Meanwhile, in Morthul.

  The plantations were no longer fields; they were graveyards of ash. Cinder lay where wheat had once stood, crunching under their boots like broken bone. Charred stumps marked the ghosts of trees. The air stank of sour smoke and rotting magic, as if someone had boiled ARK shards and spilled the sludge across the earth. Each breath coated the throat with grit and bitter chemicals.

  Edduuhf, Abhoof, and Toumar walked the blackened rows in a thin line. Villagers watched from shattered doorways and makeshift barricades, cheeks carved sharp by hunger. No one called them councilors. No one called them anything at all.

  “You think your golden halls feed us?” a woman finally shouted, her voice scraping raw against the silence. “You come to count what you let burn?”

  Others took up the cry. “Thieves!” “Late!” “Go back to your tower and choke on our names!”

  And woven between curses came the whispers, soft and dangerous. “Fire will cleanse it.” “The Awakening burns the rot away.” “He said the dragons are the first sign.”

  The word Awakening moved through the crowd like a fever.

  Abhoof flinched at every mention. His jaw trembled, hands fidgeting with the folds of his cloak. “They think the world will be reborn in flame. They want us erased and call it holy.”

  Edduuhf lifted his eyes to the horizon. Far above, two distant shapes glided behind the low red smear of dawn clouds. Huge shadows, circling. Waiting.

  “It’s doctrine now,” he said grimly. “And someone’s feeding it.”

  ?

  The morning sky over Morthul sagged heavy and low, a lid pressed down on a boiling pot. A sour wind blew from the foothills, thick with sulfur and the wrong kind of ozone the smell of ARK shards detonated by hands that didn’t understand them.

  Edduuhf and Abhoof moved along the edge of town with Toumar between and behind them, the human’s greatsword rising over his shoulder like a long shard of frozen forest. The burned soil crunched under their boots, black and glassy in places where uncontrolled magic had fused dirt into something harder and uglier.

  Around the central square, Morthul had dressed itself for a ritual instead of a market. Carts had been dragged into a ring. Banners torn from Eldorian crests hung in strips, repainted with crooked symbols trying to be runes. A bonfire crackled in the center, fed with broken furniture, old signs, and scraps of painted cloth.

  Men and women crowded around it, clutching rods wrapped in twine with ARK fragments tied at the ends. The shards pulsed weakly, anemic flickers of blue and red that spat little sparks whenever they jostled together. They were chanting in broken syllables stolen from half-burned scrolls, spoken like recipes they didn’t understand.

  “The Awakening purifies, the Awakening devours.”

  Voices broke and wavered with fear dressed as faith.

  Edduuhf’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth hurt. “This reeks of a trap.”

  “They don’t care,” Abhoof answered, voice scraped thin. “They’d rather gamble with fire than starve quietly.”

  Toumar’s hand tightened on the leather strap over his chest. “They’re not gambling. They’re being aimed.”

  They pushed through the edge of the crowd. Heat from the bonfire rolled over them, carrying the stink of burning paint and resin. Someone had carved a rough circle of symbols into the packed earth around the fire, a bastardized resonance pattern with lines slashed in the wrong directions, arcs crossing where they shouldn’t.

  “Stop,” Edduuhf called, forcing his voice to carry without shouting. “Put the stones down. You don’t know what you’re invoking.”

  A gaunt man with wild eyes spun on him, ARK rod shaking in his grip. “We know exactly what we’re doing. You had your chance! Council grain. Council promises. Council delays. Now the flame chooses who’s worthy!”

  A murmur of agreement rippled around the circle. Some voices trembled. Others didn’t.

  Abhoof stepped forward, hands open, bare, trembling. “This is not how you…”

  The ground answered before he could finish.

  The earth shuddered under their boots, a violent pulse punching up from soil into bone. The bonfire surged, flames twisting into a spiraling column that stabbed toward the sky.

  ARK shards tied around the circle screamed, rods shaking in villagers’ hands. Cracks raced through the crystals, light leaking in jagged bursts. Symbols carved in the dirt flared, then split apart as if the earth itself rejected them.

  “Drop them!” Edduuhf roared.

  No one did. The ritual ruptured. The bonfire exploded upward in a pillar of raw, jagged energy, red and white and ugly. The sound it made was a shriek. Heat slammed outward, knocking people flat. Ale barrels burst. A nearby roof caught fire as if it had been soaked in oil.

  Then the roar came from the sky.

  Two shapes tore down through the clouds. One was scaled in tarnished gray, wings webbed like hammered steel, eyes burning cold. The other was wrapped in living crimson fire, its scales hidden beneath an armor of flame that slid and writhed across its body.

  Dragons.

  Their descent shook Morthul to its foundations. Windows shattered. Stone cracked. The sky dimmed under their wings.

  “Run,” Abhoof breathed. He already knew it was useless.

  ?

