The wolf made a low sound, as if he understood that I wasn’t just talking to him but to myself. Reminding myself why I couldn’t become the fire. Why I had to keep fighting against what lived inside me.
Because Pip existed, with her button collection and her fierce determination.
Because Calder had chosen family above survival, over and over, until the word meant something sacred.
Because Lucy had killed her brother to give him mercy and carried that weight with grace instead of bitterness.
Because Wickett bled for strangers, defied his father, saved people he was supposed to hunt.
Because Vitoria, wherever she was, whatever she’d done, had made me laugh until I couldn’t breathe and held me when grief made the world impossible.
Good people existed.
I had to remember that when the fire came.
Had to hold on to it like a lifeline when everything else burned away.
Timber pressed his enormous head against my knee, and I let myself take comfort from a monster’s kindness, from the warmth of fur and the steady rhythm of breathing that proved not everything from the Ash was beyond saving.
Maybe I wasn’t either.
The door opened behind me. I didn’t turn. Didn’t need to.
“Syn.” Calder’s voice was gentle, careful. “We’re planning the route. Need you inside.”
“Yeah.” I stood, giving Timber one final scratch behind the ears. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
Chapter 39
Syneca
If you sneeze three times while kneading dough, someone is speaking your true name in a place you’ve never been. The bread will rise crooked, but it will taste of destiny.
The map spread across the workbench was covered in our fingerprints, smudged ink marking routes we’d considered and abandoned.
Lucy traced a line through the Sorrow Mountains with one finger while the rest of us leaned in, close enough that our shoulders pressed together as she tapped three narrow gaps between passages. “These passes are clear, but we have to avoid the Sleeping Ring entirely. That ring of mountains is impenetrable. If anyone or anything gets in, it’s never coming out. They say there’s a poisonous low-lying fog that kills everything that dares step foot within.”
“Correct, and we fly at night,” Wickett said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Rest during daylight. The Ash monsters usually hunt in darkness, but if we stay airborne, we stay alive.”
Pip hovered near Calder’s shoulder, her tiny hands twisting together with nervous energy. “I don’t think I can ride dragon-back. And I can’t fly on my own that far. My wings are strong, but not that strong. And also the monsters might eat me first because I’m bite-sized.”
“You’re riding with me,” Calder said, patting his coat pocket. “It’s safer that way.”
Her voice pitched higher. “For hours?”
Lucy appeared beside them holding a small wooden bowl and a length of leather cord. “Here.”
“Is that from the kitchen?” she asked, turning the makeshift helmet over in her hands.
“It was either this or you go without head protection.” Lucy knelt down to Pip’s eye level, her expression serious but not unkind. “Look, I know this is terrifying. I know you’ve never done anything like this before. But you’re tougher than you think, Pip. You’ve survived a Mortalis, watched people die, kept going when most would have given up.” She held out the bowl-helmet. “You’re going to survive this too.”
“Of course I am. I’m very brave. Thank you.”
Lucy’s mouth curved into something soft, almost vulnerable. “We look out for each other. That’s what this is now. That’s what we are.”
The words settled over the room like a vow. Not the blood oath that bound us to death and hunting, but something quieter. Something chosen instead of forced.
Pip fastened the helmet under her chin, the bowl sitting at an angle on her head that would have been comical if it weren’t so earnest.
