Chapter 7

  Three days after the bells fell silent, Thane led his Circle down a narrow corridor that few recruits ever walk. The air was cool and smelled of tallow smoke. At the end of the corridor stood a small chamber lit by flickering candles. On its shelves lay ledgers bound in leather, each marked with a year. The newest rested on top, its pages still crisp, the ink of the names of the fallen was barely dry.

  Garrick reached out, his fingertips hovering just above the page. Freyda pressed her fist to her chest. Bruni whispered a blessing, her voice breaking halfway through. Tylane mouthed the names as though stitching them into memory. Vaelen folded his arms, jaw clenched, but a single tear betrayed him in the candlelight.

  They stood together in silence. No horns, no orders, just the weight of absence. It was the only time the Circle had ever seen the Guild honor the dead, and they carried that silence with them as they turned back toward the light of the main hall.

  As they stepped back into the corridor, a small side alcove caught Freyda’s eye — a narrow recess half-lit by a single guttering candle. It wasn’t part of the usual path. It felt older than the rest of the hall, colder too, as if the mountain kept its breath there.

  Inside the alcove stood a long glass case.

  Empty.

  Dust filmed the inside of the glass, disturbed only by the faint outline of something long that had once rested there. Six iron hooks lined the backboard, evenly spaced, worn smooth by hands long gone.

  Above the case, carved deep into the stone:

  STAFF OF LEGENDS

  The letters were ancient, their edges softened by centuries.

  Below the case, however, the stone changed. A wide horizontal seam cut across the wall, newer mortar, newer blocks, a repair done an age ago when the original wall had shattered. The reconstruction swallowed the lower half of an inscription that had once continued beneath the case.

  Only a fragment remained:

  It takes S—

  The rest vanished beneath the replacement stone, lost to whatever catastrophe had broken the wall long before any living master was born.

  Bruni squinted. “It takes… strength?”

  “Or skill,” Freyda guessed.

  “Or stew,” Tylane muttered. “I’m starving.”

  Vaelen shook his head. “If it mattered, someone would have rewritten it.”

  Thane traced the ancient seam with his fingertips. “This repair is… old. Really old.”

  Garrick stared at the empty hooks, the dust, the silence. “Feels like something’s missing.”

  “Feels like the Guild forgot something,” Freyda murmured.

  A quiet settled over them, not fear, not reverence, just a faint, uneasy sense of a story half-told.

  Duskmaw growled softly at the repaired stone.

  Thane shivered. “Let’s go.”

  They left the alcove behind, the broken inscription fading back into shadow. None of them understood what they had seen.

  The Guild Hall smelled of ink, oil, and wet cloaks. The storm had blown itself out in the passes, but its cold hung in the stone. Recruits packed the benches in their best gear—cleaned, not new—faces pinched with the kind of quiet that comes before you learn whether you’re needed or merely used.

  The banners had been mended since the siege. Thread showed where fire had licked them. Behind the dais the teeth-and-flame of the Argent hung bright enough to sting the eyes, as if shine could make memory gentler.

  “You’ve felt the mountain go quiet,” the Guild master said. His voice sounded like gravel dragged in a sack. “The robber baron’s host is ash and carrion. With him gone, the roads open. Trade runs again. Coin flows.”

  He let the word settle: coin. The benches shifted. Not fear, not courage, reckoning.

  “And trouble follows coin,” he said, “as wolves follow sheep.”

  A ripple moved across the hall. Some recruits leaned forward as if the news might be kinder up close. Others slouched and tried to look smaller than a command.

  “South.” He touched two fingers to a crude map spread on the table below the dais. “Merchants whisper of fire in the night. A shape against the moon. Char and bones. The Ashfeng Cliffs by the salt wind, carts burned on the road, shepherds melted into their own shadows.” His jaw set. “Not a rumor now. A dragon.”

  The word was a weight. Garrick felt, absurdly, the heft of his claymore, as if his hands wanted to know how much a dragon weighed against steel.

  “Favored Six?” someone called from the back, too young to be wise. The laugh that answered was thin and quick.

  The Guild master didn’t smile. “The Favored Six are committed.” He did not say to what. Everyone in the hall heard the rest anyway: “They’re for show. They’re for the nobles. They’re for when the Guild needs to be loved. We send who we trust to hold a line when holding hurts.”

  He didn’t point. He didn’t need to. Eyes found Garrick’s Circle and stayed there, not warm, but steady.

