Chapter 36: The Morning's Claim
The first sensation was not sight or sound, but a gentle, persistent nudging deep in his center. It wasn’t physical. It was a thread of pure, playful intention, weaving through the reconstructed bond, poking at the edges of his consciousness like a curious finger.
Dan kept his eyes closed, a smile threatening his carefully neutral expression. He lay on his side, facing away from where he knew Dargo was, buried in the furs. The air in the Heart Chamber was still, the mountain’s pulse a low, resting rhythm. The floating orb of liquid starlight cast everything in a soft, argent glow.
The playful nudge came again, followed by a slow, deliberate warmth that spread through his lower belly. A silent, questioning prodding.
I’m asleep, Dan thought back along the bond, putting as much faux-annoyance into the mental projection as he could.
The response was an image, sharp and clear: his own face, relaxed in sleep, and a single, gold-rimmed thought. Liar.
Then the touch became physical. A hand, cool from the chamber’s air, slid under the loose hem of his borrowed tunic. It settled flat against the skin of his stomach, palm chill against his heated skin, fingers splayed. Dan drew in a quiet breath and let it out slowly, his body going pliant. He arched his back, just a fraction, pressing his skin more firmly into that possessive hold.
A deep, approving hum vibrated through the air behind him. He felt Dargo shift closer, the heat of his body a wall against Dan’s back. Lips brushed the shell of his ear, the breath a warm puff.
“There’s my treasure.”
The voice was a low rumble, sleep-rough and utterly focused. The hand on his stomach didn’t move, but its weight became more defining, as if mapping the territory beneath.
“Such a good little trinket,” Dargo murmured, the words dripping with a dark, affectionate amusement. “You’re learning to yield.”
Something hot and immediate uncoiled in Dan’s gut. The exhaustion of the last weeks, the hollow quiet where his magic had been, the constant undercurrent of fear—it all dissolved under that tone. It wasn’t condescending. It was claiming. It was an acknowledgment of trust given, and it made his blood sing. Arousal, long dormant or just brutally suppressed, spiked through him, sharp and undeniable.
He rolled onto his back, meeting Dargo’s gaze. The dragon was propped on an elbow beside him, his gold eyes molten in the starlight glow. Dan’s expression was a challenge, his green eyes bright.
“Keep talking like that,” Dan said, his own voice husky. “See how far it goes, Dragon.”
A slow, predatory smile spread across Dargo’s face. The hand on Dan’s stomach slid upward, pushing the tunic higher, fingers tracing the line of his ribs. “Is that an invitation, or a threat?”
“Could be both.”
Dargo leaned down, stopping when their lips were a breath apart. “I do so enjoy your ambiguities.” He closed the distance.
This kiss was different from the desperate, life-affirming collisions of the day before. It was a slow exploration. A savoring. Dargo’s tongue traced the seam of Dan’s lips, requesting entry, and Dan granted it with a soft sigh. The hand under his shirt tunnelled further, calloused fingertips skating over a nipple, eliciting a sharp intake of breath. Dargo chuckled in dark delight, pulling back enough to speak. “You are too easy to tease and fluster, my treasure.” It wasn’t a complaint.
The bond between them was wide open, a conduit of pure sensation. Dan could feel the tightly leashed control in Dargo, the centuries of guarded solitude giving way to a hunger that was both gentle and immense. He could feel his own responses reflected back—the shudder, the heat, the willing surrender—amplified and returned.
When Dargo finally broke the kiss, it was to trail his mouth along Dan’s jaw, down the column of his throat. He nipped lightly at the juncture of neck and shoulder, and Dan’s hips jerked off the furs.
“Yielding has its rewards,” Dargo whispered against his skin.
“Less talking,” Dan managed, tangling his hands in Dargo’s long, unbound hair.
