Page 6 of Chained to the Champion
I almost asked what that word meant, but I bit my tongue. There was something in Zarvash's gaze daring me to ask. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
I meant to keep watch. I meant to stay sharp. Instead, my thoughts circled: Kira’s missing sister, Plaktish’s sneer, Khorlar’s shadow, Zarvash’s heat. Every muscle vibrated with too many promises and too little hope. Fear, or hunger, made my skin tight, my breath quick, the space between us electric.
God, what was wrong with me?
I kept my knife in hand, my back to the rock, the last echo of warmth already fading. I waited for the suns and the promises of new danger. The world out there didn’t scare me half as much as what crawled under my skin, looking at him, at the space that kept shrinking, no matter how far I tried to run.
There was no going back.
Tomorrow it was Ignarath, and the chance none of us would survive it.
Tonight? Just the two of us, and the fire that I couldn’t let die.
3
ZARVASH
Ignarath’s borderlands sprawled,wild and pitiless, every shadow a blade, every shimmer of heat a warning. My wing burned; it was a punishment I’d earned, a badge I’d wear until the gods grew bored of my pain. I tuned it out. Weakness was a mouthful of blood, and I spat it.
Vega moved near me, not behind, not truly beside, but in that liminal warzone where equals prowl, always testing the boundary between trust and violence. Her anger was a spill of hot metal, her vigilance riding the edge of a blade. I tasted it in the air as keenly as any enemy’s scent.
I wanted her at my back, in my teeth, out from under my skin. It twisted into warning until I couldn't tell the difference.
We slipped through sharp stone and scattered bones, chasing shade like hunted things, every step another wager against Volcaryth’s hate. I logged every detail: the wind’s yowl, grit under my claws, the staccato cadence of her breath. The city was close. I could taste it on the wind: smoke, hot iron, and ambition stripped clean of mercy.
She kept her silence, but her eyes carved lines in my skull. Calculating. Turning every possibility until the outcomes bled dry. I stalked ahead, forcing focus, because letting myself look ather, a mistake, every time, would strip flesh from bone and leave only need.
“We hold to the gully.” My voice was sand and stone. “The shadows should shield us. If patrols catch us?—”
“They’ll skin us for boots.” Her lip curled, half a sneer, half a cutting smile. “I’m not here to die slowly, Zarvash.”
“Neither am I.” My tail lashed, anger my only armor. “Keep moving. Quietly. Luck’s the only thing we’ve got left.”
Her laugh was knife-edged. “If that’s the plan, dig my grave shallow. Don’t waste the effort.”
I grunted, no warmth in it. “You want a guarantee, find a softer world.”
She flung a look at me, sharp, burned-out amusement sparking under the sand, and something in me twisted with it, ugly and unfinished.
Ahead, the land caved into a saddle of blackened bone, crusted by fire. Beyond was Ignarath’s skyline, spires like spears stabbed through the world’s throat, banners raking the sky so high even the light seemed to bleed.
She stared at the city’s edge. Her mouth was all iron, but her fingers flexed like she was already closing them around someone’s windpipe. “How do we get past the walls?”
I stopped, jaw locked. My scales itched to move, to drag her away and leave the damn city behind. “Flying’s suicide. There are archers all along the walls, and you’ll find your wings nailed over the gates for trying to fly in without permission.” Not that we could try it with my injured wing.
She wiped sweat from her brow, jaw set hard. “So, we go in the front door?”
“We'll have to try it. But they’ll gut you for breathing wrong.”
“Figures.” She hiked her pack higher. “Going to charm us through?”
“Charm’s wasted here.” I jerked my chin at the haze over the wall. “They see you, they see fresh meat. They see me, and they see a threat. It doesn’t matter. No one's looking for friends.”
She moved in my shadow, step for step. “Do you have a trick tucked away? Some secret passage you forgot to mention?”
There was no trick. Only lies. “I'm still thinking.” It tasted like dust. I could think of only one way to get Vega into the city, and she wouldn't like it.
Her laugh was a cough, bitter. “Improvising in the wastelands. That's sure to work.”