  Freyda’s shoulder brushed Garrick’s and went still. Bruni’s fingers worried the little charmstring she’d braided from kettle hoops and barley beads, a thing her mother never owned, but she wished she had. Thane’s hands twitched the way they did when a spell wanted to be born and bite him. Tylane stood quiet as a post. Duskmaw’s ear flicked once, then settled back into the great cat’s skull. Vaelen’s grip creaked on the half-shield leather.

  “This is not a hunt for glory,” the Guild master said. “This is a test of whether the roads stay open. ‘Proving ground’ means no reinforcements. No banners, no songs. If you cannot kill it, you will bleed it. Learn what it is, what it favors, what feeds it. Live long enough to tell us how to kill it next time.”

  A murmur swelled and was throttled. Garrick could feel the benches measuring them the way a butcher pins meat to a board with his palm.

  “Arms will be issued after this brief, along with provisions for the road south. It will be a month’s ride.” His gaze swept the room, hunting for shirking and finding none. “The Argent Flame holds because we do not lie to ourselves: some of you will not return.”

  Silence. Not respect, an accounting. “Questions?” he said. None. There wouldn’t have been answers anyway.

  The druid stepped out from the line of instructors like a man walking into a storm he’d already decided to lose. His jaw was set, his eyes fixed on the Guild master with a fury that didn’t belong in a hall of stone. He lifted two fingers.

  A ripple of air bent around them, soft, subtle, then absolute. Sound died.

  A cone of silence snapped into place so cleanly that even the banners seemed to stop breathing.

  The Guild master didn’t flinch.

  The druid did. He was shouting, everyone could see it, but not a whisper escaped the spell. His hands carved the air in sharp, furious shapes. He jabbed a finger toward the Circle. Toward the map. Toward the Guild master’s chest. His face flushed with anger, then with something deeper: fear.

  The Guild master answered with nothing but stillness. His mouth moved once, twice, slow, deliberate, cutting. Whatever he said made the druid recoil as if struck.

  The druid stepped in again, shouting harder, shoulders shaking with the force of it. He looked like a man trying to drag a mountain back from the edge of a cliff.

  The Guild master’s reply was a single sentence, short and final.

  The druid froze, his breath left him in a visible shudder. His hands dropped. The fury drained from his face, leaving something hollow and resigned in its place.

  He flicked his fingers. Sound returned in a rush, boots shifting, someone coughing, the distant clatter of a dropped quill, all of it crashing back into the hall like a wave. The druid didn’t look at the Circle, he didn’t look at anyone. He turned on his heel and walked away, shoulders tight, as if holding himself together by force alone.

  The Guild master cleared his throat, gravel on stone. “Arms will be issued after this brief.” As if nothing had happened. But everyone had seen it.

  And the Circle felt the weight of a truth they weren’t allowed to hear. The Guild master stepped down. A master with burned hands, scars old as his patience, unrolled the map to its edges. Char marks for caravans. A black smear for the cliffs. A red scratch for the wind-cut gulch that funneled toward whatever mouth the beast called a door.

  “Routes,” the burned master said, the word clipped. “Wells here, here, and here. Farms: abandoned. Villages: two still hold a watch. You’ll see smoke. Could be plows. Could be bones. Don’t be clever. Be alive.” The benches scraped stone as the recruits arose.

  Outside, the yard wore its old habits easily. Straps creaked. Buckles clinked. The stink of oil and wet leather found every nose. The stones still knew the weight of siege; they carried it like a story told in a low voice.

  Bruni packed cloth and vials into a satchel and blessed the whole of it at once. “It won’t keep fire out,” she said, more to herself than anyone, “but it’ll make what’s left worth saving.”

  Thane checked the stitching on the bag that held his book and wouldn’t admit he had checked it twice already. “I can hold light against smoke now,” he said to no one in particular. “Longer than before.”

  “Good,” Garrick said.

  “And protections against heat. Some.” Thane swallowed. “Not…dragon fire. But some.”

  “Some is more than none,” Bruni said, encouragingly.

  Tylane whistled once. Duskmaw padded to heel, the cat’s paws silent on the yard frost. Ranger’s fingers flicked through hand signals, scout, shadow, return on bow-tap, and the jaguar’s whiskers twitched as if language itself had brushed them. The beast leaned its weight into Tylane’s hip once and then melted away a pace, eyes bright.