The next hour was a lesson in patience and discovery. Dargo was meticulous, his touches mapping every scar, every curve of slowly filled-out muscle, as if committing a new hoard to memory. He worshipped Dan’s body with a focus that was almost reverent, wringing gasps and broken curses from him with hands and mouth and the relentless, thrilling pressure of his own clothed body against Dan’s naked skin.
When Dan finally spilled over, back arching, a choked cry echoing softly in the cavern, it was with Dargo’s name on his lips and the dragon’s possessive growl in his ear. The pulse in the chamber walls flared, the golden veins blazing brighter for three steady beats before settling.
Dan floated back to himself, boneless and buzzing. Dargo collapsed beside him, pulling him close, wrapping an arm around his chest. They lay there, breathing in sync, the bond humming with a deep, satiated warmth.
After a long while, Dargo stirred. He pressed a kiss to Dan’s sweat-damp hair. “Up, treasure. Moonrise waits for no dragon, not even a sated one.”
“Five more minutes,” Dan mumbled into his shoulder. “I think I died. Ghosts don’t travel.”
“You’re very corporeal for a ghost.” Dargo’s hand gave his hip a light pinch. “And you smell like me, not that I can complain much about that.” His grin was sharp. “There’s a hot spring two corridors down. We scrub. We dress. We leave.”
The promise of hot water was a powerful motivator. Groaning, Dan untangled himself and sat up. The chamber’s cool air raised goosebumps on his skin. He found his discarded trousers and pulled them on, moving with a pleasant soreness.
The hot spring was a cracked basin in a smaller cavern, fed by a trickle of steaming water that vanished into a fissure. The minerals made the water gleam milky blue. They washed in efficient silence, the intimacy of before settling into a comfortable, wordless proximity. Dan scrubbed weeks of grime and sweat from his skin, watching Dargo braid his hair back with swift, practiced motions, his powerful back etched with old, silvery scars that told stories Dan hadn’t heard yet.
“Questions?” Dargo asked, not turning, as if sensing his gaze.
“Later,” Dan said. “When we’re not on a deadline.”
Dargo glanced over his shoulder, a smirk playing on his lips. “A man of priorities. I approve.”
Back in the Heart Chamber, a small, practical pile had materialized. Dargo must have gathered it while Dan slept the deep sleep. Two heavy packs made of thick, waxed hide. Dargo tossed one at Dan. “Your travel wardrobe. Try it on. We’re not stopping for alterations.”
Dan opened the pack. Inside was clothing of a quality he’d never touched. Soft, dark wool trousers, reinforced at the knees and seat with supple leather. A thick, grey knitted sweater. A pair of boots that were serious pieces of engineering—fur-lined, with layered soles and laces that wound halfway up the calf. There was also a long, hooded coat made of a tightly woven, weatherproof material, lined with more dense fur.
He dressed quickly. The boots were a perfect fit. The sweater swallowed him in cozy warmth. He shrugged the coat on, and the weight of it felt like safety.
“How?” he asked, running his hands over the sleeves.
“I had them made for you weeks ago,” Dargo said, not looking up as he checked the straps on the other pack. “When it became clear you weren’t going to spontaneously combust or get yourself stabbed in a more permanent way. I estimated your measurements. Seems I was accurate.”
Dan blinked. Weeks ago. Before the battle. An act of presumptuous, undeniable care. “You were that sure I’d stay?”
Dargo finally met his eyes. “I was that sure I wouldn’t let you leave.” He said it plainly, a simple statement of fact. He threw another, smaller bundle at Dan. “For the flight. Put it on under the coat.”
It was a one-piece garment, like long underwear, but made of a strange, silvery, fibrous material that felt like spider silk and warm stone. “What is this?”
“Salamander-silk. It’ll regulate your temperature. In the pouch, you won’t need it, but if we have to land on the ice for any reason, you won’t freeze solid in thirty seconds.” Dargo was already pulling on similar gear, then layering his own dark, practical traveling clothes over it.
