Always,she replied.
One by one, our dragons landed just outside the ruined outpost, talons gripping the outer rocks as they fanned their wings and raised their heads. Sentinels of scale and smoke. Ready.
I dismounted, boots crunching into scorched gravel as we moved as a unit toward the open gate.
Zander was at my side, his expression as hard as steel.
A man limped toward us from the shadows of a half-collapsed barrack, his face darkened with soot, one side mottled with fresh burns. He wore the tattered remnants of an officer’s uniform, now blackened with smoke.
Zander stepped forward. “What happened here?”
The man looked at us, at the dragons beyond, at the squad behind Zander, and swallowed hard before he answered.
“We were hit just before dawn. Not rebels.”
He paused.
“Something worse.”
I glanced around.
The outpost was a skeleton, bones of blackened wood and shattered stone jutting from the earth like the remains of a creature burned from the inside out. The air was thick with ash and the sour stench of melted iron. Our boots crunched through gravel and cinders as we moved deeper into the ruins.
Charred banners flapped limply above us, the unmistakable blood-red spiral of the Crimson Sigil snapping weakly in the wind. Beneath them, torn and half-consumed by flame, lay the shredded remains of a Varnari crest. A dragon in a cage, split down the center, scorched until only a ragged outline remained.
Naia knelt near the ruined flagpole, her gloved fingers brushing over a half-melted sword pommel etched with the Varnari seal.
“This doesn’t make sense,” she muttered. “If the Sigil hit them, why were they here in the first place? Why would the Varnari position themselves this close to the Thubian trade routes?”
Ferrula stepped over the rubble beside her, brow furrowed. “Maybe they weren’t stationed,” she said. “Maybe they were sent. With orders.”
Naia looked up, frowning. “You think the crown sent them here?”
Ferrula crossed her arms, her stance rigid. “They could’ve been acting as scouts for Theron’s forces. Or worse—bait.”
“That’s a stretch,” Naia snapped, rising to her feet. “The Sigil leaves this kind of destruction. Not the Varnari.”
Ferrula pointed to the collapsed armory behind them. “And yet the doors were unlocked. No defensive burns. No fallback strategies. Either they were already compromised… or they didn’t see it coming because they weren’t meant to.”
Naia stepped forward. “That’s not proof they were working with the crown. You want to believe that because you already don’t trust anyone in royal colors.”
“And you still think the court can be redeemed,” Ferrula bit back. “Wake up, Naia. That banner,” she pointed to the Varnari remains, “wasn’t hung by mistake. It burned here with the rest of them because someone let it.”
The wind gusted, scattering soot between them like ash-blown snow. Neither moved.
Riven stepped between them, her voice dry. “If you two want to wrestle it out, I’ll start taking bets.”
Jax, behind her, just shook his head, eyeing the burned entryway like it might still collapse.
I glanced up at the Crimson Sigil banners, fluttering defiant, mocking.
The Varnari were here.
The Sigil followed.
And someone had expected it.
The scent of smoke clung to everything—clothes, skin, breath. No matter how deep we moved into the outpost, it didn’t fade. If anything, it thickened, soaked into the cracks of stone and bone and memory. The kind of destruction that wasn’t meant to be survived.
