When Dragons Burn

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Rayna

The morning was too quiet.

I woke up in the chair with my neck kinked and my lower back screaming. For a second I didn’t remember where I was. Then the smell of woodsmoke and damp wool brought it all back—the cabin, the storm, Miron, the mark on my wrist.

Light leaked around the edges of the curtain, thin and gray. The fire in the stove had burned down to coals, but it was still warm enough that my breath didn’t fog in the air. Outside, I could hear water dripping from the eaves, slow and steady. No more hard rain. No engines yet. No voices.

I sat up, pressing my fingers into the knot at the back of my neck, and checked my watch. 7:42 a.m. If the rangers meant it about checking in on us by ten, we had some time but not a lot.

The cot creaked when I shifted my weight. I turned my head fast, heart jumping, but Miron was still there. On his back now, instead of half-curled on his side. Someone—me, I guess—had pulled the blanket straight over him sometime in the night. His face looked different in daylight. Less dramatic. Dark stubble, tired lines around his mouth. If you didn’t know, you could mistake him for just another guy who’d had a rough weekend.

Except for the bandage over his ribs. And the faint, dark shape pulsing under the skin of his chest. And the mark on my wrist.

I checked his breathing first. Old habit. Shallow but even. When I brushed my fingertips against the inside of his wrist, his pulse thrummed steady under the skin. The faint gold veins were still there, just duller than last night.

I pulled my hand back and stared at my own wrist. The mark hadn’t faded while I slept. No smudging, no broken lines. It sat there like it had always been part of me, a thin circle broken at the top, tiny lines around it like notches. When I touched it with my other hand, it felt… normal. Warm from my skin, nothing special. But as soon as I focused on it, I could feel that second rhythm again. His. Like a quiet echo under my usual heartbeat.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t hate it either. I just didn’t know what to do with it.

I stood slowly so I wouldn’t wake him and went to the stove. I added a couple small logs and coaxed the coals back into flame. The kettle still had water in it; I set it on top. The normal routine—fire, water, food—settled me more than any breathing exercise.

Behind me, the cot frame creaked again.

“Rayna,” Miron said. His voice sounded clearer. Awake.

I turned. “Morning.”

He was staring up at the ceiling, jaw tight, eyes fixed on some point only he could see. The lines around his mouth were harsher today. Whatever passed for rest in his world hadn’t been relaxing.

“Pain level?” I asked automatically, moving closer.

“Manageable,” he said. “Five.” He swallowed. “Maybe six if I breathe too much.”

I snorted. “That’s generally how it works, yeah.” I stepped to the side of the cot. “You look less like you’re about to fall apart.”

His gaze slid to my wrist. He didn’t answer.

I followed his eyes and sighed. “Still there,” I said quietly. “In case you were hoping it was all a bad dream.”

“I was not hoping,” he said. “I knew.”

The way he said it made something in my chest tighten. “How do you feel besides the pain?”

“Like I made a very dangerous mistake,” he said. “And you are paying for it.”

“Try again,” I said. “Answer like a patient, not a guilty soldier.”

He gave me a flat look. “Dizzy at the edges. Sore.” He flexed the fingers of his splinted arm carefully. “Weaker than I should be, but not dying.”

“That’s better.” I leaned over to check the bandage. It was stained, but not fresh. I lifted the edge and peeked underneath. The wound looked like an old burn now, dark and tight, no active bleed. “You’re healing weirdly fast.”

“That is the least of our problems,” he muttered.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m still counting it as a win.”

He let his head tip toward me, studying my face. There was a distance in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, like he’d pulled himself back a few inches inside his own skull.

“What?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze went a little unfocused, locking onto mine in a way that made me straighten without meaning to. His eyes weren’t glowing, but they were… intent. too intent.

“Miron,” I said, wary. “What are you doing?”

“Look at me,” he said quietly.

“I am,” I said. “Kind of hard to miss, considering you take up half the room.”

“Rayna,” he said again, softer this time, almost gentle. “Just breathe. Don’t fight it.”

A prickle ran over my scalp. “Don’t fight what?”

He didn’t explain. His pupils narrowed a fraction, not quite to slits but close. For a second, the cabin seemed to fall away. His voice dropped into something that wasn’t quite my language anymore. The words were smooth and round, spoken like he’d practiced them a thousand times.

I didn’t understand a single syllable, but the sound of it went straight to the back of my head. Pressure bloomed there, dull and thick, like the start of a migraine. My thoughts fuzzed around the edges. The room blurred, then sharpened. My grip on the cot rail tightened.

“Stop,” I said. Or maybe I thought it. I’m not sure if the word made it out.

Images flickered, not from him—from me. Tess laughing in the ambulance bay. My grandmother’s kitchen. The kid on the curb last night. The mountain trail. The first sight of him under the laurel, all blood and mud and wrong angles. They all wavered, like someone was running a thumb over old photographs, smudging them.

Panic hit, bright and sharp.

No.

Something in me pushed back hard. Not aimless panic, just a solid, stubborn refusal. Same part of me that refuses to call time of death until I’ve done everything twice. Same part that dragged him through mud and rain because leaving him there was not an option. That part surged up like a wall.

My wrist burned.

The mark flared, sudden and hot, sending a line of pain up my arm. Light bled out from under my sleeve, bright enough that I saw it even through the fuzz. At the same time, Miron jerked like someone had punched him in the chest.

The pressure in my head snapped. The room came back into focus. My memories settled like dropped papers.

