Avek hopped off his dragon and bounded towards me, a rucksack in tow.
“I wanted to get back before you woke up,” he said, kneeling in the dirt beside me. Ignimitra was ambling towards me, eying Avek and I. “I’m going to dress your wound.”
I could barely follow what was happening, but seeing Ignimitra filled me with happiness. She was alive. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She was alive.
When it had finally sunk in that my dragon was fine, I noticed that Avek had spread a blanket and pallet on the sand. He had me lay on it.
From this angle, I could see that he looked shaken up by the storm too. His hair was soaked through, sticking to his temples. His coal eyes were as deep as a well, filled with turbulence. He didn’t have any injuries though, which was good.
“What happened, Avek?” I asked him when the silence grew unbearable.
My confusion was growing by the second.
Where was everyone else? Where were he and Ignimitra coming from?
Why had I been on this stretch of barren land by myself?
“I’ll tell you everything when you’re all patched up,” he sounded tired, and a little bit anxious. He was busy applying some sort of tincture to my wound with the daintiness of an orchid farmer.
I fell silent, but I decide to try another source.
Do you know what’s happening? Ignimitra had curled herself around us, breaking the wind that would have otherwise blown all of Avek’s supplies away. At my question, she cracked open an amethyst eye.
I do, she said. Nurik explained it to me. She paused as if formulating her words. But I believe you should hear it from you Avek, since he is your mate.
I didn’t know what shocked me more.
The fact that Ignimitra had referred to Avek as my mate—I know that’s how dragons thought of things, but I didn’t like it—or the revelation that there was a story so important that Ignimitra didn’t want to be the one to tell me it.
She never withheld anything from me.
My pulse picked up again, and I couldn’t stop myself from drumming my fingers against the blanket. Reining in my thoughts was difficult. I was hurt and tired—whatever I strength I had was used up just trying to ignore the pain.
After an eternity, Avek helped me to sit up and leaned me against Ignimitra.
“Are you hungry?” Those weren’t the words I expected him to say.
But I thought about his question and nodded. What I had mistook for nausea earlier turned out to be a cry for food. How long had it been since I had eaten?
Avek returned shortly with a flask of water and a pouch of that wretched dried meat. Still I took it, gulping down the water first. He settled on the blanket beside me, crossing his legs at the ankles.
“Now can you tell me what happened?” I took a bite of the meat, holding my breath so I wouldn’t taste it that much. My body needed it, but I still hated it.
When I was finished chewing my first bite Avek still hadn’t answered.
Whatever it was that he wanted to say seemed to weigh heavily on him—his eyebrows were drawn together, a worried line forming between them. I had nearly finished the pouch of meat when he took a deep breath and spoke.
Maybe that was a good thing, for I was beginning to feel better.
“I had to protect you,” he began, his voice low. “I know what happens at trials in Pyralis. They had evidence, and there was no way they would try to find the truth in the middle of this war. Not when you were right there, an easy scapegoat.” He pushed his hair back off his forehead. “Commander Gavrok would have your head.”
I liked the way his words made me feel. This man—this man who loved me—did something that saved my life. He confirmed what I already knew. I had been flying to my death.
But I would have been lying if I said that I understood them.
“Thanks,” I pulled a smile. “But…how did you protect me?”
He took another deep breath, working his fingers along the cuff of his armor. I had never seen Avek this uneasy before, and it was starting to worry me.
“The storm,” he gestured to the sky. “We did it.”
I paused mid-chew, my jaw slackening as I tried to process his words. I thought my headache had crested, but at his words it was beginning to thrum as hard as when I had first woken up.
“That’s impossible,” I chuckled, hoping he would tell me he was joking.
He didn’t. He wore that serious look of his, the one I had come to trust.
“Nurik’s a Fire Dragon,” I said. “A Flamespike! Flamespikes don’t cause storms.” I glanced over at the seaweed colored dragon. Even in this dull lighting he looked exactly like he was supposed to, and nothing like a Lightning Dragon. “And you don’t have those powers.”
“He’s a cross-breed,” he said slowly. “A mix between Flamespike and Krylltooth, a Water Dragon.”
I was still skeptical. That didn’t seem to explain what he was trying to prove, even though it was new information. “Water Dragons can’t cause storms,” I said.
He nodded. “Clouds are made of water. There’s water in the air at this very moment.” He glanced up at the sky. “Only a few Water Dragons ever get strong enough to be able to use the water in the atmosphere to create storms. We just can’t make lightning.”
