The wyvern is dying.
We find it in a clearing about a mile from the forest’s heart. Young—maybe two decades old, barely an adolescent by our standards. Poison has rotted through its scales, leaving raw wounds that weep black ichor. Its wings hang limp, membranes torn and ulcerated. Every breath comes as a rattling wheeze.
Four younger dragons hover at the clearing’s edge, unwilling to approach. They scatter when I land, relieved to let someone else handle this.
Aisling slides from my back before I’ve fully settled. Her fear has vanished—or been shoved aside by something stronger. She moves toward the wyvern with purposeful strides, already cataloging its injuries with sharp, clinical focus.
“Rogue poison, I’m guessing, if all my recent reading has been correct. Third stage.” Her voice has changed. Confident. Commanding. The surgeon emerging from the ashes of the victim. “The scales are necrotic but the underlying tissue might still be viable. I need light. Heat. And someone to hold it still while I work.”
I shift back to human form. Grab the medical pack strapped to my harness.
“Tell me what to do.”
She does.
For the next three hours, I follow her orders. Hold the wyvern’s head while she cleans wounds. Apply pressure where she indicates. Talk to the creature when it starts to thrash, keeping my voice low and steady while she cuts away dead tissue with a surgeon’s precision.
She’s magnificent.
Not beautiful—not in any conventional sense, not covered in black ichor and wyvern blood, hair wild, face set in fierce concentration. But something in the way she moves, the certainty in her hands, the absolute focus that blocks out everything except the patient in front of her—I can’t look away.
This is who she is. Who she was before rogues and Relics and blood-drained captivity. A healer. A surgeon. Someone who fights death with steady hands and stubborn will.
The wyvern’s breathing evens out as the last of the poison is drawn. Aisling steps back, chest heaving, arms covered to the elbow in fluids I don’t want to identify.
“It’ll live.” She wipes her forehead with the back of one hand, leaving a smear of something greenish. “The wing membrane will need time to regenerate, but the tissue damage isn’t permanent.”
“You saved it.”
“I did my job.” But there’s something in her voice. Pride, maybe. Or relief. The first uncomplicated emotion I’ve heard from her.
I cross to her side, pull a cloth from the pack, offer it without comment. She takes it, begins wiping her hands with methodical thoroughness.
“Thank you.” The words come out quiet. Almost reluctant. “For bringing me.”
“You needed it.”
“I did.” She meets my gaze, and for once, her walls aren’t up. Just exhaustion, honest and open. “You were right. I needed to remember that I’m more than what they made me.”
Something shifts in my chest. Cracks, maybe. Some wall I didn’t know I’d built.
“You needed to remember what you love.” I keep my voice light, cover the sincerity with humor. “Not just what happened to you.”
She looks at me. Seeing past the performance.
“That’s unexpectedly insightful.”
“I have layers.” I spread my hands. “Like an onion. A very attractive, non-smelly, onion.”
Her mouth twitches. Still not a smile, but closer. So much closer.
“We should head back.” She glances at the sky, where the sun has begun its descent toward the peaks. “Selene will worry.”
“She will.” I shift, offering my back again.
She climbs on without hesitation this time. Still careful, still controlled—but the rigid terror is gone. When I launch into the air, her grip is firm but not desperate.
And halfway back to the fortress, she leans against my neck. Rests her cheek against warm scales. Trusts me to carry her home.
