“Not much of one.”
He’s not wrong.
I push myself into a seated position, hissing as my ankle protests the movement. The pain helps me focus. Grounds me in my body when every instinct screams to flee.
“You’re Ashen Flight.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a name, or do I call you ‘the dragon who hasn’t killed me yet’?”
The faintest flicker crosses his features. Not quite amusement—this creature doesn’t do amusement—but recognition, maybe. That I’m not reacting the way prey should react.
“Arax.”
“Arax.” I test the name against my tongue. Hard consonants. Ending-adjacent.
The Ashen Flight tracks threats, and a Yael witch working openly in the Reach would register on whatever intelligence networks dragons maintain.
The ash storm is calming further. I don’t understand why his presence would affect it—ash in the Reach spreads when power is abused, not when it’s destroyed—but the corrupted magic that usually strains against my control has quieted. Steadied into temporary order.
“You’re not here to kill the Choir.” I work through the logic out loud, watching his face for any reaction. “You’re here because the Choir is expanding the Reach faster than natural decay would allow. The ritual I collapsed—it would have accelerated ash spread across this entire region.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re here to end the mechanisms of expansion. The cult is a secondary target.”
“The cult is a symptom.” He speaks with the same flat precision, but there’s weight behind the words now. “The cause is theological. They believe annihilation is mercy. They recruit from the desperate and the broken. Killing accomplishes nothing permanent.”
“But ending their rituals before completion…”
“Slows the spread. Buys time.”
“Time for what?”
He doesn’t answer. His attention tracks patterns I can’t perceive—ash migration, maybe, or magical residue left by the collapsed node.
The smart thing to do is put distance between myself and this creature, find shelter, tend my wounds, disappear into the Reach the way I’ve been disappearing for years, and get away from him.
Instead, I stay.
My ankle won’t support travel. The ash storm is still dangerous, and his presence calms it. I’m being tactical.
I’m lying.
The truth is simpler and more dangerous: I want to understand him.
He’s the most lethal thing I’ve ever stood beside.
And I’m not running.
Arax finisheswhatever assessment he was conducting and turns his attention back to me.
“The Choir will send more.”
He waits. I wait. The ash swirls around us in unfamiliar patterns—away from him, away from me, creating a pocket of relative clarity in the storm’s heart.
“Your ankle requires attention.”