Once they were both outfitted, Dargo shouldered the larger pack and handed Dan a leather waterskin and a belt pouch that clinked with the sound of coin. “You carry the negotiable assets. Try not to look like you’re carrying the negotiable assets.”
Kael, who had been watching the proceedings with keen interest, whined softly. The bandage on his head was gone, revealing a thick, knotted scar over his blind eye. He nudged Dargo’s hand with his snout.
“I know,” Dargo said, scratching the ridge above the young dragon’s good eye. “You’ll cling tight. No acrobatics. This is a boring, straight line.” He looked at Dan. “Ready?”
Dan took a last look around the obsidian vault. The frozen rivers. The skeletal remains. The floating orb that showed only their reflections, now blurred as they turned away. This place had been a prison, a fortress, and briefly, a sanctuary. He felt no nostalgia for it. Only a pressing need to see the sky.
“Ready.”
They walked to the Spire’s main entrance, a wide, cavernous mouth overlooking the avalanche field. The moon was already climbing, a bone-white sliver in a sky dusted with hard, cold stars. The wind screamed outside, a physical force.
Dargo didn’t pause. He stepped out onto the ledge, the gale whipping his braid sideways. He turned to Dan. “Now.”
The shift was not a blur, but an expansion. One moment, the man was there. The next, space itself seemed to distort, to make room. Scales the colour of a midnight avalanche, vast and gleaming, swept into being. Wings like sections of a storm cloud folded, then stretched. Dargo lowered his colossal head, one golden eye, now as large as a shield, fixing on Dan. The intelligence in it was breathtakingly familiar.
A low rumble vibrated the stone under Dan’s boots. An invitation.
Dan approached, the wind nearly knocking him over.
Dargo’s tongue, thick and muscular, slid out. With impossible delicacy, it nudged Dan, guiding him into the sheltered space. The opening beneath was not wet or slimy, but lined with dry, velvety soft tissue. It was dark, secure, and surprisingly spacious. He could sit upright. He pulled his hood tight and settled in, the salamander-silk instantly wicking away a chill he hadn’t even registered.
Outside, he felt a heavy thud as Kael leapt and
He pulled his hood tight and settled in, the salamander-silk instantly wicking away a chill he hadn’t even registered.
Outside, he felt a heavy thud as Kael leapt and secured himself along the spined ridge of Dargo’s back. Then the world dropped away.
There was no graceful leap. It was a fall, a deliberate, stomach-lurching plummet from the ledge into the black air of the gorge. Dan’s breath seized. Then, with a concussive whump that shuddered through the pouch’s walls, Dargo’s wings caught the air. The fall transformed into a powerful, upward surge.
They rose above the Spire, leaving its dark bulk and golden veins behind. The moonlit landscape below became a map of desolation—the jagged avalanche field, the glassy craters, the scribble of their own history written in fire and ice. Dan watched it shrink through the narrow opening, a strange, quiet finality settling in his chest.
The flight settled into a rhythm, a relentless forward drive. The only sounds were the endless, buffeting roar of wind over scales and the deep, rhythmic thunder of Dargo’s wingbeats. Dan felt every powerful downstroke in his bones. It was less like riding and more like being carried inside a force of nature.
He must have dozed, lulled by the motion and the profound darkness. A specific, deliberate thought-thread nudged him awake, sliding through the bond. It carried an image of a different mountain face, a smaller cave mouth hidden by a waterfall of stone.
We make a detour. Dargo’s mental voice was a low rumble in his mind. The new cave will be cold. It is best to bring what we can for warmth.
The flight path shifted subtly. The relentless northern trajectory angled westward, following a chain of broken, lesser peaks. Below, the eternal snow began to show patches of stubborn, frozen earth and the skeletal black fingers of long-dead forests.