  Vaelen stood to Garrick’s right with the half-shield slung, as if there had never been a world where he wasn’t there. Loyalty like that wasn’t taught; it was forged, the way brothers are forged in fire and oath. He said nothing. Garrick didn’t have to tell him to. Freyda shouldered her round shield and bumped Garrick’s arm with it. “You’re scowling like it’ll frighten the dragon to death.”

  “I’ll try steel first,” Garrick replied.

  “Try not shouting second,” Freyda said. The cut on her cheek had become a red rope. “You’re still not captain.”

  Garrick glanced sideways at Freyda. “Keep telling me that, and one day I may believe you.”

  “You never believe me,” she said, which for them passed as affection. She spat into the frozen dust and winced when it pulled the wound. “You heard him? ‘Proving ground’ is a pretty way to say ‘we’ll throw them against a dragon and see what comes back.’”

  “Then we come back,” Garrick said.

  She smirked without humor. “Bossy.”

  “Shield-maiden nag,” Garrick bantered.

  Bruni rolled her eyes and pressed two fingers to Garrick’s embrace, murmuring a blessing that settled warm under the leather. Freyda stood still for her blessing, but pretended not to. The quartermaster’s lads dragged out crates—iron spikes, coils of rope, oil skins, spare bowstrings wrapped in paper. A Fletcher's boy handed Tylane a sheaf of shafts without speaking.

  Tylane flexed three arrows reflex, nodded, and bound them into the quiver with care. Thane took two char-smudged glass vials from a master and held them like eggs. Inside, liquid could be seen that was the color of tree sap. Bruni sniffed one vial and nodded. “Burn salve. Won’t stop heat. Will stop the rot from loving you.”

  Across the yard, other survivors of the siege watched the Circle the way men look at weather: not kindly, not cruelly, only certain of being touched by it.

  The scarred instructor limped over, his mouth a line. He looked at Garrick, then Freyda, then the rest as if counting something other than heads. “You held a wall at noon,” he said softly. “Do not mistake the road for a wall. It moves under you. So will your courage. Keep your feet. Keep your line.”

  Garrick nodded. There was nothing to say that didn’t sound like bravado. Tylane tightened a strap and spoke so low the cat probably heard it better than the people did. “Guide us,” he said to the god he had already chosen. Not a plea, not a bargain. An acknowledgment of terms.

  “Rangers forward,” Garrick said, because someone had to say it and it might as well be the voice they already obeyed. “Mages center. Steel on both. We walk until the road tells us to listen.”

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  “Until the road what?” Thane said.

  “Talks,” Freyda said dryly. “He means ‘until the ambush.’”

  “Until the road talks,” Garrick repeated, stubborn as a stone.

  They formed at the gate.

  Above them, on the watchtower, an attendant stepped forward with a long iron hook. The brazier’s flame, kept burning since the siege, wavered once in the wind. Tradition allowed no hesitation. As the Circle assembled, the attendant tipped the brazier, smothering the fire in a spill of ash. The light died with a soft hiss, leaving only smoke curling into the cold air. A Circle was leaving. The flame would not burn again until they returned.

  The hinges groaned, opening only wide enough to show the first bite of the road south, ragged sky beyond. A month of it, the Guild master had said, and the word had felt longer than any day Garrick could remember. Beyond the walls the air smelled cleaner, like something that hadn’t yet learned to rot.

  The parapet filled with survivors of the siege, elbows on stone, eyes filled with emotion. The keep watched its own blood walk out and made a memory of the gait.

  “Gear check,” Bruni said, because the living required discipline. “Water skins? Cloth? Salve? Rope? Matches? Food you can chew with a burned mouth?”

  “Light,” Thane said, touching the staff. “If I must.”

  “Commands,” Tylane whispered, and Duskmaw’s ear flicked. The cat’s tongue rasped once over its teeth as if tasting the cold.

  “Still not captain,” Freyda said without heat.

  “Still not funny,” Garrick said without thinking, and the corner of his mouth twitched traitorously.

  They stood one heartbeat too long. The keep always tried to keep you, even when you assigned to the road.

  A voice from the wall called out, bright and cracked with sarcasm,

  “Have fun storming the lair!”

  Another voice answered, mocking and low, “Think they’ll win?”

  “Nah,” a third said, laughter leaking through the words, “they’re dead, mate.”

  The Circle didn’t look back. They knew the jeers came from the Favored Six, who were just jealous. The gates yawned wider, and they marched onto the cold road south.

