My jaw tightens, neither confirming nor denying what he has intuited. But my silence is answer enough.
Sareth's tail slices through the debris. "We need to report to the Sovereign Flame," he commands, leading us toward the western tunnels.
As I follow, scanning the devastation of cracked ceiling vaults shedding dust veils, and the floor trembling with aftershocks,a different sensation overrides my awareness. Something pulls beneath my scales, a compass needle straining westward with each beat of my heart.
West. Where Serin waits with the evacuees.
Her presence registers like a current of air, steady and alive, a certainty beyond mere senses. This unwanted bond tugs at something fundamental within me, lodging an ache beneath my breastbone that has been there since we parted. I need to see her and confirm that the explosion did not damage the evacuation routes.
My body responds of its own accord. Though I fall into formation behind Sareth, I find myself subtly accelerating, drawn toward the western caverns where she waits, unaware of what she has awakened in me.
The wind whispers through my blood, too powerful and aware. I clench my jaw, willing it silent. With each breath, I feel air currents shifting around us, responding to emotions I refuse to acknowledge. A pebble skitters across our path without being touched, and I force stillness upon it. Dust motes begin to swirl in organized patterns, but I exhale sharply, scattering them into chaos. I will not let the atmosphere claim me as kin.
The others follow behind me, gazes heavy on my back, the silence between us loaded with questions no one dares voice aloud. I straighten my spine, hardening myself against their scrutiny. I am a Talon of Vessan-Kar, nothing more. This power flowing through me, this connection pulling westward, must end here. The Season of Naga will die with me, its prophecy severed by my will alone.
Chapter Seventeen
SERIN
Idrift upward through layers of darkness, each one thinner than the last. Consciousness returns in fragments. First pain, raw and scraping in my lungs with every breath. Then pressure, a heaviness pins me down like grave dirt. Sound comes next, distant and distorted as if filtering through water. My eyelids are weighted, but I force them open to a world of smeared light and indistinct shapes. They pulse and shift around me like spirits trapped between realms.
Blurred figures hover near what I slowly recognize as a cot beneath me. They move with purpose, but my mind can't decipher it. Their forms meld and separate in my compromised vision. One leans close. Small, with quick movements. Another stands back, tall and rigid. Their voices reach me through thick walls. Words are indistinct, but tones are urgent.
Where am I?The thought forms sluggishly, struggling against the thick fog filling my mind. Not the grotto. Not the ash pit that swallowed me whole.
The ash pit…
Memory flashes bright and terrible of the ground dissolving beneath my feet, my body plunging into suffocating darkness, gray filling my nose, mouth, lungs. The heartglass spun away,its light fading as I sank deeper. The weight crushed my chest. I clawed desperately toward a surface I couldn't find. My lungs burned as they filled with glass-laden death.
Panic flutters inside me, weakly, like a trapped bird too exhausted to fight. My fingers twitch against rough fabric, the only movement I can manage. I try to swallow. I nearly choke on the rawness of my throat, as if I've swallowed fire. Each breath scrapes like sandpaper against flesh.
The taller shape moves closer. Words float toward me, meanings slipping away before I can grasp them. A question, perhaps. Concern.
I need to speak. Need to know. Need to find him.
"L-lu..." The sound barely forms, more exhalation than word. I try again, forcing air through my damaged throat. "Lurok."
The name emerges as little more than a whisper, but the effect is immediate. The tall figure freezes, then surges toward me with fluid, powerful movement. A massive form leans over me, blocking the light from above. I blink furiously, trying to bring details into focus. Silver scales. White hair. Pale eyes that seem to glow in the dim light.
A hand engulfs mine completely, scaled fingers gentle despite their strength. The touch anchors me, gives me something solid to cling to while the rest of the world continues to blur and shift.
"Serin." His voice cuts through the fog with startling clarity, deeper than I remember, rough with emotion he doesn't try to hide. "Thank the Ancients, you are awake."
I try to speak again, but only manage a weak cough that sends fresh pain lancing through my chest. Lurok's grip tightens fractionally on my hand, his other hand moving to support my shoulder as the coughing subsides.
"Do not try to speak," he commands, but the harshness of his tone is belied by the gentleness of his touch. "Your lungs are still healing."
My vision clears slightly. Details sharpen just enough to reveal the sharp angles of his handsome face. The vertical pupils widen as they focus on me. There's something different in his expression, a vulnerability that changes his usually stoic features.
"Fetch the Threadborn," Lurok calls to someone beyond my field of vision, his voice regaining its commanding edge. "Tell her that her sister is awake."
Sister? The word penetrates the haze surrounding my thoughts. I blink, confusion rippling through me. Another memory surfaces of Leira volunteering in my place, being taken to Vessan-Kar while I remained behind with our father.
"L-Leira?" I manage, the name barely audible. "She's... here?"
Lurok's gaze returns to me, something softening in those pale eyes. "Yes," he says simply. "I promised I would take you to her, and a Talon always keeps his promises."
Lurok's thumb traces small circles against the back of my hand. The gesture is so achingly gentle, so at odds with his fearsome appearance, that warmth blooms beneath my breastbone, radiating outward like sunlight through frost.