As well as maybe some of your other belongings that I couldn’t pack before…
A specific item materialized in the shared thought-space: a simple, coarse-bristled brush with a worn wooden handle. The memory followed—Dan standing on a rock ledge, working carefully over the vast, leathery expanse of a wing, clearing away ash and grit. The deep, silent tremble of pleasure that had vibrated through the dragon under his hands.
The thought was tinted with a slight embarrassment, a rare, vulnerable flicker quickly shrouded.
Dan smiled in the warm dark. He rubbed his hand over the inner surface of the velvety throat pouch, a gesture of acknowledgement.
“Of course,” he said aloud, knowing Dargo would hear him. “Couldn’t let my fierce mate be cold.” He didn’t mention the silent plea for the undivided attention that came with Dan cleaning his true form. They both knew.
The acknowledgment hummed between them, warm and uncomplicated.
Dargo began his descent, circling a jagged peak that looked like a shattered tooth. He aimed for a shadowed cleft near its base, invisible until you were right upon it. The wingbeats slowed, became careful adjustments. They slipped into the mountain’s silence.
The landing was a soft scuff of talons on stone, a final settling of weight. Dan waited, listening to the heavy sounds of Dargo shifting, of Kael scrambling down. Then the pouch entrance widened, Dargo’s tongue providing a ramp back into the world.
The air in the old cave was still and dry, carrying the faint, mineral scent of old stone and a deeper, familiar smell—ozone, smoke, and Dargo. It wasn’t large. A single chamber, maybe fifty feet deep. And it was, unmistakably, a place someone had lived.
Furs were piled in a neat bed against one wall. A stone hearth, cold and filled with old ash, sat opposite. Shelves, carved roughly into the rock, held an odd assortment: clay jugs sealed with wax, a few well-worn books, tools, and chunks of unrefined ore that glinted dully.
“Home sweet hole in the rock,” Dargo said, now in human form, already pulling bundles from a recess Dan hadn’t noticed. His voice echoed slightly.
“It’s… cozy,” Dan offered, earning a snort.
Kael immediately trotted to the fur bed, turned three precise circles, and flopped down with a contented sigh, claiming it.
Dargo worked with efficient speed, pulling out rolled pelts of winter-thick fur—bear, wolf, a stunning white pelt that might have been an ice-fox. He tossed them into a pile. Then he went to the shelves, collecting the sealed jugs. “Preserved fats for lamp fuel,” he explained. “And fermented goat’s milk. Tastes terrible. Prevents scurvy.”
Dan wandered, his fingers brushing the books. Their titles were in languages he didn’t know. His eyes kept searching. He found the brush on a low shelf, beside a chunk of amethyst and a tinderbox. He picked it up. The handle was smooth from use, from the grip of his own hand weeks ago.
He turned. Dargo was watching him, his arms full of a bulky, grey pelt. Their eyes met. No embarrassment flickered this time in the bond, only a steady, acknowledging warmth. Dargo gave a single, slight nod.
Dan tucked the brush carefully into his coat pocket. “What else?”
“That’s the essentials. The rest is just rock.” Dargo’s gaze swept the cave, a final, dismissive glance. “It served a purpose. Now it doesn’t.”
They packed the furs and jugs into netted cargo slings Dargo produced from another nook. He shifted back, and they secured the loads against his chest, using the thick scales as anchor points. The process was quick, practiced.
Soon, Dan was back in the pouch, the new furs adding a familiar, musky scent to the dark space. Kael resumed his position, clicking his claws into place.
Ready for the boring part? Dargo’s thought came.
“The town part?” Dan murmured.
The people part.
They launched again, bursting from the cave mouth back into the wide, star-frozen sky. The direction was north once more, unwavering. Dan felt the change in the bond, a subtle tightening, a layer of wary focus settling over Dargo’s consciousness. The dragon’s wingbeats became somehow more economical, less powerful and more stealthy, blending with the high-altitude winds.
Below, the dead forests gave way to a vast, flat whiteness under the moon—the southern edge of the Ice Scar. And on its barren coast, a smudge of dirty orange light and crawling, minuscule shapes resolved itself.
