Stone rushed up to meet her.
Zephiron's talons released at the last moment. Veyna hit the ground hard, boots skidding on rock. Her knees buckled, breath punched from her lungs—but somehow, she stayed upright.
New instincts—alien, unfamiliar—caught her balance before thought could.
She straightened slowly, one hand brushing her shoulders, half-expecting pain.
Nothing.
Only the lingering heat where Zephiron's claws had gripped her, steady and careful.
The cliff and sky still loomed behind her—the broken ledge, Kael's threat, the pirate ship circling above.
But ahead, the ruin opened, its mouth swallowing sound and light in one slow, deliberate breath.
She stood at the threshold, where stone gave way to shadow—narrow, jagged, waiting.
Runes shifted faintly across the walls, alive with slow, deliberate motion, crawling like veins of lightning.
Zephiron landed behind her, wings folding close.
Instinct pressed them forward, but reason urged caution.
For a breath, they stood between the two.
"Standing still won't save Taren," Veyna muttered.
Zephiron's breath stirred the cold air beside her.
Not backward. Only forward. Vipers wait behind.
He shuddered—a flicker of memory passing through the bond, too quick and jagged for Veyna to catch. Only the echo of old pain remained, heavy in the air between them.
She hesitated—then reached out, almost without thinking.
But fear gripped her halfway there, freezing her in place.
The helplessness slammed into her—sharp and bitter. Like standing at Taren's bedside again, hands empty, heart breaking.
Slowly, she lowered her hand.
The ache stayed, lodged sharp beneath her ribs.
She took a breath, meaning to move.
Before she could, Zephiron brushed her shoulder with the edge of his snout, a quiet touch, light and uncertain.
Veyna froze, the simple contact stealing the air from her lungs.
It left her blinking, stunned by a kindness she'd never thought possible from the very creature she had been raised to relentlessly hunt.
Silent tears slid down her cheeks before she even realized.
She wiped them away with a rough swipe of her sleeve, squared her shoulders, and gave Zephiron a small, shaky smile.
The thread between them pulled tighter, stronger than before.
Together, they turned and crossed into the dark.
Stone devoured the last thread of light behind them, and the chill ahead hit like a living thing.
Veyna shifted, bracing against the sudden cold.
Without thinking, she moved a step closer to Zephiron's heat.
Zephiron brushed her flank with a wingtip—subtle, sure—matching her stride without slowing.
Every step rang too loud, as if the ruin listened—and remembered.
Veyna's gaze caught on the shifting runes surrounding them, and she reached out, brushing the wall with her fingertips.
The stone shivered under her touch—old magic, slow and cold, heavy with the memory of the Vryndari who had built this place.
She remembered the warnings—the mysterious folly that brought the Stormfall, the day the dragons turned against them.
A shiver ran through her, tangled in fear and wonder.
They rounded a bend. The corridor widened.
A hollow question stirred in her chest, quieter than fear but harder to silence.
What made her and Zephiron different?
A chamber unfolded before them—vast, circular, soaked in shadow. Glyphs spiraled up the walls, some nearly erased, others glowing faintly as she approached.
She stepped into the space, heart tight.
For a breath, she looked back at Zephiron.
Something passed between them—caution, trust, a silent agreement to search carefully.
He drifted toward the edges, wings folding tighter against his sides.
She moved slower, drawn forward by something she couldn't name toward the center.
Somewhere in the dark, water dripped steadily, the sound hollow and sharp.
A thin film of water slicked the floor, turning brittle with ice the nearer she drew to the center.
Zephiron prowled along the edges, his presence a low, unsettled hum through the bond.
She edged closer to the heart of the room, the pull of something unseen tightening around her ribs.
The cold thickened, pressing against her skin, heavy as breathless air.
"Do you feel that?" she asked under her breath, her voice swallowed by the cavernous dark.
Zephiron's answer brushed back—wary, rough.
Watching. And being watched.
The bond pulsed low between them, wary and tight.
Veyna swallowed, glancing once toward the curling dark.
Something out there was aware of them—old, patient, waiting.
From the edges of the room, Zephiron shifted—his heat brushing faintly against the cold air as he began to move back toward her.
She forced herself forward, every step loud in the growing hush.
As her boots cracked across the fragile ice, something shifted.
Faint light flared from the glyphs—cold, pale, rippling outward from the center like a slow heartbeat.
Shadows fled just enough for her to see: walls spiraled high into darkness, every surface slicked with shallow pools of water and scattered glyphwork.
She swept her gaze around the chamber, searching the lit edges for another door, another path—anything.
Nothing.
No open corridors. No hidden exits.
Only the sprawling glyphs, shifting and waiting.
She swallowed, the weight of it sinking deep into her chest.
"It's a dead end," she said quietly. "What do we do now?"
Taren's face surfaced—pale, his fingers trembling from effort even as he tried to smile—and the ache behind her ribs sharpened.
Zephiron arrived beside her, his presence pressing close, the low rumble of unease stirring in his chest.
Fear flickered through the bond—hers, his, tangled too tightly to tell apart.
She flinched from the thought of Taren slipping away.
He recoiled from the memory of the pirates waiting behind.
The bond twisted between them—sharp with panic, frustration, helplessness, pulling them apart even as the magic built too fast to stop.
Veyna's breath hitched, her vision narrowing. Zephiron tensed, a ripple of broken instinct flaring across the bond—heat and noise, fear and anger, too much.
"I can't lose him!" she snapped, the words spilling before she could stop them.
Zephiron bared his teeth in a low, frustrated snarl.
I won't go back!
Veyna hugged her arms tight against her ribs, trying to hold herself still.
Zephiron shifted his weight, his body taut, the bond straining like a frayed rope between them.
The rush of fear and anger surged—wild and unchecked.
Magic burst free before either could stop it.
Twin spheres of translucent fire exploded outward from them, burning a brilliant, fluctuating gold, slamming into the floor, the walls, and the vaulted ceiling.
Steam hissed around them as the surrounding frost boiled away.
The ruin shuddered under the force of it.
The floor groaned—then cracked—then buckled in a roar of grinding stone.
A spiral staircase yawned open in the broken floor, winding down into darkness.
Warm air followed, heavy with the scent of old storms.
Veyna staggered, chest tight, steam clinging to her skin.
For a moment, there was only the hiss of cooling stone and the hollow thud of her own heartbeat.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, the words slipping out.
Zephiron closed his eyes briefly, and after a long beat, a raw thread of thought brushed through the bond—hesitant.
I lost her to them.
Veyna swallowed the questions rising in her throat—who she was, what had happened.
He would tell her if and when he was ready.
The bond calmed—no longer slipping away from their control.
After a moment, she stepped toward the stair, and Zephiron followed without hesitation.
Together, they descended into the broken heart of the ruin.