“You look like death,” Lucien notes as I step outside the Combat Tent , holding out a cheese roll toward me.
“Thanks,” I mutter, taking it and shovelling it into my mouth.
It’s half-eaten, barely tasted, and forced down just enough to sit heavy and wrong in my stomach—perfectly timed for me to haul myself onto JC a few minutes later and try not to throw the whole thing up.
When I eventually return to camp and wash off the vomit, there are always more recruits and family members arriving.Even with the evacuations slowing, space is filling up fast, and last night I swear I saw people sleeping in the Briefing Tent.
“There are six of us,” one of the new arrivals complains later that week, pointing into the tent I led his group to.
“I know,” I acknowledge, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s only for now.”
“But this barely fits four!”
I open my mouth, torn between arguing back and apologising, but before I can choose, the dragon warning bell goes off, and we all race inside.
As the endof the month approaches and the first leaves start to yellow, something in the camp has shifted.
Things were always tense, but people used to carry that tension with hope. Now they seem to carry it with fear.
“A black mist?” Matterson, one of the riders, asks across from me when Darren returns late to dinner one evening.
Cold air catches in my lungs as I watch Darren’s lips pull thin, his skin already paling under the flickering candlelight.
“Nex and I couldn’t even get close before it started messing with our Threads…” He shakes his head and pulls Neeve toward him. “Whatever he’s building in there—with all the pure Threads he’s harvesting—it’s growing...”
Shit, this isn't just things getting worse… This is something else. I tell myself it’s fine, that we still have time, that nothing changes. But it doesn’t feel true.
Darren continues talking, keeping his voice low, but the words don’t stay contained—they spread quickly through the camp until everyone’s heard some version of it.
I thought the increased panic would take the pressure off teaching, that finally everyone would listen. But they don’t. One-eyed Lee hasn’t taken another swing at me, but that’s onlybecause he’s too distracted now, too wired, his focus flicking toward the tent flaps at every sound. And Ezzy has stopped coming entirely.
She’s been staying in the kitchen for the last week or so. Not that she needs to come; she’s already an expert compared to this. Still, I worry her silence around me has turned into avoidance.
“Give her more time,” Neeve comforts me, after class the following weekend, noticing the tear I’m trying to hide as we leave the Briefing Tent. “I know it’s been a month since she woke up—but don’t try to force things with her yet, it won’t help. Trust me, I learnt that the hard way with Darren—and hechoseto leave the Citadel. Ezzy was taken from it.”
Shrugging, I give her a half smile because Ezzy’s right to avoid me. It was my actions that dragged her here, away from her family, from everything she’s ever known. My choices that led to Rowan’s death. To Finn being gone.
A streak of green sweeps past us as Ahria swoops out from behind me and beelines for the Food Tent opposite, where Darren waits outside, his eyes narrowed on me.
“How’s things going with you two?” Nodding toward him, I force back the feelings before the tears can slip any further, before Ahria can see any of it, and change the subject. “Have you talked properly yet? I heard you wake up the other night—are you still having the dreams?”
Neeve’s lips twitch. “No, I haven't found the right moment to talk to him yet.” Her gaze flick to Darren then back to me as she pulls her braid forward, twisting it through her fingers. “The dreams are getting more vivid now though—not just the images, but the feelings. It’s like this pain I’ve never felt before, as though something’s being torn away from me each time I wake up and I realise their red body isn’t there curled up beside me.”
Her voice wavers and I step a little closer, resting a hand on her shoulder as she keeps talking. I get it—the dreams I hadabout Ahria when I was in the Citadel were like that too. By the end, waking without her there left this hollow ache in my chest, and I didn’t even know what it meant. But Neeve does; she knows it’s her dragon, she knows they’re out there. I’m so focused on listening to her that I don’t register the footsteps until they stop right beside us.
“Hope you’re not talking my fiancée into entering the Blood Moon?” Darren’s voice makes us both jump.
“No, I—” I start to push back. I’m way too tired for his bullshit, but Neeve’s quicker.
“Lyra was simply helping me with some Thread work,” she exclaims, smoothing over the crack in her voice as if it were never there, and lifting onto her toes to press a quick kiss to his lips.
The change in him is immediate, the tension in his expression loosens and his eyes soften in a way I haven’t seen for weeks. For a moment he stays there, looking at her like everything else has dropped away, like she’s the only thing that matters.
“Come on,” he finally huffs, the edge gone from his tone now as he hooks an arm around her waist and draws her in against his side. “Let's get some food.”
Pulling back the canvas flap, they head inside together, but I hang back. Partly to give them space so they can talk about her dreams. Partly because I don't trust myself not to say something to him that I'll regret later.
I know Neeve loves him, but I'm starting to think she could do better.
