My arms came around her waist, pulled her against me with more force than I'd intended. She came willingly, her handssliding up to grip my shoulders, her face pressing into the curve of my neck.
Mine.
My wings spread out and folded around us both. It created a barrier between her and the world, between us and everything that had tried to separate us. My tail coiled around her ankle, possessive and desperate and utterly beyond my control.
I buried my face in her hair. Breathed her in, let her presence start to fill the hollow places that a day of separation had carved into me.
She pulled back just enough to look at me. Her hands found my face again, thumbs stroking over my cheekbones with a gentleness that made my chest ache.
I tried again to speak. Managed something that might have been her name if my throat hadn't been ruined.
"Don't." She pressed her fingers against my lips, stopping the attempt. "Save your voice. We need to move."
She was right. We were still in danger, still surrounded by humans who thought I was a threat.
I nodded. Tried to step back, to put distance between us so we could think.
She didn't let go. Her hands stayed on my face, her eyes searching mine like she was looking for something specific.
"How did you find me?" The words scraped out of my throat.
Her mouth quirked. Not quite a smile, but close. "It wasn’t exactly a mystery. It turns out everyone knows where they're keeping the dangerous monster. And they had the door barred, not locked. But I don’t think we have much time."
The audacity of it would have made me laugh if I had the breath for it.
Her expression sobered, the almost-smile disappearing. "We’re not just looking at a few survivors here, Nyx. The wholedamn ship crashed.Everyonewho survived is here. Thousands of them."
The words took a moment to penetrate. Thousands.
My mind kicked in despite the dehydration, despite the exhaustion. Thousands meant a population to rival Scalvaris. Meant resources, infrastructure, the capability to mount operations like the Ignarath extraction.
It meant a threat the Blade Council didn't know existed.
"They rescued the humans from Ignarath," Lexa continued. Her voice was tight, controlled. "Including Kira's sister. They think the Drakarn are monsters who enslave and torture humans. They think they saved me from you."
The implications cascaded through my mind. A human settlement this size, this organized, with this level of capability. Armed with weapons we didn't understand, tactics we'd never encountered. If they decided the Drakarn were an enemy, if they wanted revenge for what Ignarath had done to their people …
War.
A war Scalvaris wasn't prepared to fight.
Damn the Forge.
Darrokar needed to know. The Council needed to prepare, needed to understand what was coming. We had to get back, had to warn them before this situation spiraled into open conflict.
But first, we had to escape.
I tested my body, checking what still worked. My legs held my weight despite the trembling. My wings ached but responded when I flexed them. The dehydration made everything sluggish, reactions slower than they should be, but I was functional.
Functional enough to fight our way out.
Lexa seemed to read my assessment in my posture. "We need to move. Now."
I nodded. Followed her to the door, my hand finding the small of her back. The contact steadied me, gave me something to focus on beyond the weakness trying to drag me down.
She paused at the threshold, peering into the corridor beyond. Her body language screamed caution, every line of her tensed for threat.
After a moment, she stepped through. I followed closely.
