My brothers call my shifted form unsettling. Even Drayke, who fears nothing, has admitted that watching me transform makes something in his dragon recoil. I’m wrong, somehow. A dragon shaped by shadow rather than birth, my darkness deeper than it should be.
I push off from the platform and let the wind take me east.
Days of flying.
The wind screams past my wings, cold enough to numb even dragon scales. Below me, the landscape transforms—green valleys giving way to rocky highlands, then to forests so dark, they seem to swallow light itself. The air grows heavier the farther east I travel, thick with magic that tastes of ash and old blood on my tongue.
The shadow-territories. Home to the clan that turned me into this thing I can barely recognize in reflections.
I’m banking around a mountain peak when Drayke’s voice cuts through my mind.
Brother.The word carries the weight of command even across the telepathic link.Where are you?
I consider not answering. The link between Brotherhood dragons allows communication across vast distances, but it doesn’t compel response. I could simply... not.
Zyphon.Drayke again, sharper now.Your quarters are empty. Your weapons are gone. Don’t make me hunt you down.
I sigh, the sound lost to the wind.Following a lead. I’ll be back when I know more.
What kind of lead requires you to vanish in the middle of the night without telling anyone?
The kind I need to handle alone.
A pause. Then Rurik’s voice crashes into the link, as subtle as always.Oh, this sounds interesting. What are we hunting? Is it something I can set on fire?
We are not hunting anything.I inject as much finality into the thought as I can manage.I’m following up on intelligence. Alone.
That’s what you said before the thing with the blood mages in the northern wastes.Rurik sounds entirely too cheerful.You came back missing three scales and smelling like sulfur.
The scales grew back.
Not the point.Drayke cuts in.Where are you headed?
I hesitate. The shadow-territories aren’t forbidden—nothing is forbidden to the Brotherhood—but they’re dangerous in ways that make even Drayke cautious. If I tell them where I’m going, they’ll insist on backup. Possibly show up themselves, which will make everything infinitely more complicated.
East.I offer finally.Investigating reports of someone asking questions about us.
Someone asking questions isn’t unusual.Auren’s voice joins the link, cool and analytical as always.People ask questions about us constantly. What makes this one worth a solo flight into hostile territory?
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. How do I explain that the woman being described has eyes that belonged to someone I watched die? That I’m chasing a ghost because the alternative—accepting that she’s truly gone—has never been something I could do?
Zyphon.Drayke’s voice has softened, the command replaced by something closer to concern.If you need us?—
I’ll call.The lie comes easily. I won’t call. Whatever waits for me in the shadow-territories, I have to face it alone.Don’t wait up.
I close the link before any of them can argue further. The silence that follows feels heavier than the wind, emptier than the sky stretching in every direction.
I’m not avoiding them because I don’t trust them. I’m avoiding them because this is something I have to face alone. The woman who might be Nasyra. The impossibility that shouldn’t exist but apparently does.
If she’s real—if some dark magic has dragged her back from death—I need to see her without the Brotherhood at my back. Need to understand what’s happened before I involve anyone else in a ghost story that might destroy me.
I landin a clearing as dusk bleeds across the sky.
The shift back to human form leaves me aching, muscles protesting days of flight. I roll my shoulders, feeling the shadows settle beneath my skin—a cold weight that never quite goes away. The air here smells different. Darker, somehow. Thick with magic that makes my head ache and my skin prickle with awareness.
The forest presses close around the clearing, ancient trees stretching toward a sky that’s already losing its light. Their bark is black, absorbing what little illumination remains. No birds sing. No insects chirp. The silence is absolute, oppressive, broken only by my own breathing.
I make camp without fire—flames would announce my presence to anyone watching—and eat cold rations that taste like nothing. The ground beneath me is soft with centuries of fallenleaves, but sleep won’t come. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face.