My dried meat was done, so I had nothing to divide my attention.
I had to let Avek’s words wash over me, and I didn’t like the conclusions that my mind was leading me to draw. But I would have to deal with things one at a time.
“I don’t know. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around that.” I stared into his eyes. “The storm wasn’t a coincidence? You started it. To protect me.”
Avek’s eyes always betrayed his feelings, and my heart-rate picked up when I realized that there wasn’t even an inkling of a lie in them. He was telling the truth.
That scared me.
“Jules was so hellbent on getting us back to Pyralis, that I knew she wouldn’t stop for a storm. Especially for one that didn’t have any lightning.” He kneaded his temples. “It was a risk, but I had to take it.”
I pulled a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes.
He picked up on that. “You don’t seem happy.”
“I’m mostly…confused,” I said. “You bought us time, but we have to go back at some point. How can we come up with a plan in two or three days?” Had he even thought that far? The gesture was nice, but we were still in danger.
Avek stared at me for a long second, the wheels turning behind his eyes.
“I don’t think you should ever go back,” he said.
I turned his words around in my head. Was he telling me to desert the Dragon Guard? Not that I hadn’t thought about it, but hearing it outside my own imagination frightened me. It was an idea that I had toyed with a few times, especially after I learned what they really had us doing in this war.
But to desert? Now? What about Solra and Irikai?
My gaze was wide-eyed.
“Where is all this coming from?” I asked him. The air had changed between us. There was more to this story, of course. On his own, he came up with this fanciful plan that involved me deserting the Guard—without mentioning any of it to me. He couldn’t possibly have thought I killed Drin. Could he? “Why do you want me to run away so badly?”
He sucked in a breath so deep his lips trembled. His eyes were glistening. I recognized the signs of anxiety when I saw them.
“Spit it out,” I said. I didn’t know what to think, but the thought of Avek thinking I had killed Drin made me want to lose the meal I had just eaten.
Avek grasped my hand in both of his.
“I knew that we would have this conversation at some point,” he began. “At first, the time was far away enough that I didn’t have to think about it. But now, I see it’s unavoidable.”
My own lips started to tremble.
The thrumming of my heart was loud in my ears and my palms grew clammy.
“I didn’t tell you the truth about how I ended up in Pyralis, or even the Guard.” He still had a grip on my hand, but for the first time his touch wasn’t as soothing as it had always been. “My mother didn’t just come here in search of a better life.”
My mind brought me back to the day when he opened up to me about his mother’s story of struggling to make ends meet, of the necklace that she had given him for good luck. The necklace that now hung around my neck as he spoke.
“My mother was banished from Hydralia when she fell pregnant with me. She had been a housemaid in the Fire Drakken’s Court. My father was married, and my mother refused to have an abortion. My father was influential, so he was able to get her to leave.” His eyes were wet. “For good.”
Despite the uneasiness roiling in my stomach, I hung on to every word he said.
“But when I was five years old, she got a letter from my father. He had found out that I was a boy. His wife had only given him daughters. He said they had a special task for me. If I was successful, my mother would be allowed to come back.”
“What special task?” I asked.
His gaze broke away from my eyes, resting on our joined hands. His grip was too tight for me to wriggle out of it. It was if he knew I would want to recoil.
“At first, it was to get into the best Finishing School. Then the best Placement School. They gave me Nurik when it was time to get into the Guard…” His voice trailed off.
I tried to imagine Avek, burdened with that kind of responsibility, knowing that his mother regaining her status in her country depended on him. My heart hurt when I considered that she didn’t even get to enjoy his hard work since she had died so soon after his graduation.
“When my mother died, I thought that the assignments would stop coming. Life in Pyralis was the only one I had ever known. I didn’t want to go back to Hydralia.” He took a breath so deep his shoulders rattled. “But my father offered me the one thing I didn’t have. He told me about my sisters. He promised to claim me as his own child, not the bastard I had grown up thinking I was.”
The pain in my chest deepened. I was of two minds.
On one hand, I understood Avek’s pain. A family? What I would give to have one of those, intact. On the other hand, I hated his father for his obvious manipulation. And I hated the fact that this story sounded like Avek fell for it.
“In exchange for what?” My voice shook as I asked the question.
Did I even want to know the answer? This time, I squeezed his hand.
“Inside information,” his voice was low. “It started out as just information on the missions I went on. But the scope kept getting wider and wider.”
My jaw slackened. My synapses were firing as I connected everything.
“You’re a…spy?” I could barely bring myself to say it.
