The flower.
I recognized it immediately as the same one I’d seen on the shores of Lyoness before the vampyre attack–the magickal one that had caused me to neglect my duties to Wren.
Why was it here, jammed between Veskor’s scales like a bad reminder? Did it matter?
I’d hate to be defined by all my past mistakes. Was it fair to judge Veskor by them?
I knew immediately in my heart what I would do.
“Nasi,” I called out.
He poked his head out of the tunnel, confused.
“Nasi,” I repeated, more firmly this time. “Help me.”
There was a beat—just one—where I thought he might refuse. Then he nodded and moved toward me swiftly. He only said one thing to me. “Why?”
“Because I know what it’s like,” I said, my voice quieter than the storm, but no less steady, “to need a second chance.”
The words sat heavy between us. After a moment, Nasi smiled, the expression bitter sweet and full of his own private pain.
“True enough.” Nasi gazed down at him. He brushed snow from Veskor’s face. “He’s still breathing.”
“Good,” I replied.
We moved in tandem without needing to speak further. Nasi took his shoulders, I took his legs, lifting him carefully from the snow. Dead weight again, but manageable between us. Veskor’s head lolled to the side, snow falling away from his hair as we raised him. For someone who had fought like a cornered animal moments ago, he was frighteningly still now.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We carried him toward the tunnel which stretched before us, dark and narrow, a sharp contrast to the blinding white of the storm. Nasi tensed, and I knew the draken sense of claustrophobia was squeezing him, the walls of snow pressing down on us.
I tried to ignore it. This was the safest, shielded from the wind and the snow. Varun would not lead us astray.
Benedict will not like this. He’ll be even more mad at you.
Oh well. Wren wouldn’t be and in our mateship, Wrencould hold the final say. If I could just explain my side, I felt confident Veskor would stand a chance.
Every step into the tunnel felt like crossing a line I couldn’t go back from.
That was fine.
Cold snow walls eventually sloped upwards, giving way to damp earth. It was quiet down here as the storm raged above us. My muscles ached and my body hurt–probably too much exposure to the cold. The sound of digging still echoed faintly ahead: Varun’s pack finishing the passage through to Hoveria.
Ahead, there was only darkness and whatever waited on the other side. We carried Veskor forward anyway. Whatever happened, we were all in it together. I realized, as we carried him through the tunnels, what I’d actually learned from Benedict through everything we’d been through: survival wasn’t about who deserved to live. It was about who you refused to leave behind. And I had left enough people in the snow already.
The stone fortress should have been a ruin by now, but it wasn’t. The Mountain Men had rebuilt it.
Walls once shattered by the Overlord’s wrath were repaired with dark basalt.
Bridges once collapsed now stretched strong and seamless. Torches burned gold in the windows where once there had been nothing but darkness.
A lump lodged in my throat.
Hoveria—once our cage, once our prison—now looked like a home restored. Canavar descended first, bearing Veskor over his shoulders. Nasi followed, landing with fluidgrace. I hit the ground last with Perri, legs buckling before I steadied myself.
Mountain Men soldiers rushed forward, spearpoints flashing.
Then the line broke.
