I reach for him because I choose to.
Because I’m Auric Veil, and we don’t accept lies—including the lie that death is surrender. Because I’ve spent my entire life refusing to let others dictate my choices, and I’m not going to start now. Because if I have to die, I want my last act to be defiance.
Because if these are my last moments, I want them spent reaching for him. Not lying passive. Not accepting what the gods have decided. Not dying the way they want me to.
Choice, I think, and the word is lifeline and defiance and everything I have left.My choice. Not theirs.
My fingers scrape stone. Blood smears behind them. The cold is absolute now, so deep it’s become heat, and I can’t tell if I’m still breathing or if my lungs have frozen too.
But I keep reaching.
One inch. Two. The stone beneath my hand is slick with my blood, making the motion harder. My arm shakes with effort that shouldn’t be necessary—I’ve trained my body for decades, and now it’s betraying me, refusing to obey, shutting down piece by piece as the divine ice claims more of my remaining time.
I keep reaching anyway.
He fought for me. Bled for me. Put himself between me and every danger before I could ask him to.
The least I can do is reach for him when I’m dying.
Another inch. The gray at the edges of my vision is expanding, eating the world, leaving only the narrowest tunnel of sight. But through it, I still see gold. Still see movement. Still hear the sounds of violence that tell me he’s alive, fighting, refusing to let the Arbiter win.
Stay alive, I think at him, knowing he can’t hear me.Don’t let them break you. Don’t let my death be the weapon they wanted.
My hand stretches forward. Fingers extending. Reaching for gold eyes and hands and the impossible safety I found in the shadow of a dragon who shouldn’t have cared whether I lived or died.
The Herald dies.
I hear it more than see it—a crystalline shriek of unraveling magic, the sound of divine authority failing catastrophically. Tyr’s roar of triumph that carries no triumph at all, only desperate need.
Footsteps. Running. Closer.
Hands on my face. Large. Capable. Trembling in a way I’ve never seen from him.
“Zephyra.Zephyra”.
His voice is wrong. Broken in ways that voices shouldn’t break.
I try to focus on his face. Manage fragments: pale gold swallowed by black. Blood and divine ichor streaking his features. An expression I’ve never seen on anyone, much less a dragon who considers showing emotion a tactical weakness.
Terror. Pure, annihilating terror.
“The blade—” My voice comes out wrong. Thin. Fading. “Don’t… don’t pull it out. The ice is… keeping me…”
I don’t finish the sentence. Don’t have to. He understands: the blade is the only thing holding my remaining minutes intact. Pull it out, and I bleed to death in seconds instead of dying slowly from temporal collapse.
“I’m not—” He stops. Swallows. His hands frame my face like I’m made of glass, like I might shatter if he presses too hard. “I won’t let you?—”
“Tyr.” My hand finds his. Not reaching anymore—touching. Holding. Choosing. “It’s done. The math doesn’t… the math doesn’t work.”
“Fuck the math.”
A laugh escapes me. Weak. Wet. Probably bloody. “That’s not how math works.”
“The math can burn.” His forehead presses against mine. I feel the tremor in his body, the war between dragon and man, control and chaos. “The Arbiter can burn. Everything can burn except?—”
He doesn’t finish.
I know what he means.