  The road south was longer than any of them had ridden. A month’s grind down the mountain passes, through valleys still scarred by the robber baron’s march to the Guild, then across the open flats where caravans crept again like ants rediscovering an old trail.

  The Guild’s banners did not fly above them. No escort of masters, no proud trumpets. Just six riders, their gear heavy with the added weight of the Guild’s judgment pressing between their shoulders.

  Villages marked their passing. In the first, children peered out from behind shutters and mothers pulled them back quickly. In the second, a blacksmith set down his hammer and spat, not at them but near enough. In the third, a trader handed them a loaf of bread without asking for coin in return, then made a sign against evil on his breast.

  “They think we’re already ghosts,” Thane said on the third night, staring into a fire that refused to burn steadily in the wet.

  “They’re not wrong,” Freyda muttered, chewing meat that tasted of iron.

  “They are wrong,” Garrick said, firm enough that he made himself believe it for an hour.

  They trained as they traveled. When the road widened, Garrick barked orders and shoved them into mock shield walls, forcing Freyda and Vaelen to drive their rims into his claymore until his arms quivered.

  “Again!” Garrick snapped.

  “You love this too much,” Freyda growled, sweat shining on her cheek despite the cold.

  “I love not dying,” Garrick clarified.

  “Then quit shouting,” Freyda responded.

  “Oh, and…still not captain.”

  “Still not funny,” Garrick intoned, weary of the joke that had grown stale.

  Bruni snorted and shoved past them with her hammer slung across her back. “Both of you shut it or I’ll bless your mouths shut. We’re not winning against dragon fire with bickering.”

  At night Bruni blessed all of their gear, murmuring into iron and leather until even Garrick swore the buckles sat easier on his shoulders. Her prayers grew heavier every night, like she was anchoring each of them one at a time.

  Thane pushed himself. He scrawled runes in dirt until his fingers ached, muttering the syllables of wards until his throat cracked. One night he collapsed outright, and Bruni slapped him awake and made him drink water with her blessing still clinging to it.

  “You want to meet the dragon already half-burned?” she demanded.

  “I want to meet it with something more than sparks,” Thane croaked, and went back to work.

  Tylane drilled Duskmaw until the cat twitched at every whistle, every bow-tap, every snap of fingers. “Shadow. Return. Hold,” he whispered. The beast paced their camp like a dark thought let loose, eyes glinting when the fire popped. When Duskmaw finally curled up beside him, its tail lashed as if even sleep couldn’t hold its hunger.

  Vaelen said little. He rode at Garrick’s flank each day, the half-shield never far from reach, eyes peeled for anything that moved. Garrick grew used to Vaelen’s presence, which felt as natural as breathing.

  The land changed as they neared Ashfeng. Fields blackened, furrows scorched to glass. Bones fused into soil like fossils too fresh to bury. Stones lay cracked and melted, their faces bubbled like old cheese. The smell of brimstone sat thick in the air, carried on a wind that came only one way, out from the mountains ahead.

  No birds sang. No dogs barked. Even the insects had left. By the last week, the Circle spoke little. Conversation cost breath, and every breath tasted of smoke.

  “Looks like the mountain itself bled,” Bruni muttered once, when they found a stream running black with ash.

  “Maybe it did,” Thane whispered.

  The Ashfeng Cliffs rose jaggedly out of the plain, a crown of stone cracked and bleeding smoke. The road wound upward into a canyon that funneled the wind until it roared in their ears like voices. Heat came in waves, baking their faces, parching their throats.

  They reined in at the mouth of a fissure that cut into the cliff side. Smoke belched out in slow breaths, curling over them like fingers testing their shapes. The stones underfoot were slick with something that looked like tar but smelled like marrow.

  Duskmaw growled low, fur bristling.

  “Not yet,” Tylane said, though his own voice shook.

  They dismounted. Steel sang from sheaths, shields locked in place, staff tips glimmered faint with prepared light. Garrick stepped forward until heat licked his cheeks. Freyda joined him, round shield high, eyes narrow.

  The smoke thickened. Then it spoke. “I see little warriors who’ve come to play.”

  The mocking voice filled the canyon, bouncing from stone to stone until the words seemed older than the cliffs themselves. It had the cruel lilt of someone singing a song they already knew the end of.

  Bruni’s knuckles whitened on her hammer, Thane muttered syllables without sound.

  The smoke coiled tighter, and the voice came again, lower, heavier, prophetic. “Six. It’s always six.”