Rivenhold.
The bond tightened another notch, a silent predator’s coil. Dargo began a slow, circling descent, staying far out over the forest, his dark scales swallowing the moonlight.
Dargo began a slow, circling descent, staying far out over the forest, his dark scales swallowing the moonlight. He didn’t head for the orange smudge of town. Instead, he banked toward a wrinkled bluff overlooking the frozen river that curled behind Rivenhold, its face scarred with shadows.
He found it in a fold of rock: a shallow cave, barely more than an overhang, but deep enough to break the wind. The landing was a whisper of talons on frost-rimed stone. Dargo shifted the moment they were down, his human form appearing beside Dan as he climbed from the pouch.
“Here,” Dargo said, his voice low. He was already pulling the netted cargo slings from his scaled chest. Kael hopped down, sniffing the air with a nervous twitch of his whiskers.
Dargo pointed a stern finger at the young dragon. “You are a youngling, and you are still healing. I won’t have you captured again.” His tone brooked no argument. He dragged the bundles of furs and supplies into the cave’s driest corner. “You stay. You guard our stuff. You are a silent, moss-colored rock. Understand?”
Kael rumbled, a petulant sound, but settled onto the furs, tucking his nose under his tail. His single eye gleamed in the dark, unhappy but obedient.
Dan watched, a knot of unease in his own stomach. “He’ll be safe here?”
“Safer than in a town that likely has ‘dragon-hide bounty’ posters peeling on every other wall.” Dargo’s gaze was on the distant, crawling lights. “This is precaution, not pessimism. He’s a liability in there. A trigger for panic. Or greed.”
He turned, grabbing Dan’s shoulder and pulling him closer to adjust the hood of his coat, his motions brisk. “You, however, are just a scrawny human. You’re the disguise. Stick close. Say nothing unless I nudge you. Your job is to look cold, pathetic, and utterly unmagical.”
“I can manage two of those,” Dan muttered.
“The unmagical part isn’t an act anymore, so that makes three.” Dargo’s words were blunt, but the hand that finished smoothing Dan’s hood lingered, a brief squeeze on the back of his neck. The bond carried no pity, only a sharp, focused calculation. “Ready?”
Dan looked back at Kael, a small, dark shape in the shallow cave. He felt a surge of protectiveness, fierce and sudden. He gave a sharp nod. “Let’s get this over with.”
They left the bluff on foot, a steep, treacherous climb down to the riverbank. The ice was thick, a milky blue highway under the stars. Their boots crunched in the absolute silence, the only sound for miles. Rivenhold grew from a smudge to a jagged silhouette, a clutch of low, sod-roofed buildings surrounded by a palisade of sharpened, grey timber. No grand walls. This place expected trouble from the wild, not armies.
The smell hit them first, even from a quarter-mile out: woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, stale beer, and the sharp, metallic tang of a forge. It was a thick, living stench. Dan’s pulse picked up, his hand instinctively moving toward where a weapon might have been. He had none.
“Eyes down,” Dargo murmured, not looking at him. His own posture had changed. The centuries-old predator was gone, replaced by a man who moved with a weary, guarded slouch, his proud shoulders rolled inward. Only the gold eyes, watchful from under his hood, betrayed the performance.
The gate was a rough opening, unmanned but flanked by two leaning braziers of foul-smelling coal. Voices and the clang of metal spilled out. They walked through like they belonged, Dargo’s stride unconcerned. No one challenged them. The place was a law of its own: see nothing, ask less.
Inside was a muddy rut of a street, shadows packed with movement. Figures bundled in furs and leather shuffled between flickering doorways. Arguments erupted from taverns and died just as quickly. Eyes, hard and assessing, slid over them and away, finding nothing immediately worth the trouble.
Dargo moved with purpose, turning down a narrower alley where the forge-smell grew overpowering. Heat radiated from a stone structure at the dead end, its chimney belching sparks into the night. The sign above the door was a simple, burned image of an anvil.