That’s how he knew so much about them when we broke into the underground chamber to help Ignimitra.
He nodded gravely.
I started to examine my experiences with Avek through that lens.
His skepticism of the Dragon Guard had been because he was working against it. He knew where the records facility was because he had to know. The hair on the back of my neck stood on edge when I considered something else.
“The mission where we got ambushed…” I swallowed hard, dreading the answer to my question. “Did you…I mean, was it—”
“That wasn’t my doing,” he said firmly. “In fact, I only survived the kidnapping because I was a spy. They were going to kill me, but I was able to prove to them that I was trying to take Pyralis down too.”
I chewed on his words for a moment, trying to decide if I believed him or not.
He had misrepresented the truth to me. What I thought I knew about him; I didn’t actually know. My heart felt like it was shattering, but I gritted my teeth against the pain and tried to focus on something else.
“I thought Hydralia and Pyralis were on the same side,” I commented, when it dawned on me that our courier mission had been to Hydralia. “Why would they ask you to be a spy?”
Avek’s laugh was hollow. “Nobody is on the same side as Pyralis,” he huffed. “The difference is how they go about it. Some countries oppose them secretly like Hydralia, and the ones that are not-so-secret like Astraphotis.” He looked pensive. “Pyralis is still the richest and most influential country.”
Everything that I thought I knew was coming undone at the seams. Hakan’s skepticism had never allowed me to have blind faith in Pyralis. Yet, I had never expected it to be like…this.
Suddenly, the war took on new meaning.
And if I didn’t know for sure, now I did.
I wanted no parts of it.
“And Drin?” I pressed. “Is that why you’re so adamant about me deserting because you killed him and framed me for it?” The longer my feelings simmered, the more I realized that the things I knew about Avek probably weren’t true.
Whoever had killed Drin was a traitor. He had just identified himself as one.
Avek seemed genuinely hurt by my question.
Without breaking his eyes away from mine, he shifted to kneel in front of me.
He took both of my hands in his.
“I didn’t expect you to take this well,” he said. “And you can be mad at me, and you can hate me for it.” Hate wasn’t the right word for what I was feeling. “But know that I would never ever put you in danger like that Kaos. The year since I’ve known you brought happiness back to my life.” He looked down at the blanket. “Drin’s death was unexpected for me too. We were supposed to bring him back alive for our own questioning.”
“Those were our orders so—” I froze. My eyebrows wrinkled. “What do you mean by ‘we?’”
“I can’t identify any other agents to you that would—”
It felt like being struck by a bolt of lightning.
I flung my hands out of his, recognition straightening my spine and sending a wave of anger through me that was so hot Ignimitra’s head shot up to stare at me. It burned away all my pain, all my exhaustion.
“It’s Jules isn’t it!” I shouted. It also sounded like a Commander was a spy too. Who was giving them these orders? But I couldn’t think of who that could be.
Jules was the only person I actually had a suspicion about.
Avek didn’t seem fazed by my words or my anger or the tone of my voice.
His lips only twisted into a smirk, like he was amused.
“You’re so smart,” he said, his face lightening into his first genuine smile since we had been on this shore. “How did you know?”
I sat back down, the heat draining out of me just as fast as it had appeared.
Somehow, I thought my ‘aha!’ moment would have incited a rise out of him. Instead, he seemed open than before.
As if reading my confused expression, he said, “I’m not allowed to talk to you about the identity of other agents. But nothing stops me from talking to you about them if you already know.”
Nice loophole.
This whole conversation with Avek was putting me through the wringer.
One moment I hated him, the next I felt sad for what had happened to him, the next I was angry. The fact that Ignimitra somehow had a grip on this entire situation baffled me.
“Now that you’ve told me that you’re a spy, I guess everything fell into place. You guys seemed so close. And I remember feeling like I was out of loop when you two were planning the break in to help Ignimitra.”
Avek nodded sheepishly. “I really wanted to tell you then,” he said. “We had been tracking the Dragon Enhancement Program for months, looking for a way to get in. Because you needed to help Ignimitra, we got three more hands on deck to make the mission a success.”
I had to rewrite all my memories it seemed.
“This is hard for me to process,” I said to him after a long silence. “It feels like I don’t know anything about you.”
His lightheartedness had vanished.
Serious Avek was back, and he seemed crushed by what I had said.
“I understand, Kaos,” he said. “My feelings for you haven’t changed though, and I’ll accept whatever decision you make.”
I looked at him. Like really looked at him.
