” Andrei offers his canteen.
“Thanks.” I drink, grateful. The cold helps clear my head.
We walk in silence for a while. The terrain shifts—pine giving way to scrub, then exposed rock.
“Those men… The Syndicate,” Andrei says eventually. “They have been here before.”
I look at him sharply. “Here? This area?”
“Yes. Two years ago, maybe three. They came with machines. Drilling equipment. Said they were scientists.” His skepticism is obvious. “They were not.”
“What were they doing?”
“Searching.” Nicolae jumps in. “For the old places. Where the fire-bloods used to sleep.”
Dragons. They’re talking about dragon lairs.
“Did they find anything?”
The brothers exchange one of their loaded glances.
“They left after six months,” Andrei says carefully. “We assumed they found nothing.”
“Or they found it and moved operations,” I counter.
Another glance between them.
“There is a research station on the route the vehicles took yesterday,” Nicolae offers. “We have thought it may be theirs. We can see it from the overlook.”
“Show me.”
We reach the overlook an hour later—a rocky outcropping with a clear view of the valley below.
And there it is.
A compound disguised as a research station. Prefab buildings in a grid. Satellite dishes on roofs. Generator hum audible even from here.
Perimeter fence. Security cameras. Guards at the main gate.
And parked outside—a string of vehicles. The same vehicles from yesterday’s convoy; I’d bet my high-speed uplink on it.
Recognition hits me hard. I’ve seen facilities exactly like this in security briefings back at Aurora’s headquarters. Facilitieswhere the Syndicate tried to wake the Sleeping King. Same design. Same layout. Same MO.
K is in there. I know it.
Beyond reason, beyond logic, I canfeelit.
The rage that floods through me is immediate. They have him locked up like a lab rat. Probably drugged. Definitely suppressed; those cuffs they used during the attack weren’t just for show.
“Too many guards,” Nicolae says quietly. “We cannot approach safely.”
He’s right. I count at least six visible. Probably more inside.
But I have a target now. Coordinates. Information Viktor can use.
