Read Chapter 11: The Locked Tower

The walls of my quarters had never felt so close. Three days of confinement, and I had worn a path between the window and the narrow cot, tracing the same thoughts until they blurred. Lady Voss's voice still rang in my ears—*a necessary cost*—and every time I closed my eyes, I saw the dull sheen in the dragons' eyes, the way their wings hung slack.

Then Ignis stopped eating.

I noticed it on the second morning. His usual eager rumble when I brought the morning scraps had faded to a low, rattling breath. By noon, his scales had lost their luster, turning a sickly gray at the edges. By evening, he would not rise from the corner where he had curled, and when I pressed my hand to his snout, the heat that usually radiated from him was gone.

"Ignis." I knelt beside him, my voice cracking. "Ignis, look at me."

His eye opened, a slit of molten gold, and I saw the pain there. The same pain I had seen in the academy's other dragons. The poison was in him now, working through his blood, and I had done nothing but sit in this room and stare at walls.

I pressed my forehead to his. "I'm going to fix this. I swear it."

A knock at the door made me jerk upright. I crossed the room, expecting a guard with another tray of bland food, but the face that peered through the crack was not a guard's.

Fiora's dark eyes darted past me to where Ignis lay, and her mouth tightened. "You look worse than he does." She slipped inside, pressing something cold and metal into my palm before I could speak.

A key. Old iron, worn smooth at the edges, with a crest I did not recognize.

"The Locked Tower," she said quietly. "Third door past the apothecary, the one no one talks about. The Academy keeps its stores of ancient dragon cures there—tinctures and salves from before the blight, things the healers have forgotten or chosen not to use."

I stared at the key, then at her. "Why are you helping me? You barely know me."

Fiora glanced at Ignis again, and something flickered in her expression—not pity, but recognition. "Because the last time a stable hand asked too many questions about Sir Aldric, she ended up scrubbing dragon stalls for a year. And she was one of the lucky ones." She stepped back toward the door. "The guards change at midnight. You'll have about an hour before the night watch circles back. Don't waste it."

She was gone before I could thank her.

I stayed still, listening to her footsteps fade, then crossed to the window. The western tower rose against the darkening sky, its top lost in cloud. I had been inside it once, on a tour during my first week, and remembered only dust and locked doors and a smell like old parchment.

I looked at Ignis. His breath came in shallow puffs, and when I touched his neck, he did not stir.

"An hour," I whispered. "That's all I need."

The knock came at midnight, as promised. I had changed into darker clothes, the key hidden in my boot, and I pressed my ear to the door as the lock turned.

The guard who opened it was the same one who had brought my meals, a heavyset man whose face showed nothing but boredom. He carried a tray with the evening ration—bread and a thin soup I had no appetite for.

"Leave it on the table," I said, keeping my voice steady.

He did, and as he turned to go, I moved. My shoulder caught him in the back, and he stumbled forward with a grunt, his balance already compromised. I snatched the keys from his belt and was through the door before he could recover, slamming it shut behind me. The lock clicked.

"Mistress Elara—" His muffled shout followed me as I ran, but I did not slow. The corridors were empty at this hour, lit only by the dying glow of the wall sconces. I knew the way to the apothecary from my training rounds, but the tower beyond it I had never entered.

The third door. I counted as I ran. First door, storage. Second, a cramped office where a junior healer kept her books. Third—

The key fit with a soft, aged click, and the door swung inward.

The smell hit me first. Dust and dried herbs and something sharp beneath, like the bite of metal on the tongue. Moonlight filtered through high slitted windows, catching row after row of shelves that rose into shadow. Jars lined them, their contents dark and mysterious—roots, powders, vials of liquid that gleamed as I passed.

I moved quickly, scanning labels written in a hand I had to squint to read. *Wyrm's bane. Ashleaf tonic. Silvermint salve.* Names I knew from my lessons, and others I did not. But none of them mentioned the poison that was killing the dragons. None of them promised an antidote.

I was about to give up, to search the lower shelves, when my foot caught on something beneath a table. I knelt and found a strongbox, its lid ajar, its lock hanging broken.

Inside lay a ledger.

The leather cover was cracked and stained, but the pages within were clean, the ink fresh. A date at the top of the first entry—barely three months old. And a name I knew too well.

Lady Voss.

I read, my heart hammering against my ribs. Orders. Precise, clinical, written in a hand that brooked no argument. *Increase the iron-rust compound in the saddle leather by half a measure. Monitor the mounts for signs of lethargy. If any show severe symptoms, quarantine and begin evacuation protocols.*

Entry after entry. Each one dated. Each one signed with Voss's mark.

The poisoning was not an accident. It was not an ancient curse or a mysterious blight. It was ordered. Deliberate. Measured. Someone had been dosing the dragons' tack with a slow poison, and Lady Voss had signed every step into being.

My hands shook as I reached the final entry. Three weeks ago. The same week Sir Aldric had vanished.

*Northern mounts relocated. Rider escort required for the passes. Aldric volunteered—no replacement necessary.*

I read it twice, then a third time, trying to find a meaning I had missed. But the words did not change. Aldric had not disappeared. He had been sent, and the Academy had marked him gone because they did not expect him to return.

The ledger slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor.

I stood there in the dark, surrounded by jars of cures that could not save the dragons, and felt the weight of what I had found settle over me. This was not a sickness. It was a plan. And I was holding the proof.

A sound from below—the scrape of a boot on stone—sent me moving. I grabbed the ledger, shoved it into my shirt, and looked around for anything that might help Ignis. My eyes caught a small vial on a shelf near the door, labeled in that same faded hand: *Bond tonic. For the strain of separation. Administer one drop daily.*

I did not know if it would help. But it was all I had.

I slipped out of the tower, locked the door behind me, and ran back through the silent corridors. The guard was still pounding at my door, but I had not come back that way. I took the servant's stairs, the ones I had learned as a stable hand, and circled wide around the main hall.

When I finally reached my quarters through the servants' entrance, the guard's pounding had stopped. Someone had let him out, and no one was waiting to catch me. I slid inside, chest heaving, and crossed to where Ignis lay.

His eyes were closed. For a terrible moment, I thought I was too late.

Then his side rose in a slow, shuddering breath.

I uncorked the vial and let a single drop fall onto his tongue. He did not stir, but I told myself the color in his scales seemed less gray. I told myself his breathing was easier.

I sat beside him, the ledger heavy against my chest, and watched the moon cross the window.

Fiora's key had opened more than a door. It had opened a path I could not unsee. Voss had ordered the poison. Voss had sent Aldric north. And somewhere, in the passes beyond the academy, the last wild dragons were waiting for someone to find the truth.

I pressed my hand to Ignis's side and felt the faint warmth beneath his scales. A sign, perhaps, that the tonic was working. Or perhaps only my own desperate hope.

Either way, I would not waste it.

By morning, I would have to decide what to do with what I had found. And Ignis would need to be strong enough to fly.