Page 140 of The Last Dragon
And now I’m trying to unmake myself. But how do you escape something that lives inside your bones?
I feel so powerless.
Sam’s eyes are still on me—gentle and patient. But that patience only makes it worse. It stresses me out.
Where could I even go? Not Pirlem—it’s too far. Too obvious. Grogol would know. Nedersen—Valous’ tavern is nothing but ash now. Gone. Only one place remains. The place I swore I’d never get involved.
“Old Man Tyras,” I whisper, the name catching in my throat like a splinter. It tastes like betrayal. ”Grogol saw him at the gate when Tyras spoke about the whispers. He’ll—He’ll remember the name.”
It squeezes my heart. Because going there means turning my back on the only people who’ve ever seen me as something more than the monster the Corps made me. Something human. Sam’s eyes flicker, dropping his head down to the fading wooden floorboards. He shuffles his feet and slowly nods.
“Okay,” he says.
And two heartbeats is all it takes.
“We need to warn him,” I blurt, the words clawing out before I can stop them—before I can pretend I hadn’t just spoken Tyras’ name aloud. But the moment it leaves me, I want to drag it back down my throat. “I can send Sarga to warn him that Grogol will look—”
“No.” Sam’s voice cuts clean through the storm in my chest. “He can’t know. You can’t—” He swallows, jaw working, hands curling into fists at his sides. “It needs to lookreal.”
His eyes meet mine, and there it is—buried behind all the strategy and calculations—grief. It hurts him to say it. Hurts me to hear it. There’s no other way.
“If Tyras isn’t there, he’ll know it was me,” Sam says, his voice breaking around the edges.
“Grogol will kill him,” I whisper, the words cracking under the weight of the lump in my throat. Sam tries to hide his flinch, but I see it.
“I’ll do everything I can to convince Grogol to spare him,” he says, softer now. “If you’re not there, Grogol might think keeping Tyras alive could draw you out. Use him as bait.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
“No,” he whispers, “I can’t. But I have to try.”
Silence settles between us—thick, suffocating. Rain patters against the stone walls outside, and somewhere far below, a bell tolls. I feel like I’m splintering. Every part of me is being pulled in opposite directions—loyalty, guilt, vengeance. Love. I stare at my hands. The tips of my fingers are stained with ash and charcoal, a dark shade that mirrors the color of my veins.
How can someone like me feel this way?
“He’s an old man, Sam,” I breathe. “He’s done nothing but try to help me when I was young. Alone. Barely a soldier. And now we’re handing him over to the wolves.” Sam steps forward, close enough that I feel the warmth of him, steady and solid.
“I know,” he says. “But you’re not just a regular soldier. You’re the only one with a real shot at bringing the Corps down. If Tyras knew the stakes, he’d make the same choice.”
“I’m tired of people making choices for me.” I clench my fists at my side.
“I know.” Sam’s voice is ragged now, too. “But this time, you’re choosing. You’re choosing the rebellion. Thetruth.”
I look up at him. “Don’t get him killed.”
This better be worth it. Because I don’t know how many more pieces of my soul I can sacrifice before there’s nothing left.
“Where will you be instead?” Eryca asks.
“There’s a cave,” I say quietly. “Not far from the Front’s border—close to Nedersen. It’s about the same distance as Tyras’ place. Maybe less.”
Eryca turns without a word, retrieving a sheet of paper and pen from the table behind her. She lays them out in front of me. “Draw it,” she says. “No matter how sloppy.”
I grab the pen, fingers still stiff from the cold. A rough outline forms beneath my hand—lines jagged, uneven. But it’s enough.
“I was there with Nida… before she got attacked by the Redsnout.” My voice catches on the last word.
The Redsnout.