  The red dragon opened its maw. Fire poured out, thick and blinding, roaring across the nearest row of houses. Wood melted into glowing coal. Roofs sagged inward as beams blackened and snapped. Walls exploded in showers of embers and char.

  A woman caught in the open didn’t have time to scream. Her hair ignited first, a brief halo of light. Then her skin blackened and split, fat bubbling beneath like oil on a pan. Her body folded inward as muscle cooked and contracted. She was dead before she hit the ground, but her corpse kept burning, grease feeding the flames that spread across the stones.

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  The gray dragon dove low, close enough for Edduuhf to see the scars along its chest. A collar of pure energy, etched with symbols that pulsed in sullen blue and violent red.

  Its claws hit the street. Stone shattered. A fleeing woman was simply caught in one massive fist. Ribs snapped like green wood, a wet series of cracks audible even over the roar. Blood burst from her mouth in a bright spray. The dragon squeezed once, almost lazy, and her torso folded, organs bulging between the gaps in its talons. It released her. The corpse hit the ground in pieces, steam rising from the opened cavity.

  “Gods,” Abhoof whispered. “Gods, help us.”

  “No gods,” Toumar said, drawing the great blade. “Just consequences.”

  Then he moved.

  The square disintegrated into screams. People ran in every direction at once, which meant they ran nowhere.

  A child’s cry knifed through the chaos, coming from under the collapsed awning of a burning house. Edduuhf ran. His lungs protested the heat, eyes watering. Ash coated his tongue, thick and bitter, mixing with the copper taste of blood. The nearer he got, the hotter the air burned, each breath scalding his throat.

  He dove under the sagging beam and saw a boy no older than seven, pinned at the ankle beneath a fallen plank, eyes wild. The stench hit him like a fist burned hair and something sweeter, worse.

  “Hold on,” Edduuhf rasped. He raised his sword hilt and brought it down hard on the beam to crack it, then shoved with every scrap of strength. Muscles screamed. The plank shifted just enough. He dragged the boy free, trying to ignore the way the child’s burnt skin stuck to the wood.

  “Go,” he coughed, hauling the boy to his feet and shoving him toward an alley. “Run and don’t look back.”

  Abhoof had chosen a different direction. An elderly man lay sprawled near the fountain, robes smoldering. Abhoof grabbed him under the arms and dragged, boots skidding on the slick stones. “Stay with me. Please.”

  The man wheezed once, eyes trying to focus on Abhoof’s face. “You took too long,” he croaked.

  Then he died.

  Abhoof froze, hands locked around dead weight. Tears cut clean trails through the soot on his cheeks. “They’re killing everyone. We can’t stop this.”

  Something big hit the stones behind him. Toumar came down from a sprint in a sliding step, shoving Abhoof aside with his shoulder just as a piece of falling roof smashed into the space where the councilor had been.

  “On your feet,” Toumar snarled. “You can fall apart when the dragons leave.”

  ?

  Above the carnage, Edduuhf’s attention snapped upward. “Collars!” he shouted, voice cracking. “Both of them! They’re bound, like the ones Leelinor saw.”

  The red dragon dipped its head. Another gout of flame rolled out. A row of houses simply ceased to exist.

  “They’re puppets,” Abhoof whispered.

  “Screaming comes later,” Toumar grunted, staggering up beside him, half his beard singed away, skin blackened along his left cheek. “For now, move.”

  Then the chanting started again.

  They came out of the smoke, men and women, some barefoot, some half-burned, all with the same too-wide eyes. Their movements jerked and shuddered. Each clutched a fragment of ARK held tight in bleeding fists.

  “The Awakening purifies!” one man screamed, face streaked with soot and tears. “The unworthy must burn!”

  Edduuhf’s blood ran cold. “They’re still casting. In the middle of this.”

  A middle-aged fanatic met his gaze and smiled, teeth cracked white against soot. “You tried to stop us. You can’t stop the fire. You can only join it.”

  The shard in his hand flared. A jagged bolt of raw energy spat from the fragment, crackling through the air. Edduuhf twisted aside, feeling the heat skim his ribs. The bolt struck a wall behind him and blew a hole in it.

  “Enough!” Toumar roared, launching forward.

  A woman rushed at him, eyes rolled back, shard blazing. She swung a staff crudely wrapped in runes. Toumar’s sword moved almost on its own. Green stone flashed. The staff burst in two. The follow-through carried the blade across the woman’s midsection. Steel bit deep, splitting her open. Her intestines unspooled in a wet rush, slapping against her thighs. She crumpled, lips trying to finish the last word of her creed, eyes wide with the shock of what had just left her body.

  Toumar swallowed something sharp and ugly.

  Two more zealots charged. Edduuhf stepped into the attack, sword a whisper of steel. One cut severed a hand. The second stroke slid into a chest, deep and final.

