“You should rest,” I said – then, softer: “It won’t be long now.”
“No,” he sighed. “Not long at all.”
His words followed me into the dark – like smoke curling into a place I hadn’t known was hollow.
As I stepped away, putting distance between us and the firelight, I heard him begin to hum. It was faint, almost tuneless at first – like something learned long ago and left to fade. Then came the words, spoken low in a voice not meant to carry, but which reached me all the same:
“No roads lead to Dragna’toch, but all roads bring you home, sister.
No gates will greet you at Dragna’toch, but they all open to you, sister.
There are no windows in Dragna’toch, but you will see inside, sister.
Let us know you, sister, and we will welcome you home.”
I stopped mid-step, breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a thought. The pain in my shoulder flared white-hot, sudden and blinding – a single heartbeat of searing, echoing ache that stole the air from my lungs. I turned, in half a mind to demand what he knew, how he knew – but he had already gone silent again. Eyes closed. Head bowed.
The cart sat still beneath the stars, its prisoner unmoving.
But I stood there far too long, wondering how a man like that had ever learned the song of Dragna’toch – a place no man should know, and no living Sister would have ever taught him.
Chapter Eight: Frejara
The gates of Irongate rose before us like the teeth of some ancient beast, gilded at their peaks but dark at the roots, where shadow still clung despite the morning sun. The city was awake – more than awake, alive in a way that felt fevered. The drums began before we saw the gates – low and deep, like the sound of a heartbeat. They rolled down from the ridge like a second sunrise, echoing against the stone-flanked road that led to the citadel.
Not that long ago, I had heard these same drums at the front lines, used not to welcome but to break men apart from the inside out. Then, they had been a weapon. Today, they were dressed in silk and a joyous rhythm. Celebration made of thunder. Banners in black and gold fluttered from every window, every arch, every pole and spire. They snapped in the breeze like they were restless for blood.
They were welcoming their General home.
As we descended into the city, the crowd thickened. They lined the streets in layers, children perched on ledges, elders watching from behind veils and latticework. When they saw me, they began to cheer.Not loud at first – just a ripple, a murmur of recognition – but it built, and soon their voices filled the air like smoke in a dry field. Someone threw the first flowers. Pale petals arced through the sunlight and landed on the cobbles ahead of my mount, and then others followed. Marigolds, lilies, rose-heads snapped from their stems. It became a torrent.
Their raised voices called for their General. Not for the woman. Not for the Heir Apparent. But for the Unbroken Blade of Irongate – the sword that had never shattered, even if stripped of its flame. It rang through the streets like a swift gust of wind, sweeping over stone and iron and flesh.
The procession behind me moved like the measured swing of a blade mid-arc – precise, gleaming, inevitable. Astrid and Daen flanked the cart, eyes scanning every window, every shadowed doorway with the kind of tension that doesn’t loosen until long after the danger is passed. The soldiers rode with backs like iron rods, their armour polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the sun in blinding shards.
Like Astrid had said a mere few nights before – we were dressing up a pyre and calling it theatre. And now here we were: the theatre. The pageant. The promise.
We were not simply an escort. We were a message to the entire city and all the others we had conquered. The Sorcerer Queen’s will would not be undone, and all those who opposed her would perish in the Black Flame.
But even still, all I could think about was the quiet song of our prisoner and the next victim to fall upon the fire.
“No roads lead to Dragna’toch, but all roads bring you home, sister.”
Alaric’s voice had been soft when he sang it – gentle, almost reverent. Like something remembered from another life. Like a lullaby sung to a child he’d never held.
I had not heard that song since I was very young – since the lessonsbehind shuttered doors, where I was made to recite every line, every fragment of myth that traced its way back to the First Fire. My Mother watched me with that familiar, pinched expression – equal parts scrutiny and disappointment – as I failed to summon even a flicker of flame.
At first, there had been a quiet certainty that the fire would come. I was her daughter. I bore the bloodline. And for a time, that had been enough. Until it became painfully obvious that the birthright of our line had passed me by.
But even when the flame refused to come, the lessons did not stop. They only deepened—sharper, more exact—as though, by learning what I would never become, I might better understand what I lacked. Each word a brand. Each history, a mirror. She carved the Sisterhood into my bones – not to honour it, but to remind me of what I had failed to inherit.
“No gates will greet you at Dragna’toch, but they all open to you, sister.”
Dragna’toch. The true stronghold of the Sisterhood – veiled from the world, unreachable by any road, unmapped, and unspoken. It did not rise from mountains or settle in valleys known to cartographers. No traveler has stumbled upon it. It could not be found by those who searched. Dragna’toch existed elsewhere and nowhere – hidden and shielded by centuries-old magic. It called only to those born of the blood that built it or those they chose to summon.
But no man had ever set foot beyond its wards – not even those who had fathered the daughters born there. To the world beyond, Dragna’toch remained nothing more than a myth veiled in ash and silence.
And so, for a man to know those words…