Dargo pushed the heavy door open without knocking.
The heat inside was a physical blow, dry and consuming. The main room was a workshop chaos of half-finished metal, barrels of rivets, and gleaming tools on racks. At its heart, a woman worked at a massive anvil, hammering a curve of red-hot steel with rhythmic, punishing blows. She was tall, built like the shovel she might have forged, her arms corded with muscle under a leather apron stained black with soot and old burns. Her hair, the color of ash, was chopped short and plastered to her scalp with sweat.
She finished her strike, plunged the steel into a quenching trough with a violent hiss, and then looked up. Her eyes were pale grey, like flint. They tracked from Dargo to Dan and back, showing no surprise.
“You’re late,” she said, her voice a gravelly match for the workshop din. She tossed the cooled metal onto a pile with a clatter. “Was starting to think the Scar finally ate you.”
“It tried,” Dargo said. He pulled his hood back, just enough. “I negotiated.”
A ghost of a smile touched her mouth. “With fire, I’d wager.” Her flint eyes went to Dan again, lingering on his face, his too-new coat. “And you brought a souvenir. He doesn’t look like loot.”
“He’s not. He’s with me. Dan, this is Grynda. Grynda, Dan. He needs gear for a deep northern trek. Now.”
Grynda wiped her hands on her apron, leaving new smears. She walked over, a slow, appraising circle around Dan. He forced himself to stand still under the inspection. “Skinny,” she announced. “But the coat’s good. My work. He fill out some since you ordered it?”
“Some,” Dargo said.
“Hmm.” She stopped in front of Dan. “The silent type, or the scared type?”
Dan met her gaze. He channeled the feeling of being empty, of being nothing. He gave a small, noncommittal shrug.
Grynda’s smile returned, a touch warmer. “Smart type. Okay.” She turned back to Dargo. “The full kit? Shelter, cookware, the works?”
“The works. And a weapon for him. Something simple. Sturdy.”
That got a raised eyebrow. “Teaching your pet human to fight?”
“He already knows,” Dargo said, and the simple pride in the statement made Dan’s chest tighten. “He just needs the tool.”
Grynda nodded, as if a question had been answered. “Right. I’ve got most of it prepped. Knew you’d be in a foul hurry.” She jerked her head toward a heavy archway leading to a back room. “Come on. Let’s get you outfitted before the night crowd really gets going and someone gets curious about the unfamiliar faces.”
She led them into a storeroom packed to the rafters. It smelled of oiled leather, cured hide, and dry herbs. Grynda moved through the clutter with familiar ease, pulling items from shelves and piles.
She shoved a tightly-rolled canvas bundle at Dan. “Shelter. One-person, but it’ll fit you and your ego. Steel poles. Stakes.” Next came a compact cookset, a water filter made of layered stone and charcoal, a heavy knife in a sheath, and a small, efficient-looking hand-axe.
Then she went to a locked chest, undid it with a key from her apron, and lifted out a weapon. It was a short, heavy blade—not a sword, not quite a machete. It had a brutal, practical curve and a grip wrapped in rough leather. She offered it hilt-first to Dan.
“Leaf-spring steel from a wagon that tried to cross the Scar. Nearly unbreakable. Doesn’t need to be sharp, just heavy.” Her eyes held his. “It’s for chopping, for prying, for breaking bone if it has to. It’s not pretty. It’s a tool.”
Dan took it. The weight was perfect, solid and reassuring in his hand. He gave it an experimental swing. The balance was intuitive. “It’s good,” he said, his first word in the town.
“Damn right it is.” Grynda turned to Dargo. “Your stuff’s the same as always. I’ll fetch it. Payment?”
Dargo nudged Dan. Dan pulled the clinking belt pouch from under his coat and handed over half the coins within. Grynda hefted it, her ear twitching slightly at the sound, then gave a satisfied grunt. “Always a pleasure.”
