Silence falls over the courtyard. The last of the rogues have fled or fallen. The shadow-creatures have dissolved into morning light. Dawn breaks fully over the mountains, painting everything in shades of gold and rose.
We won.
But the dying rogue’s words echo in my head, cold and terrible and impossible to ignore.
The Queen wakes. She’s coming.
Rurik shifts backto human form, and I finally see what the battle cost him.
Blood streams from a gash across his shoulder, deep enough that I can see the white gleam of bone beneath. More wounds score his arms, his chest, his face—cuts and burns and gouges that should have him unconscious, not standing.
He’s standing anyway. Swaying slightly, jaw set against the pain, but on his feet.
“You’re hurt.” The words come out clinical. Detached. My brain switching into medical mode because the alternative is acknowledging the ice spreading through my chest at the sight of his injuries.
“Had worse.” He tries to grin. It comes out as a grimace.
“That’s not comforting.”
“Wasn’t trying to be comforting.” His voice is rough, strained. “Was trying to be impressive.”
I could almost laugh. The sound catches in my throat, somewhere between hysteria and relief, and comes out as something that might be a sob.
“Sit down before you fall down.” I’m already moving, hands reaching for him, medical training overriding the voice in my head screaming about blood and violence and the smell of burning flesh. “That shoulder needs pressure. Now.”
He sits. More of a controlled collapse than a deliberate motion, but he ends up on the ground with his back against a chunk of fallen masonry. I kneel beside him, pressing my palm against the worst of the shoulder wound, feeling hot blood pulse between my fingers.
“Fireproof pants.” His voice is thin with pain. “Told you I’d bring them.”
“You’re not wearing pants.”
He glances down at himself. Bare feet, shredded trousers, more skin showing than fabric. “Huh. Must have lost them in the shift. Dragons have no respect for fashion.”
A laugh escapes me this time. Small. Surprised. Real.
He grins—actually grins, despite the blood and the pain and the chaos around us. “There it is. Told you that you should laugh more.”
“You’re bleeding out, and you’re making jokes.”
“I’m always making jokes. Bleeding out just adds dramatic tension.”
I should respond. Should say something cutting or clinical or both. Instead, I focus on the wound beneath my hands, watching the bleeding slow as dragon healing kicks in, feeling his pulse steady beneath my fingers.
He came for me. Crashed through a wall. Put himself between me and danger without hesitation, without calculation, without anything except the raw need to keep me safe.
Nobody has ever done that.
“Thank you.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
His grin fades into something softer. More real. “For what?”
“The wall. The fighting. All of it.”
“Anyone would have?—“
“No.” I meet his gaze, hold it. “They wouldn’t. That rogue was in my room, Rurik. He was going to take me back. And you—“ My voice catches. Steadies. “You came through a wall for me.”
Something shifts in his expression. The performance drops—no jokes, no deflection, no manic energy masking what’s underneath. Just Rurik, raw and present and looking at me like I’m something worth protecting.