  The words struck deeper than fire, as if the beast had peeled back their story and seen the pattern carved beneath their skin. Garrick felt Freyda’s breath catch beside him. Vaelen’s shield trembled once, then steadied.

  And then, soft as breath against the back of the neck, intimate as a whisper meant for each of them alone,

  “Shall we play a game?”

  The fissure glowed red, and the mountain exhaled heat that tasted like blood. Then the fissure swallowed them whole.

  Heat struck first—licking their faces before the smoke even cleared. Inside, the stone walls glowed like banked coals, veins of molten light crawling through cracks. Each breath scalded the lungs; each step stirred ash that clung like oil to their boots. The cave stank of marrow and brimstone, a smell so heavy it seemed to sit in the teeth.

  “Shields high,” Garrick rasped. His own voice came back warped by the walls, as if a stranger had spoken.

  The cavern yawned wide. Lava pooled in pits, bubbling and spitting sparks that hung in the air like fireflies. The roof soared so high the glow of Thane’s staff could not touch it. The sound of the stone itself seemed alive, cracking and groaning under the weight of something immense. Heat rolled in waves, pressing sweat from their skin in seconds. The air itself tasted molten.

  Then the dragon moved. It was not a step, not a lunge—it was as if the mountain itself rose to meet them. Molten scales caught the glow of the pits, eyes like burning suns. Its wings brushed the cavern walls with the groan of shifting stone, then folded tight again. Its head dipped low, jaws opening to show teeth slick with fire.

  It wasted no more words. Flame poured from its throat.

  “Shields!” Garrick roared.

  The blast slammed into them. Freyda braced, round shield locked to her shoulder. Heat punched her backward, boots skidding on the ash-slick stone.

  Garrick planted himself beside her, claymore raised like it could cut flame. Vaelen locked his half-shield into the gap, wood already smoking. Leather straps scorched flesh where they touched skin.

  Bruni’s cloak caught fire, she slapped it out with her gauntlet as she prayed.

  The fire washed over them, blinding white-orange. It should have ended them there.

  Thane screamed syllables, forcing a ward into shape. Light bent, caught—and the worst of the blast curved, splitting around them. The effort caused blood to drip from his nose, but the veil held. Barely.

  “I can’t...hold…it,” he croaked.

  “You’ll hold!” Garrick shouted, though his throat was raw. “Steel forward!”

  The dragon lunged through its own flame. Jaws wide, teeth dripping fire. Garrick swung, claymore biting deep into the hinge of its mouth. Sparks and blood sprayed. The beast recoiled, shrieking, the sound like stone tearing. Its tail lashed, smashing the ground—rock split, fragments flying. One cracked against Freyda’s shield hard enough to numb her arm to the shoulder.

  “Iron peels. Flesh cooks. You will follow,” the dragon rumbled, voice contemptuous.

  “Push!” Freyda shouted, shoving her rim into its snout. Vaelen slammed the edge of his half-shield down on its teeth; sparks leapt where iron met scale. Garrick heaved his claymore back up, hacking again, the blade carving a shallow groove that smoked but did not bleed deep enough.

  Bruni lifted her hammer, voice raw. “Mercy, strike true!” She brought it down on the beast’s jaw. The sound rang like a bell, leaving only a dent. But the prayer surged outward, strength searing into the Circle’s bones. Garrick’s arms steadied. Freyda’s breath deepened. Vaelen felt his shield lighter for one heartbeat more.

  The dragon snarled, flame leaking between its teeth. “I smell your god in you. I will burn it out.”

  Tylane’s whistle cut through the roar. Duskmaw launched from the shadows, black muscle against firelight, claws sinking into the dragon’s face. The beast reared, bellowing, flame jetting wild. Lava hissed where it spattered stone. Duskmaw raked its eye—blood hissed, sizzling down its cheek. The jaguar yowled as heat scorched its fur, clinging until Tylane screamed, “Hold! Shadow, hold!” Only then did it spring free, fur smoking, landing heavy with a limp.

  The dragon’s tail whipped around again. It struck Freyda full across the ribs, hurling her against the wall. Her shield spun away.

  Garrick’s hand closed on Freyda’s arm before she hit stone and hauled her back into line.

  A second blow smashed into Vaelen’s shield. Wood cracked, iron bent. Splinters stung Garrick’s cheek. Vaelen’s arm shuddered under the impact, but he held fast.

  “On your feet!” Garrick barked at Freyda.

  “Always am,” she spat, blood between her teeth.