As she left to gather Dargo’s supplies, Dan leaned close to him. “She’s not… human, is she?”
“Trollkin,” Dargo murmured back, his eyes on the doorway. “Half. Tougher than the stone she works. And discrete.”
Grynda returned with another pack, larger and weathered. She helped them organize everything, her hands swift and sure. Finally, she handed Dan a final item: a pair of gloves, the leather hardened and fire-treated, the palms reinforced with a layer of scaled hide.
“For the cold,” she said. “And for handling hot things. Or sharp things.”
Dan pulled them on. They fit like a second skin. “Thank you.”
She waved it off, looking at Dargo. “You’re heading for the quiet valleys?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Good. Stay there.” Her flinty gaze softened, just for an instant. “World’s getting noisy. Even out here. The Accord’s licking wounds, but their preachers are sniffing around, buying drinks, asking about ‘unnatural disturbances’ in the mountains.” She spat the words like poison. “They’re gathering stories. They’ll be back.”
Dargo’s expression didn’t change, but the air around him seemed to grow stiller, colder. “Let them gather stories. The next one they hear will be their own screaming.”
Grynda nodded, as if this was the correct answer. “Get out of my town, dragon. And keep your trinket safe.” She gave Dan one last, appraising look. “Try not to lose that knife. It’s better company than most.”
They shouldered the packs, now laden with a future’s worth of survival. The weight was comforting. They slipped back out into the alley, the cold air a shock after the forge’s heat. The street seemed louder, more crowded, more dangerous.
Dargo didn’t retrace their steps. He moved deeper into Rivenhold, taking a circuitous route toward the river gate. “Scouting,” he muttered, his eyes cataloguing faces, weapons, patrol patterns that were too casual to be official.
Dan stayed on his heel, the new knife a hard line against his hip. He felt exposed, a walking piece of Dargo’s hoard in a den of thieves. The bond was a live wire, thrumming with Dargo’s hyper-vigilance.
They were two streets from the gate when a man stepped from a tavern shadow, blocking their path. He was big, wrapped in scarred bear fur, and his eyes were the unfocused, aggressive kind of drunk.
“Hey now,” the man slurred, his gaze locking on Dan’s new pack. “What’s a couple of rush-rats carrying out so late? Smells like you’ve been shopping.”
Dargo stopped. He didn’t speak. He just looked at the man.
The drunk took a wobbly step forward, emboldened by the silence. “Maybe you should share the load. For the toll. This is my street.”
Dan’s gloved hand found the leather-wrapped hilt of his new blade. His mouth was dry.
Dargo sighed, a sound of profound inconvenience. He took one step forward, into the brazier’s light, and pulled his hood back just enough.
The firelight caught the gold in his eyes, not human, not anything of this muddy, shouting world. It caught the sharp, ancient lines of his face, the predatory stillness that had nothing to do with a street thug’s bluster.
He didn’t growl. He didn’t shift. He just was, for a single, terrifying second, completely and utterly himself.
The drunk’s aggression melted into a liquid, primal fear. He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet, and fell into the mud with a wet thud. He scrambled away on his hands and knees, not looking back.
Dargo pulled his hood up. “And that’s how you negotiate,” he said quietly, and walked on.
Dan followed, his heart hammering against his ribs. They passed through the gate, back onto the silent, vast ice of the river. The town’s orange glow receded at their backs, its noise swallowed by the frozen night.
They didn’t speak until they were halfway to the bluff, the only sound their crunching footsteps and the distant, lonely cry of something hunting on the tundra.
“You okay?” Dargo asked, his voice a low rumble in the dark.
Dan thought about the fear in the drunk’s eyes, the solid weight of the pack on his shoulders, the knife at his side. He thought of Kael, waiting in the shallow cave.
“Yeah,” he said, and found he meant it. “Let’s go get our dragon.”