I staggered back, grabbing the table to keep from falling. My heart hammered. The mark on my wrist glowed a steady gold for two full breaths, then dimmed.

“What the hell,” I said, breathing hard. “Did you just try to wipe my memory?”

Miron was gripping his own chest, his face twisted in pain and shock. Sweat stood out on his forehead. “I—” He swallowed, shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “It should have worked,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “Even with the bond. It should have worked enough to blur—”

“Oh, great,” I cut in. My voice shook. I didn’t care. “So the plan was… what? Erase my brain and send me back down the mountain like nothing happened?”

“Yes,” he said. No apology in it, just raw honesty. “It would have been kinder.”

“That is not your call to make,” I snapped. “Ever.”

He finally looked at me, really looked, and I saw something brittle in his eyes. “You don’t understand what you’re in the middle of.”

“Then make me understand,” I shot back. “But don’t try to lobotomize me and call it mercy.”

Silence stretched between us. The kettle on the stove started to rattle softly as the water heated. Outside, a bird called once and went quiet, like it had second thoughts about speaking up.

He dropped his gaze, breathing hard. “The spell is simple,” he said after a moment. “For us. A way to protect the Shroud. To make witnesses forget. It doesn’t damage the mind if done correctly. It’s like… wiping away the top layer of dust.”

“It felt like someone was trying to pry open my skull,” I said flatly. “So, no, it did not feel ‘simple.’”

His jaw tightened. “It failed,” he said quietly. “The bond rejected it.”

“The bond,” I repeated. I looked down at my wrist. The mark had cooled, but it still looked darker than before. “So your magic—or whatever you call it—can’t override this thing?”

“Apparently not,” he said. “It protected you. Us.” He said the last word like it tasted strange.

I leaned back against the table. My legs still felt a little wobbly. “Good,” I said. “One point for the weird flaming tattoo.”

He huffed out a humorless sound. “You shouldn’t be relieved. It means I can’t shield you the way I planned. I can’t hide you from my world. They will find out. They always do.”

“I’m not relieved,” I said. “I’m just glad I still know my own name.”

He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, the distance was back. “You need to leave, Rayna.”

I blinked. “Now?”

“As soon as you can walk down that mountain,” he said. “Take the trail. Go back to your life. Pretend this was a nightmare. Ignore the mark. Cover it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t look for me if you somehow see me again.”

The calm way he said it made me angrier than if he’d yelled.

“You think that’s realistic?” I asked. “That I’m just going to stroll off and pretend none of this happened? You grew wings in front of me. You spoke another language that made my head ring. You tried to erase my memory. And now you’re telling me to go home, clock in for my next shift, and act like I didn’t drag a dragon through the mud last night.”

He flinched at the word dragon, but didn’t deny it.

“Yes,” he said. “That is exactly what I want. For your own safety.”

“You keep saying that,” I said. “But from where I’m standing? The only person who has actually put me in danger so far is you.”

That landed. His shoulders dropped a fraction. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “And I am trying, belatedly, to fix that.”

“By shoving me out the door and hoping your people don’t notice the walking bondmark out in the open?” I shook my head. “That doesn’t sound like a plan. That sounds like you panicking.”

He didn’t argue. That probably meant I was right.

Outside, the sky was getting brighter, but the light had that flat look that says another system is on its way. The air pressure felt weird in my ears. Far off, faint, there was a low rumble. Not close thunder. Just a reminder that storms don’t care about our schedules.

The kettle whistled softly. I turned the stove down and poured hot water into two mugs, mostly for something to do. My hands were steadier than I expected.

“I promised the rangers we’d come down this morning,” I said. “If we don’t, they’ll come back up. I’m not leaving you here alone bleeding and half-shifted when that happens.”

“I won’t be here,” he said.

I looked up sharply. “What does that mean?”

“It means as soon as I can walk, I’m going the other way.” He nodded toward the back of the cabin, where the trees thickened into shadows. “There are paths you don’t see. Wards you don’t feel. I will take them. I will draw attention away from you. If they come, they will smell only human in this place.”

He said it like his body wasn’t still healing, like he didn’t almost collapse trying to do a simple spell two minutes ago.

“You can barely sit up,” I said. “You step outside and try to play hero, you’ll pass out in the first ditch.”

“I don’t have a choice,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “You do. Same as me. We both made choices all night. None of them involved giving up.”

Something flickered across his face—frustration, respect, fear. Maybe all three.

“You’re stubborn,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

We stared at each other for a long, quiet moment.

Then, without warning, the air in the cabin shifted. The tiny hairs on my arms stood up. My wrist burned again, sharp and sudden. I hissed and grabbed it.

The mark flared gold, brighter than before. At the same instant, Miron’s hand flew to his chest. His eyes went wide.

“You feel that?” I gasped.

“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth. “Someone’s casting. Nearby.”

“Casting what?”

He shook his head once, sharp. “I don’t know yet. But it’s dragonfire. And it’s not mine.”

Outside, thunder rolled—not overhead, but closer than before, wrapped in something that didn’t sound entirely like weather.

The glow on my wrist pulsed in time with his heartbeat, faster now. The cabin felt smaller again.

He looked at me, all trace of distance gone. “Rayna,” he said. “Whatever happens next… you stay behind me. And if I tell you to run this time, you run.”

I swallowed, staring at the mark, at him, at the door.

“Yeah,” I said, voice low. “We’ll see about that.”