Hope. This is what hope feels like.
A prickle along the back of my neck pulls my attention back to the imminent danger we’re in. I turn around and look over the edge again, studying the canyon wall this time, trying to see where the threat is.
He moves closer—never obtrusive, never soft, just there. He presses against me—not heat, but an anchoring that saysyou will not be taken from me.His hand hovers near mine, thumb rubbing a slow, almost casual line against the back of my hand. The contact is small and fierce and somehow more intimate than any declaration.
I think of the pods in my pouch, of the way hunger has thinned us since we’ve emerged from the tunnels, of the mouths waiting back at the roughshod settlement. If we can survive what’s coming, we could hopefully turn the body into meat and hide and marrow. Food. Desperately needed food that will let everyone eat. For the briefest instant, I imagine what it will be like to return with it. Cheers. Exclamations. Acceptance.
His tail swishes, dragging across the sand. He rustles his wings, partially opening then closing them, but his eyes never stray—staring down into the shadow, calculating. Planning. Ready. He puts his arm out in front of me, then moves back. I move with him—four strides—putting space between us and the edge.
He looks over, meeting my eyes. There are no pretty words, only a promise in his look.
We do this together.
I nod, slow and fierce. He adjusts the angle of his lochaber, then glances to me as if asking something far older than words—permission, trust, an acceptance of the bargain. I slide my hand into his without thinking; for a heartbeat we are tether andanchor, warrior and partner. We stand together on the rim of the canyon, and below, the monster approaches.
26
KARA
Ascrape comes.
Low. Long. Deliberate.
The sound coils up, vibrating through the stone beneath my feet. I flinch, but the vibration doesn’t stop—it grows louder. Closer.
He moves before I can, not away, closer. His shoulder brushes mine, steadying, his wings flexing once before settling closed. His tail rises and curls around my waist. Moonlight slides along his scars, picking them out like white lightning across crimson scales. He doesn’t speak, but the tilt of his body says enough.Stay. Hold.
I can’t breathe right. My chest is too tight. I stare at the dark line of the canyon, waiting for the monster I know is coming. My knife is slippery in my grip—sweat, blood, exhaustion, I don’t know which—but I don’t loosen my hold. I won’t.
The scrape rises again, louder, punctuated by the grind of stone breaking free.
“Where?” I say, voice a rasp, hardly sound at all, scanning the edge.
He doesn’t answer. His tail tightens on my waist—the only sign of tension—but his stance never wavers. He is waiting as though this moment belongs to him and not the thing climbing to get us.
The contact with him steadies me more than the stone beneath my boots. His claws flex against the haft of the lochaber, the faint scrape of metal on scale sharp in the hush.
Then it crests the edge.
Not all at once—it’s a shape. A swell of black against the night, massive claws hauling a body too big, too heavy, over the lip and into the moonlight.
My breath sticks in my throat. The canyon is birthing a nightmare. A horned head lifts, horns curved cruelly backward, catching silver glow as the rest of it heaves upward. Scaled hide gleams dark bronze, wet-looking in the thin light, muscles shifting like rolling dunes.
Then its eyes open.
Twin slits, burning yellow, sweep across us. The pupils narrow, locking onto me so sharp it feels like a spear through my chest.
My stomach twists hard enough to make me sick. I can’t move. Can’t blink. It sees me.
Beside me, he shifts—not stepping back, not even flinching. He plants himself firmer, a wall of muscle and wings between me and those eyes. For one heartbeat, I lean into the curve of him, stealing the steadiness he doesn’t falter in giving.
My knife feels pitiful, a child’s weapon against something carved for killing. But I don’t put it down. My fingers cramp, stubborn and tight, and I force air into my lungs.
The monster pulls higher, its bulk scraping free of the canyon, claws shredding stone. The sound rattles my bones. Its mouth parts once, a wet hiss slithering across the rim.
My chest seizes. The smell of it—rancid rot and hunger—burns into my throat.
He moves again, wings half-furling as he lowers his stance, lochaber tilting, blade catching a thin strip of moonlight. His tail arcs high, balanced and deliberate.