  The body dropped. Edduuhf stood over him, breath sawing in and out. “They were starving and deceived, and we let it get this far.”

  “Talk later,” Toumar rasped. “Breathe now.”

  ?

  The gray dragon swept back around, lower this time. Its collar pulsed once, twice, brighter. A command.

  Toumar saw the beast’s head track toward the largest cluster of fleeing villagers. He sprinted to intercept the line.

  “THIS WAY!” he roared, voice breaking, waving them toward a narrow lane shielded by stone. They hesitated. So he did the only thing he knew how to do. He made himself a target.

  Toumar skidded to a halt in the middle of the street, green stone greatsword coming up.

  “Come on, then!” he shouted up at the monster. “Look at me!”

  The dragon obliged.

  Fire raged from its throat. Toumar dove sideways at the last possible heartbeat. The edge of the inferno grazed him. Pain exploded across his left side as his cloak and outer tunic went up in an instant, cloth melting into his skin, the two fusing together in a searing kiss. The smell hit him next—his own flesh cooking, sweet and horrible.

  He hit the ground in a roll, slapping at himself to smother the flames. When he came up, he was breathing in sharp, ragged pulls.

  But the villagers were clear.

  “Cover!” Toumar bellowed. “Under the stone! MOVE!”

  The gray dragon spotted the bottleneck. It folded its wings and dropped.

  “TOUMAR!” Edduuhf shouted.

  Toumar planted his feet in the center of the arch. He was burning. He was bleeding. He didn’t care.

  “Come on then. One more bad idea.”

  The dragon’s shadow swallowed him. Claws extended, like a net of knives. Toumar swung upward with all the strength left in his ruined muscles.

  The blade met scale with a shriek. The green stone carved through a ridge of overlapping plates. Black-red blood sprayed, steaming where it hit the broken stones.

  The dragon roared, raw and surprised. It lashed out a backhanded swipe of a claw the size of a plow.

  It hit Toumar.

  The impact lifted him from the ground. Armor crumpled. Ribs crunched. He was thrown backward like a ragdoll, smashing through the side of a burning house. The wall gave way.

  He vanished under a collapse of timber and stone.

  “TOUMAR!” Abhoof screamed.

  The gray dragon jerked its injured limb back, beating its wings hard to climb. Blood dripped from its arm in hot, heavy drops. Its collar flared brighter, symbols pulsing faster, punishing the failure.

  The dragons circled twice more, loosing a final sweep of fire, then pulled away, wings beating them up and out, back into the blanket of cloud.

  ?

  The world narrowed to crackle and cough. Edduuhf and Abhoof clawed their way toward the ruins.

  “Here!” Edduuhf wheezed, jamming his sword into a gap between fallen beams. He leveraged it, muscles screaming. Abhoof shoved his burned shoulder under the wood and heaved.

  A space opened.

  Toumar lay in the dust. His chest plate was caved in. One arm bent wrong at the elbow. Blood trickled from his mouth.

  “Am I dead?” he croaked.

  “Not yet,” Edduuhf grunted. “You’re heavier than a corpse and twice as stubborn.”

  They dragged him out. Toumar groaned, a sound torn from the bottom of his lungs, but he bit it back.

  “Put me down,” he snarled, pushing them away with his good arm. “I can walk.”

  He swayed. He looked like something dug out of a grave. But he stood.

  From where they stood, they could see the rest. Morthul was a bowl of flame. The square was a crater of glass. The fanatics were ash.

  Edduuhf sheathed his sword, hands shaking. “We go back. We tell them everything. The runes on the collars. The fanatics. The rituals. The fact that dragons are marching to somebody else’s drum.”

  Abhoof glanced at the graveyard that had been a town. “And if they don’t listen?”

  Toumar adjusted his grip on his sword. His knuckles were white. The adrenaline was a roaring river keeping him upright, masking the fact that his body was screaming to shut down. He stared at the horizon where the dragons had vanished.

  “Then the next time dragons come,” Toumar rasped, his voice wet with blood, “they won’t be the only ones breathing fire.”

  He took a step toward the road. A defiant, heavy step.

  Then the river ran dry.

  Toumar stopped mid-stride. The greatsword slipped from his numb fingers, clanging loudly against the stones. His eyes rolled back, showing the whites.

  There was no sway, no stumble. His knees simply ceased to exist.

  He collapsed forward, hitting the dust hard, dead weight before he even touched the ground.

  “Toumar!” Edduuhf lunged, dropping to his knees beside him.

  The big man didn’t move. His chest rose and fell in shallow, jagged hitches. He was alive, but the debt had finally come due.

  Abhoof looked at the burning city, then at the fallen warrior. “We need to carry him.”

  “Then we carry him,” Edduuhf said, lifting Toumar’s heavy arm over his shoulder.

  They turned their backs on the ruin, dragging their broken shield between them, leaving footprints of ash and blood on the long road home.