He was so handsome it made my chest tighten. All of my firsts had been with him. I didn’t feel like I wanted to let go of that. But I didn’t know how to move past all of this. It felt like a betrayal.
“I’m feeling so many things right now. You lied to me all this time, but you also saved my life. You’re a traitor, but I don’t even know if it’s worth being loyal to Pyralis anymore.” Tears fell from my eyes. I didn’t know they were that close. “I’m just really confused right now, Avek.”
The next second, he was hugging me.
I wanted to wrestle out of his grasp, but I couldn’t find the strength to. Some otherworldly force was pulling me. I melted into his embrace, the heat from his body melting through the icy haze of anxiety that was clouding my thoughts.
“Why do I always end up crying into your chest.” My voice was muffled against him. “I hate that you feel like my safe place.”
He chuckled at my words, the sound vibrating through my face.
“Destiny, maybe.” He said, holding my shoulders and moving me a little so he could look at my expression. I didn’t want to look at him. “I feel like you’re the other half of me.”
I rolled my eyes.
He should’ve said something that would have made it easier to decide how I felt about him. But no, he had to be sweet. We sat in silence for a while—hugging because as much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t. I knew I still wanted him, despite it all.
But the stakes had changed in my life and our relationship.
“If I desert the Guard, I’ll never be able to come back,” I said to him. “Like, right now there’s a chance I could still live. But once I do this, it’s something I can never take back.”
Avek seemed to consider it for a while.
But deep down, I knew that I had already made up my mind. I had thought of Avek and Irikai and Solra. But my loyalty was to Ignimitra first—we were bonded in life. I knew the choice she wanted me to make.
“Will you go back to Tartaris?” I asked.
He nodded. “My work isn’t done. I still need to figure out who actually killed Drin. They framed you, Kaos.” His jaw was set. “I take that personally.”
“Who do you think it was?” I had my own suspicions.
Avek huffed a breath, as if my question had opened another chasm of feelings. “My mind keeps going back to Jules. It doesn’t make any sense, but I just feel like it’s her.” He looked genuinely perplexed. “And my gut is rarely ever wrong.” Another deep sigh. “I just felt like she was a little too insistent on wanting to pin it on you.”
I felt alarmed at that. Even though Jules had been adamant to believe that I had killed Drin, I didn’t once consider that she might have done it. “Why would you think that?”
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw that the Dragon Enhancement Serums are still being produced,” he said slowly. “When we went into the chamber that night, it was my job to destroy the serums and her job to destroy the research.”
“And you think that she preserved them.” I saw his point. “I don’t see how that would relate to her killing Drin, though.”
“Me either,” he shrugged. “But whenever something is weird there’s usually more to it.”
That I could agree with.
Silence fell around us again. In that time, my mind drifted to the topic of deserting again. I tried to imagine it in concrete terms, not just as a fanciful wish in a world where there were no consequences.
“I think I know where I’m going to go,” I said.
Avek wrinkled an eyebrow. “You’ve made up your mind to?”
“Hakan is in Parhagola.”
Recognition flashed in his eyes. I didn’t have to explain where Parhagola was.
“That’s the perfect place for you!” He exclaimed. “You’ll be safe there.” Then I was back in his arms again, and he was squeezing me. “I was here thinking I would have to sneak you into Hydralia.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Hydralia?”
“Their Dragon Guard ranks are thin,” he said nonchalantly. “They wouldn’t even think twice about inducting you. But Parhagola is untouched by the war right now, and will be for a long time I think.”
We spent the next few minutes trading ideas about the best path to get to the island.
In the back of my mind, I felt Ignimitra.
She was happy, my reminder that this was what she wanted for us.
EXHAUSTION TOOK ME under at some point.
I wasn’t exactly sure when it happened. The last memory I had was leaning against Ignimitra, talking to Avek about our bleak future.
When I startled awake, my head was on Avek’s chest. We lay in a tent it seemed, for I couldn’t feel the sea breeze on my face or taste the salty air.
All at once, everything came crashing back to my memory—Avek’s revelation, my own decision to desert the Guard, and his reservation about Jules.
It felt like a fever dream. But the rise and fall of Avek’s chest, and the realization that we were indeed all alone out here because his hybrid dragon had caused a storm solidified everything I remembered as the truth.
Sitting up, my head spun. My headache had mostly subsided.
Through the tent flaps, I saw that the sky was dark. How long was I asleep? It must have been a while for the weariness in my bones was almost gone.
“Slept well?” Avek’s husky voice sent goosebumps down my arms.
