I don‘t go back bravely.
I go back furious and afraid and already hating myself for it.
The entrance is half-hidden, stone slab shoved aside like the temple itself is trying to pretend nothing happened. Smoke still clings to the ground, sour and sweet. I slip inside barefoot, knife in hand, breath shallow, heart punching my ribs like it wants out first.
I hear them before I see them.
Not chanting.
Murmuring.
Soft. Intimate. Deadly.
I edge to the lip of the chamber and look down—
—and my stomach drops out of me.
He‘s in the circle.
Not lounging. Not smug. Not basking.
Contained.
The chalk ring is thicker now, reinforced with metal filings and blood-dark symbols etched into the stone. Like chains—old ones, clever ones—they snake through the runes, humming faintly. Not binding flesh. Binding something deeper.
The Dragon is crouched low, wings pulled tight, scales dulled like someone turned the color down on him. His eyes track the cultists as they close in, slow and reverent, hands empty now.
That‘s worse.
They aren‘t here to kill him.
They‘re here to keep him.
“She must not return,” one murmurs.
“The vessel fled,” says another.
“The Sky Beast must be anchored,” breathes a third, voice trembling with joy.
Anchored.
My teeth grind.
I feel it then—clear as a blade pressed to my spine.
He‘s scared.
Not panicked. Not roaring. But that old, deep fear he never talks about. The kind that has nothing to do with death and everything to do with forever.
They step closer. The murmuring syncs. Words slide into place, smooth and practiced.
“Bind the flame.”
“Seal the name.”
“Let his will rest in us.”
The circle flares faintly.
The Dragon growls, low and helpless, fire guttering uselessly in his throat. He pulls against the runes and they drink the effort, leeching it away.
I don‘t think.
I don‘t plan.
I don‘t decide.
I explode.
One second I‘m choking on doubt, the next I‘m bursting out into the open sanctum like a kicked hornet nest, fury doing what thinking couldn‘t.
The first thing I see is the goblet.
Huge. Ornate. Ridiculous. A waist-high bowl of “holy water” sitting smugly at the edge of the chalk circle like it owns the place.
I kick it.
Hard.
The metal shrieks, tips, and the water sloshes out in a glittering arc, splattering over stone, candles, bare feet. The chalk ring smears and dissolves, symbols bleeding into meaningless white streaks.
“There,” I snarl. “Your circle‘s fucked.”
Gasps. Shouts. Someone screams like the world just cracked in half.
I turn, walking straight through the ruined ring, boots crunching chalk underfoot, heart hammering.
“Dragon!” I shout, raw and loud and unholy.
The cultists lurch toward me—hands out, faces panicked, devotion curdling into desperation.
“Stop her!”
“She breaks the rite!”
“Seize the vessel!”
“Oh shut up,” I snap, and kick the nearest one square in the knee.
Bone pops. He goes down screaming.
Another grabs my arm. I elbow her in the throat. Someone claws at my hair—I spin and smash my forehead into theirs. Capes tangle. Bodies hit stone. It‘s messy and ugly and perfect.
Then—
The air changes.
Heat. Pressure. That familiar, dreadful intake of breath.
The Dragon roars.
Not a pleased roar. Not a dramatic one.
A furious roar.
Fire erupts overhead, ripping through the chamber in a rolling blast of light and heat. Candles vaporize. Tapestries ignite. People scatter, shrieking, crawling, tripping over their own faith.
Someone catches fire.
Someone else faints.
I duck instinctively as a gout of flame sears past, hair singeing, skin prickling.
“OUT,” the Dragon bellows, voice cracking stone. “ALL OF YOU.”
It‘s absolute chaos.
Cultists scrambling. Smoke choking the air. Holy water hissing as it evaporates. Someone drops a knife and it skitters across the floor, glowing red-hot.
I stagger back toward him, chest heaving, eyes burning, adrenaline screaming in my veins.
This is it. The mess. The point of no return.
I don‘t know if I came back to save him or drag him or damn us both—but gods help me, I couldn‘t leave him there.
Firelight dances wild across his scales.
The sanctum burns.
And everything is finally, gloriously out of control.
***
The sky is pale gold and stupidly peaceful, like it didn‘t just watch a temple implode.
We‘re flying.
Again.
He‘s rigid beneath me, wings beating too hard, too precise. The flight of someone who is absolutely not brooding and definitely not replaying events he would like to erase from history.
I‘m grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
Then he clears his throat. Loudly. Pointedly.
“That,” he says, staring straight ahead, “was an avoidable outcome.”
I snort.
“Ah. We‘re starting with denial. Classic.”
He flicks his tail in irritation. “You did not need to incite a full panic.”
“I kicked a cup,” I say. “You incinerated a religion.”
“That religion was unsound.”
“Oh, now you‘re a theologian.”
Smoke curls from his nostrils. Not fire. Smoke means shame.
Below us, the hills roll past, calm and green and blissfully cult-free. I lean forward a little, just enough that my voice carries to his ear.
“I told you so.”
His wings hitch. Just slightly.
“I do not recall soliciting commentary.”
“You recall perfectly,” I say. “You just don‘t like the part where I was right.”
Silence again. The tense kind. The kind stretched thin over embarrassment.
“They were… attentive,” he mutters at last. “That is all.”
“Mm,” I say. “Very attentive. With knives.”
“They meant well.”
I laugh. Short. Sharp.
“So did everyone who ever tried to put a collar on me.”
That gets him. I feel it in the way his flight stutters, then steadies.
“I misjudged,” he says finally, voice clipped, like he‘s swallowing glass. “The speed at which… devotion decays.”
I beam into the wind.
“Oh gods, say it again.”
“Do not.”
“I‘ll treasure this forever.”
He growls, low and mortified. “You are intolerable.”
“And yet,” I say, hooking my arm more securely around a neck spine, “here we are. Together. Not ruling a naked knife cult.”
Another long beat.
“…Thank you,” he adds, grudging, almost inaudible.
I don‘t gloat. Much.
I just smile into the morning air, hair whipping wild, bruises already blooming, heart settling back where it belongs.
“Next time,” I say lightly, “when people start calling you a god and offering fruit, maybe listen when I say it‘s a trap.”
He exhales, a tired, smoky sigh.
“Yes,” he says. “Next time.”
We fly on, the sun climbing, the world wide and dangerous again.
And gloriously, catastrophically ours.