I throw my arms over my head and wait for the burning.
It doesn’t come.
When I look up, there’s a man standing on the ridge above me. Tall, broad, built for violence rather than display. Scars mark visible skin—old scars, the kind that come from centuries of combat. His eyes track the few surviving scouts.
The scouts scatter.
He doesn’t chase them. He watches them run with an expression I can’t quite read—not satisfaction, not boredom. Clinical evaluation.
Then those eyes drop to me.
Fire bleeds from him in waves. Dragon blaze, barely contained. The inferno in his blood reaching toward the surface even at rest.
My bloodline stirs. That same recognition I experienced when I read his name.
Kaster Nexis.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t offer a hand. Stares at me like I’m a problem he hasn’t decided how to solve.
“I was looking for you.” The words come out rougher than I intended. Blood still crusts my face from earlier. My hands shake.
His expression doesn’t change. “Why?”
One word. Without inflection. Final. The kind of voice that expects answers and doesn’t waste breath on pleasantries.
“Because you kill monsters.” I push myself to my feet. My legs tremble, but they hold. “Because they’re hunting me. Because?—”
I stop.
Because my magic knows you. Because my dreams changed when I heard your name. Because you’re standing between me and death, and I don’t know why.
I can’t say any of that. He’ll think I’m insane.
“Because I can make them stay down.” I meet his gaze. “Permanently.”
For a long moment, nothing happens. He stares at me with those level eyes, weighing, calculating, deciding.
Then he turns and walks away.
“Wait—”
I stare at his retreating back. Every survival instinct I possess screams that following a solitary dragon into unknown territory is suicide. He’s not offering protection. He’s not offering an alliance. He’s offering... tolerance. Maybe.
The scouts will regroup. More will come. The gods or whoever controls them won’t stop until I’m dead, and I can’t kill enough of them alone.
I follow.
He moves fast,even on foot. Long strides that eat up the distance, never checking to see if I’m behind him. The terrain doesn’t slow him—he navigates the rocky ground like he’s walked it a thousand times before.
He probably has.
I keep pace through sheer stubbornness. My body screams for rest. The Anchor flickers weakly, not quite replenished from the earlier use. Blood has dried on my face, pulling at my skin.
None of it matters. If I stop, I die.
The sky bleeds orange and red as the sun sinks lower. The temperature drops with it, but fire rolls back to me from where he walks ahead—that constant dragon blaze that marks his kind. It presses against my skin, fills the cooling air. It should be uncomfortable. Instead, it’s the only thing in this world that doesn’t feel like ending.
We walk for hours in silence. He doesn’t ask my name. Doesn’t ask what I can do or why the monsters want me dead.
