Argentaria

The wind at Ravel Pass is not air. It’s shattered glass that flays your face. It isn’t snowing yet, but the smell is there: metal and frozen rain. The smell of something about to break.

Kael and I walk in silence. The mud clings to our boots, making every step miserable work. We grew up in a crumbling orphanage, eating bread that tasted like sawdust and sleeping with rats running across our blankets. In a place like that, you learn fast that words are wasted breath. You learn to trust only those who stay when the lights go out.

Kael always stays. He’s a shadow that never leaves.

We’re heading to the old quarry. Word is that a dragon has fallen, but we’re not here for fairy tales. We’re here because the Guard has blocked the main paths. When soldiers close a road, it means there’s a problem that reeks of death — and we live close enough that we can’t ignore it.

The quarry throat is a crack in the grey stone. The air inside is warm. Wrong. It smells of iron and smoke trapped too long. Kael stops at the edge of the path.

— I don’t like this — he says. His hand hovers near the knife at his belt.

— It doesn’t have to feel right. We just need to see what it is — I answer.

We climb down. The ground slides beneath our feet. The smell grows stronger: burnt flesh and ozone, like after lightning strikes a tree.

The dragon is there.

It’s wedged between the rocks, a heap of lead-grey scales reflecting the ashen light of the sky. Its left wing is broken, a white bone jutting through torn skin. It breathes unevenly. Every time it exhales, the ground beneath my feet trembles slightly.

I stop. I feel a strange pressure behind my shoulder blades. It isn’t fear — it’s a sudden muscle contraction, like a cramp. I feel taut, like a rope about to snap.

Kael glances at me. — Seren?

— I’m fine.

I take a step forward. The dragon opens its eye. It’s a yellow circle, murky, with a vertical pupil that locks onto me. It doesn’t growl. It’s too tired for that. It looks at me the way you look at a nuisance insect — or a danger you no longer have the strength to drive away.

Then it happens.

It inhales deeply. I inhale at the same moment. It isn’t coincidence. It’s as if my lungs are obeying its command. I feel heavy, my chest flooded with a weariness I didn’t earn by walking.

— We need to go — Kael says quietly. He grips my arm but doesn’t pull. He waits.

— Yes — I say, but I don’t move right away.

The dragon closes its eye again. Its breathing slows, and I feel my own heartbeat slow with it. It’s a physical sensation, concrete. A bond of flesh and blood that shouldn’t exist.

I tear my gaze away. We back up, climbing toward the main path. The pressure behind my shoulders fades, but a dull ache remains — like a bruise you can’t see but feel with every movement.

As we walk, I feel something on my arm. A touch. Light, quick. As if someone brushed me with a fingertip. I look down at my sleeve, but Kael is a metre away and there is no one between us.

I feel the contact — but there is no one there to touch me.