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I crept up beside him, pressing my shoulder against a petrified trunk, and peered over the edge of the rocky shelf into the ravine ten feet below.

The sight locked the breath in my throat.

Tucked into the bottom of the rocky ditch, half-buried in a pile of sharp, shattered basalt and black mud, was a dragon hatchling.

It was tiny compared to the titan that had attacked our camp. Perhaps eight feet long from its blunt snout to its whip-like tail, about the size of a warhorse. Its scales were a dark, iridescent crimson, glittering like crushed rubies beneath the damp coat of river mist. But the creature was trapped in a nightmare.

A colossal petrified ironwood trunk—a three-foot-wide log weighing hundreds of pounds—had fallen directly across the gully, pinning the hatchling’s lower torso and left wing beneath its crushing weight.

The young beast was thrashing in sheer, unadulterated agony. Its pinned wing was bent at an impossible, sickening angle, the delicate leather membrane torn to shreds, silver dragon blood pooling in the volcanic mud beneath its body. Every time it tried to heave its chest to breathe, the immense weight of the petrified log pressed down harder, slowly crushing its lungs and ribs.

Its slitted crimson eyes were wild with primal, suffocating panic. Small, pathetic bursts of grey smoke and tiny amber sparks erupted from its nostrils as it let out another ragged, clicking cry for help. A call echoing uselessly into the vast expanse of the black forest.

A sudden, sharp ache bloomed in my chest.

“A hatchling,” I breathed, my voice tight. “The storm or the dragon fire last night must have brought the ironwood down on top of it.”

“It’s a corpse,” Mal corrected coldly, not even bothering to lower his voice as he looked down at the thrashing reptile. “Its wing is ruined, its ribs are crushed, and it’s pinned in an open ditch. Leave it.”

He turned on his heel, preparing to step back onto the main ridge trail.

“Wait,” I said, reaching out to hook my gloved fingers around the leather strap of his chest harness. “Mal, look at it. It’s alive. If we leave it here, the weight is going to crush its lungs before noon, or the scent of its blood will draw every scavenger on the mountain.”

Mal stopped. He turned his head slowly, looking at my hand on his harness, then up into my eyes. His expression stiffened into the face of a vanguard warrior who had learned long ago that mercy was a luxury that got people killed.

“Are you insane, Princess?” Mal rasped, his hazel eyes burning with a hard, dangerous crimson. “That is a wild predator. Even at that size, its jaw carries enough pressure to snap your arm off at the shoulder. And more importantly—where there is a hatchling, there is a mother.”

He leaned in closer, his physical heat hitting my face in the freezing air, his voice dropping to a harsh, lethal whisper. “If the mother is circling in these clouds, or if she smells us touching her offspring, she won’t just burn us, Tauriel. She will tear us into ribbons and feed what’s left of us to her nest. We walk away. Now.”

I looked back down into the gully. The young dragon let out another sharp, agonizing click, its crimson eyes rolling back in terror as it fought for a single fraction of an inch of air. Its slitted pupil caught mine through the swirling grey mist—a raw, terrified plea for survival that mirrored the exact, desperate panic I had felt when I was locked in the dark vaults of the citadel, waiting for the court to decide my fate.

If I walked away... if I left a living, breathing creature to suffocate in the mud out of pure, self-preserving cowardice... then I was no better than the high lords who had treated me like disposable dirt my entire life.

I let go of Mal’s harness. I stepped toward the edge of the gully.

“I’m not leaving it,” I said, my voice quiet, absolute, and devoid of hesitation.

Mal stared at me as if I had suddenly sprouted a second head. A wave of pure fury flashed across his sharp features, his jaw clenching so hard a corded muscle jumped along his neck.

“Listen to me, you foolish girl,” Mal growled, stepping into my path, his hand coming down hard on my unbranded shoulder. “This isn’t a courtly pet. It isn’t a wounded dog. It is an apex killer born of fire and shadow. If you go down into that ditch, you are exposing yourself to every threat on this mountain. You are choosing a suicide mission.”

I met his glare, my chin held high, my green eyes burning with unyielding defiance. “Then don’t follow me.”

Mal froze. The silence between us turned deafening, thick with the heavy, unbridgeable chasm of our differing natures. Mal was a warrior of order, of survival, of calculated military strategy. He survived by following orders. I survived by breaking every rule that tried to keep me on my knees.

Slowly, Mal dropped his hand from my shoulder. His eyes turned cold, hollowed out by a bitter, disgust-filled detachment.

“Fine,” Mal spat, stepping back, his voice cut from jagged glass. “Die for a reptile then, Princess. I am not a martyr for your pathetic, soft-hearted self-righteousness. I’m going to the caldera. And I am not looking back.”

Unbelievable.

After dragging his heavy ass away from the dragon last night, he couldn't even spare five minutes.

Without waiting for a reply, Mal turned his back on me. He picked up his stride, his heavy boots crunching into the volcanic ash as he marched up the ridge trail alone, his shadow dissolving into the thick grey fog until he vanished completely.

I was entirely alone.

I didn’t let myself watch him go. I couldn’t afford to.