The next shove rattles the shelter so hard I swear the stone spires will split. Sand pours in, choking, blinding. All I can see is horns jutting through the gap.
The hiss that follows is louder than the storm.
And then claws scrape across stone inside the crack.
They’re not just testing anymore.
They’re coming in.
The scrape stops.
For a breath. Two. Three.
The storm howls outside, sand battering the stone, pouring through the cracks in steady streams. But the claws…the hisses…they vanish. Joran lets out a shuddering laugh, high and thin.
“Gone,” he gasps, swiping grit from his face. “They’ve gone. Storm drove them off.”
His voice cracks, wild with desperate hope.
“Fool,” the younger Zmaj snaps, wings twitching hard against the cramped space. “Storm does not drive predators away. It hides them.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Harlan mutters, his lips moving again, half prayer, half plea.
I lean forward, knife clutched tight, my body trembling from the effort of holding still. My chest heaves with every breath. The silence isn’t relief. It’s worse—heavy, watching, waiting.
The scarred warrior doesn’t shift, doesn’t ease. His stance is carved from stone, lochaber angled toward the gap, eyes narrowed. He knows that nothing has left.
I can’t look away from the opening. Each passing moment feels like a countdown.
My burned arm throbs under the bandage, fire crawling deep through my veins. I ease and tighten my grip on the knife, but don’t let it go. If this is the moment—if they come through now—I will not shrink.
The silence stretches until my ears ring. Joran’s wild laugh fades into a nervous mutter.
“They’re gone. They have to be gone. If they wanted us, it they?—”
The spires rattle, hard.
All of us flinch.
Horns wedge deeper into the crack. A guttural hiss rumbles through the shelter, low and heavy, vibrating the ground beneath us.
Joran chokes on his words.
Harlan presses a shaking hand over his mouth, eyes wide and white.
The younger Zmaj snarls, wings snapping wide before the tight space crushes them closed again. His claws rake sparks against the stone.
The scarred warrior doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Only his grip tightens on the lochaber, muscles coiled like a drawn bow.
And then—silence again.
The storm shrieks. Sand pours in. But the scrape is gone. The hiss is gone. The stone spires are cracked, but holding.
The lull presses down heavier than the storm itself.
My pulse hammers so hard my vision sways. I can’t take it—the waiting, the silence that feels like a hand closing around my throat. My lips part, a whisper slipping out before I can stop it.
“They’re not gone.”