In the dull of light of the tent, I hadn’t realized he was awake. I leaned over, committing his face to memory. I had realized something else in my sleep.
I didn’t know when I would see him again.
“Like what you see?” Gosh, that voice. I would miss it.
I smiled at his words. “I’m just trying hard to remember you.” There was no use acting like we weren’t about to say goodbye for a long time.
Avek’s smile dimmed just a little at my words.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, bringing his face closer to mine. He held my gaze, his eyes like reedy pools of water.
“Is this your way of saying you’ll miss me?” He teased, peppering a small kiss on my nose. My skin burned where his lips touched.
I rolled my eyes.
“Of course, I’ll miss you, Avek.” I said, feigning a scowl. “I know the Academy is a horrible place, but I will miss the friends I found there.” I lowered my voice, hoping my next words would slip by his ears. “The love I found there.”
He froze ever so slightly, evidence that he had heard me.
I pushed past the heat rising in my cheeks and continued speaking.
“I wish that things were different,” I said, running my fingers along the rough-knit blanket we lay on. “You guys are my only family.”
Avek captured me in a warm embrace.
“I’m hopeful,” he said. “Things will change in Pyralis soon. When it does, we’ll be reunited, I promise.”
His words sent a chill down my spine.
“How soon?” I asked.
“A month or two,” he said.
I pulled back, just enough to look at his face. There was no trace of a joke there. He was completely serious. I knew he couldn’t tell me more about what made him so sure, but I hung on to his words.
Maybe it was foolish to believe him, but I did.
“Promise me something,” I said, staring into his eyes. “Promise me you’ll keep Irikai and Solra safe, regardless of what happens. Cuinn too.” I smiled. “I know you can’t tell them what I did and where I’m going, but keep them safe until I can see them again.”
A month or two wasn’t that long, right?
Avek sucked in a breath. I knew that the mention of Cuinn’s name would have thrown him off, but I did it anyway. I needed some kind of assurance.
Especially when I wouldn’t be there to protect them myself.
He nodded. “I promise,” he said. “You have my word.”
Despite everything he had told me, I still trusted Avek. I could see that at the root of it all he had a good heart, and good motivations. But I still had questions. Burning questions. I took a chance. “What will change in Pyralis?”
“We’re going to get rid of the people who made it into what it is,” he said simply.
My breath caught. “The Headmaster?”
Avek didn’t answer, and I didn’t expect him to.
The thought that they could be planning to take down Vulcan didn’t sit well with me. Only because I had my own bone to pick with him. He took my father from me.
Part of me wished that he would take his last breaths at my hand.
But I knew that trying to get information from Avek would’ve been futile.
He was loyal to his duty, and he had already bent enough rules by telling me what he had. So, I tried to think of something else to say.
“How long have we been here?” I asked him. “Like, how much time has passed since you separated us from the others?”
He thought for a moment. “A day and half.”
It didn’t feel like that long for me. “And how much longer do we have together?”
Avek chuckled. “We are back in The Wilds,’ he said. “I think they would be almost in Tartaris by this. If they had turned back, we would have been found by now.”
I swallowed hard. “Won’t they get suspicious when you go back without me after all this time?”
“I think I can handle myself,” he shrugged. “I doubt they’ll be suspicious if I tell them I went back to try and find you.”
He was right. Everyone knew of our relationship. It was believable.
“But if you’re asking when we should leave, I would say as soon as you’re able to,” he said. “We don’t want to be here when they send a search and rescue team for us,” he took a deep breath. “And I think they will.”
I swallowed hard.
The crushing weight was back on my shoulders.
There was no hiding from the truth anymore.
I had to leave.
“I think I’m strong enough to fly.” I rubbed my stomach. “A little hungry, but strong enough.” The pain in my stomach could have been hunger, but I had a feeling that it was something else.
“Avek?”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“I love you,” I said quickly, then I held his face and crushed his lips to mine.
The kiss was everything I had hoped for—so raw and passionate it made my eyes water. I wanted to remember exactly what his lips felt like, what his mouth tasted like.
It was over way too soon.
“I’m not going to say goodbye,” he whispered against my lips. “Because this isn’t one. We’re going to see each other soon.”
I nodded, wanting to believe his words.
But I realized what the pain in my stomach was.
It was fear.
It was the feeling of my hope being burned alive by the reality of what was unfolding around us. I was accused of treason and he was a traitor. We were standing on Pyralian soil promising each other something that we couldn’t make happen.
This was the beginning of the end.
