Chapter 19 | Part 4

They found shelter in a hollow between two volcanic spires, the rock still warm from whatever fires burned beneath. Srietz declared it defensible. Elion said nothing, which Drusniel had learned to interpret as agreement.

The twilight deepened. Not to true darkness—Wyrmreach didn’t allow true darkness—but close enough that the distant glow of the contested lands became visible on the eastern horizon. A smear of red against the grey.

“Watch rotation,” Srietz said, unpacking dried meat and water. “Three hours each. Elion, then Srietz, then Drusniel.”

Drusniel caught it. The name. Not “the shapeshifter” or “the demon” or any of the dozen careful distances Srietz had maintained since they met. Just Elion.

Elion noticed too. His head turned slightly, ears catching the word like it had physical weight.

“Acceptable,” Drusniel said.

They settled. Elion took position at the hollow’s mouth, a shadow watching shadows. Srietz arranged their supplies in neat rows, counting under his breath. Drusniel leaned against the warm stone and stared at the red glow on the horizon until his eyes burned.

Sleep wouldn’t come. His mind kept circling back to Zaelar, to the instructions that had led them here, to the name Szoravel that meant nothing and everything.

“Your breathing changed.”

Elion’s voice, low. The shapeshifter hadn’t moved from his post.

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t ask.” A pause. “But you’re not.”

Drusniel watched the red glow pulse. “I’m following instructions from something I don’t understand, toward someone I’ve never met, through territory that kills travelers for sport. What part of that should make me fine?”

“None of it.” Elion shifted his weight, a controlled motion. “I’ve spent thirty years avoiding those lands. Heard the stories. Saw what came out of them, the few times anything came out at all.”

“And you’re still here.”

“I’m still here.”

The statement hung between them, unadorned. No philosophy. No justification. Just fact.

“I don’t trust you,” Drusniel said. The words came out harder than he intended. “I don’t trust anyone. Haven’t for a long time.”

“I know.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

Elion turned then, his profile cutting a sharp line against the volcanic glow. “You don’t need to trust me. You need to trust that I want to survive. That I’ll do what survival requires.” His mouth twitched. “Trust is expensive. Direction is free.”

From somewhere behind them, Srietz’s voice emerged. “Srietz has been listening. Srietz wishes to note that this conversation contains an unexpected amount of practical wisdom.” A pause. “Srietz is recalculating group cohesion estimates.”

“Go to sleep, Srietz.”

“After watch. Not before.” The goblin’s silhouette moved past them, taking position beside Elion. “The shapeshifter will brief Srietz on observed threats.”

“There aren’t any.”

“Srietz will verify.”

Drusniel closed his eyes. The stone warmed his back. The red glow painted the inside of his eyelids. Somewhere in the distance, the contested lands waited with their lords and their flowers and their fire.

Tomorrow, they’d walk into it.

Tonight, they rested. Three people in a hollow, watching the dark, waiting for dawn.

It wasn’t peace. But it was close enough.

End of Chapter 19.4 —> 19.5: Direction: The Dawn