  The melee gave no quarter. Fire seared the floor, tail smashed the stone, claws swept wide enough to shear men in half. Every breath burned. Every strike cost more than it gave.

  Thane’s wards flickered, snapping under strain. Sparks burst from his palms as he tried to shape force darts, but only smoke came. He collapsed to one knee, staff shaking.

  Bruni stepped over him, hammer raised. A claw descended—she caught it on her haft. The blow nearly folded her arm. She screamed, braced, shoved back with the last of her strength.

  “Stand!” she roared at Thane. “Stand or we die!”

  “I…I can’t” Thane’s voice cracked, smoke in his lungs.

  “You’re not done!” Bruni bellowed, slamming her hammer into the stone. Light burst outward, washing across the Circle. Wounds closed a fraction. Garrick’s breath drew easier. Freyda’s torn shoulder knit enough for her to lift her sword again. Duskmaw steadied under Tylane’s hand. For a moment, hope flickered.

  But the glow dimmed fast. Bruni staggered, blood running from her nose. “That’s, all I had.”

  The dragon’s eyes gleamed. “A sting. That is all you are. Insects that sting before they die.” It surged forward. Fire swept over them again.

  Garrick’s arms quivered. The shield he carried for the others, not wood, but duty, bent under the fire. The claymore dragged heavy in his hands. He struck anyway, the blade carving another shallow groove. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

  The dragon’s claws tore the ground where Thane knelt. Vaelen slammed his shield down, catching the blow that would have gutted the mage. The force cracked the iron boss, but Vaelen shoved back with every ounce he had, saving Garrick’s life for the second time that day.

  Garrick spared Vaelen a glance, grim and grateful, then swung again.

  Freyda screamed defiance, shield gone, sword in both hands. She hacked at the beast’s snout, blow after blow. Blood sprayed at last, hot and smoking.

  The dragon roared, its head snapping toward her. Garrick saw the jaws open wide. He lunged, shoving her aside as the teeth closed on empty air. The air shook with the bite.

  The Circle staggered, bloodied, burned, backs to the fissure. The dragon loomed, wings spreading, fire building again in its throat. Garrick knew it then. Another breath, another heartbeat—they would die here.

  “Out!” he roared. His voice scraped raw. “Out, now!”

  “We can hold,” Freyda gasped.

  “No!” Garrick shoved her toward the fissure. “We die here, or we live to tell it! Out!”

  Vaelen braced his splintered shield long enough for Garrick to drag Freyda back. Tylane whistled, calling Duskmaw from the flames. The jaguar limped, fur burned in patches, but obeyed. Bruni hoisted Thane over her shoulder, stumbling under his weight, but she did not stop.

  The dragon’s fire chased them. The fissure walls glowed as the flame poured through, heat blistering their skin even as they ran. Rocks split and fell around them. The roar followed them, shaking their bones. Smoke clawed their throats, turned breath into knives. They staggered, stumbled, crawled.

  Light broke ahead. Daylight. Garrick shoved the others through, last to leave. Fire lashed at his back as he dove into the gray beyond. They collapsed on the stones outside, coughing blood. Armor scorched, shields broken.

  Bruni tore melted leather from Thane’s arm, the smell of burned flesh making her gag. He lived. Barely. Duskmaw lay on its side, chest heaving, fur charred. Tylane pressed his head to the beast’s neck, whispering nonsense until the jaguar blinked.

  Freyda sat hard, sword across her knees. “We didn’t win.”

  “We weren’t meant to,” Garrick said, voice hollow.

  Vaelen lowered his ruined shield, arm trembling. “They sent us to die.”

  From deep in the fissure came the dragon’s voice, still alive, still furious: “Go. Carry my fire in your scars. Let them know ash has teeth.”

  The Circle looked back. Smoke roiled from the fissure, shot through with fire. The mountain trembled with the dragon’s wrath. No one spoke. There was nothing left to say.

  Six had marched south. Six walked out of the fire. Barely. They staggered out into the night air, armor blackened and lungs raw with smoke. The cavern behind them smoldered, a wound still hissing in the earth.

  None of them spoke at first. Freyda set her shield down and leaned against it, her breath ragged, her arms trembling from the weight she had borne. She looked at the others, counted them once, then again. Six still stood. She pressed her palm to the boss of her shield and whispered, “Not my name. Not tonight.” The words were a vow, spoken to the shrine, to the ledger, and to the dead whose ink had barely dried.