It's cold here.
Not "mountain wind in your boots" cold. Not "forgot your cloak at a bad time" cold.
No—this is existential cold.
The kind that gets into your bones, into your name, and starts asking questions about your purpose.
We've made it. After gods know how many days of trekking through dead valleys and cursed shale and that one cave full of suicidal poetry moss—we're here.
Aunt Threxaval's summer sanctuary.
Which, as it turns out, is a cathedral carved entirely out of crystal. And bones. But mostly crystal.
It rises from the earth like a frozen scream, sharp as betrayal, delicate as regret.
Even the light here bends politely. Afraid to offend the architecture.
The Dragon steps ahead of me.
He's not limping anymore. Hasn't said a word since we passed the obsidian gate flanked by two silent, kneeling drakes carved in frozen agony.
His head is low. His wings tight. His claws silent on the mirrored floor.
And then—
We enter the inner sanctum.
And there she is.
Aunt Threxaval.
Frozen.
Not in ice. Not in death.
In stone.
Not crumbling. Not shattered.
Perfect. Immaculate. Every horn, every scale, every ring, every cruel little tooth. Preserved like a goddess mid-judgment. Her claws delicately extended, as if she had just dismissed an era with a gesture.
Her eyes are closed. Her face...
It isn't peaceful. It's not angry either.
It's disgusted.
A monument to disappointment.
I stop breathing. Even my thoughts feel too loud.
The Dragon just stares.
Then steps closer. One foot. Another. Then stops.
"She's gone," he says.
His voice is cracked. Wrong.
"No. Not gone. She's… done."
He moves slowly around her—too reverent to touch, too stunned to weep.
"She petrified herself," he whispers. "Of course she did."
I say nothing. There's nothing to say.
"She said this age was beneath her," he murmurs. "She meant it."
He stares up at her, towering above us both, locked in stone disdain.
"No wonder the world feels… off," he says. "No wonder everything feels out of joint.
The center is gone."
He looks smaller somehow.
Like the moment you realize the sun isn't a god—it's just a thing that was.
"She didn't rage.
Didn't burn it down.
Didn't curse us all.
She just… refused."
I walk up beside him.
And I whisper, "So what now?"
He doesn't answer.
Because no one knows what comes next when a goddess of taste and terror has left the stage.
And the curtain's still up.
The silence here isn't quiet. It hums.
Like a harp string pulled too tight across a coffin.
Every footstep echoes in ways that feel personal. Like the walls are listening. Judging. Taking notes.
I look around slowly. Everything in here is too perfect. Crystal arches, etched bone mosaics, shelves of scrolls tied in black silk, a harpsichord made from some poor bastard's ribcage. No dust. No decay. Just… stillness.
"This place gives me the creeps," I mutter. "Like… if death had a house, it'd be this one."
The Dragon doesn't turn.
He's still staring up at her—at Threxaval, frozen in mid-contempt. A monument to loathing so powerful it calcified.
"No," he says softly. "Not even death lives here. Not a place like this."
He closes his eyes.
"Even Death would get existential dread walking these halls…"
His voice drifts off. He's talking to himself now. Lost in it.
"I can't believe it. She's gone. Just like that.
No ceremony. No aria. No volcanic exit.
No farewell massacre. No final act."
He paces, slow and uneven, tail dragging behind.
"She didn't even announce it. Didn't send word.
Didn't curse the stars or burn a continent or call a family tribunal.
She just… stopped.
And no one knows.
No one knows but us."
I cross my arms. "So what are you going to do? Tell your siblings? Your cousin? The ghost of your uncle?"
He doesn't answer. He's not here, not really. Just watching the void stretch between her eyes and ours.
I look around the sanctuary again. Everything still perfect. Still brittle.
But the hag still needs a scale. A price was named. And I'm not going back empty-handed, especially after hauling my ass through the Hollow of Lamentation and hearing every tragic monologue this lizard could cook up.
That's when I spot it.
On a small marble pedestal near her side. Nestled in a claw-shaped stand.
A tea cup.
Not just any tea cup.
Porcelain, thin as breath. Bone-white with gold veining and a single red glaze mark across the rim. A symbol I don't recognize but instinctively know means you will be judged.
It's the only object in this whole damn sanctum that isn't part of the architecture.
Still full. The tea inside is black. Undisturbed. Probably older than most civilizations.
I reach for it.
I lift the cup. It's light. Warm. As if the hand that last held it had only just put it down.
Carefully, I tuck it into the cloth wrap I keep for stolen jewelry and forbidden herbs.
One cursed relic, ready for delivery.
The Dragon hasn't even noticed.
"Should I say something?" he mutters, still staring. "To the others?
Would it matter?
Would they believe me?"
I sling my pack over one shoulder, pat it gently.
"Let them figure it out on their own," I say. "For now, let's just leave. While we still can."
He nods absently.
But he's gone.
Not physically. He's standing right there.
But his mind—his mind's off somewhere spiraling through centuries of shame and familial dread.
He's pacing again, clawtips scraping faintly over crystal.
Muttering.
"I didn't kill her," he says softly. To no one.
I freeze.
"No, I didn't. Don't you start. I found her like this. This isn't… this wasn't me. I would never."
His wings twitch, folding and unfolding like he's trying to take off and collapse all at once.
"I respect her. I feared her, yes, we all did—but I didn't… I wouldn't. You can't blame me. You can't blame me."
He stops. Faces nothing. His eyes are glazed. Speaking to someone who isn't there.
"Uncle… don't look at me like that. I did not bring dishonor to the brood, not this time. I came because—because—because she's gone, and someone had to witness it."
His claws curl against the floor.
He breathes too fast.
"They'll think I did it. The others—they'll say it was me. They always do. They'll call me the Devourer of Matriarchs or some ridiculous slander—"
He's unraveling. Thread by thread. Dignity fraying into raw panic.
I step in quickly.
"Hey. Hey—hey, look at me."
No reaction.
I reach up—grab his muzzle gently, firmly—and turn his face toward mine.
"She was gone when we got here, remember? You said it yourself. No arias. No fire. Just… stillness. She did this. She chose this."
He blinks. Once. Twice.
"But they'll never believe me…"
I grab his claw and tug. Hard.
"Then let them disbelieve. But you're not standing here forever talking to ghosts, Dragon. We need to go. Now."
He resists for half a heartbeat. Then starts walking.
Like a sleepwalker.
One foot after the other. No grace. No pride. Just inertia.
I guide him out.
Through the hall of frozen echoes. Past the jawbone statues. Beneath the spires of crystal judgment. Out the towering entrance flanked by dragons who once roared and now only watch.
And out into the open air.
He doesn't say a word.
Just follows.
Like the weight of what he saw is still wrapped around his spine.
And for the first time since I met him—since the whole scam began, since he first rolled his eyes at me in some firelit cave—he doesn't have a single complaint to offer.
Not even a snide remark.
And that terrifies me more than anything in that sanctum ever could.