I didn’t speak the question aloud. Didn’t need to. The bond between us had never been clearer, never felt more right than it did in this moment.
His response came as feeling rather than words.
Anticipation. Excitement. The fierce joy of a creature finally allowed to do what it was built for.
His wings spread. His muscles coiled.
And then we were moving.
The ground fell away at a dizzying speed. Trees that had loomed enormous became small, then tiny, then nothing but a gnarled tangle stretching endlessly below with spectacles of scattered purple flame. The cottage vanished into the forest, just another secret swallowed by the Bloodwood.
Wind screamed past my ears, tore at my clothes, tried to rip me from Silas’s back. But the spell held, and more than that, I trusted him. Trusted the bond between us with the kindof certainty that came from years of silent understanding, of protection offered and received, of choosing each other over and over again.
Below us, the Ash began to change. Black trees gave way to scorched earth, to patches of land still bearing scars from Burnings centuries old. Monsters moved in the shadows down there, things with too many teeth and not enough conscience, but they couldn’t reach us here.
Higher. Higher still. Until the air turned thin and cold and the entire world spread out beneath us like a map coming to life. The Ash stretched in every direction, dark and wild and beautiful, illuminated only by the Erelith, turning the ground into a sea of glistening purple.
We chased a dragon into the sunset, into the unknown, into whatever waited beyond the blank spaces on the map, and for the first time in days, maybe forever, I felt something close to peace.
Just me and Silas. The wind and the sky and the endless horizon. No walls. No rules. No one watching, judging, waiting for me to make a mistake that would justify their hatred.
Just flight.
Chasing a ghost city. But for now, in this moment, suspended between earth and stars, I let myself just be free. And the beast below me’s hum of approval was the only thing that mattered.
Sunrise found us descending.
The world had transformed while we flew. Vestra’s barren outlines had given way to Noreya’s harder landscape. There werealmost no trees here. Hardly any vegetation. Just the skeletal remains of a land that had burned and never recovered, where even the ground looked like it had given up trying to be anything but dead. The Sorrow Mountains loomed closer now, no longer distant threats but immediate obstacles, their peaks snow-capped and foreboding.
Riot descended first. He set Wickett down carefully before landing himself, claws scraping against rock that rang like iron beneath his weight. His wings folded, and after his passengers dismounted, he began to shrink, scales rippling as he shifted back into his human form.
Silas landed beside them, and I slid from his back with legs that barely remembered how to hold weight. The adhesion spell released me gently, fire magic dissipating into nothing, leaving only the echo of warmth where it had been.
The Ash stretched in every direction, a monument to destruction. The ground wasn’t earth—not anymore. It was a patchwork of ash, fused glass and carbonized stone, smooth in some places, cracked and buckled in others where the heat had once been so intense it melted the world into waves before freezing it in place. Colors swirled beneath the surface of the glassy patches, sickly greens and bruised purples. Purples that held the memory of the flames.
The cold hit like a physical thing. Not clean winter cold, but something older, meaner. It carried the scent of charcoal and something sweet and rotten, like fruit left too long in a basket. Around us, twisted rock formations jutted from the ground at odd angles, their surfaces smooth as melted wax.
We crowded together, seeking what little shelter our bodies could provide against the streamlined wind.
“I’ve been in the south too long,” Lucy said through chattering teeth, rubbing her arms. “I forgot what real cold feels like.”
“I can’t feel my... everything,” Pip announced, extracting herself from Calder’s pocket with visible effort. Her bowl-helmet sat askew, her blue hair wild. “Is that normal? Should that be normal?”
Something small skittered across a nearby rock, bone-white and many-legged, there and gone before I could properly see it.
Calder scanned the horizon. “Nothing here will feel normal. Keep your guard up. We’re in the Ash.”
Riot surveyed the barren landscape, then knelt. His hand pressed flat against a large stone half-buried. Fire erupted from his palm, not wild, not destructive, controlled. Dragon fire sank into the rock until it glowed faintly red.
Heat radiated outward immediately. Blessed, wonderful heat that made my bones stop aching quite so much.
“Another one?” Pip flew closer to the warm stone, her tiny hands extended. “Please? Just one more?”
Calder’s voice was firm. “No. Heat draws monsters. One stone is a risk. Two would be an invitation.”
Pip’s wings drooped, but she didn’t argue.
We settled onto the ground around the warm stone, and for the first time, I wished I knew more about my fire magic. I wished I could warm them all, without them knowing where it came from. I wished I could give Wickett a modicum of comfort as he healed from that blade.
