Read Chapter 16: The Hidden Village

The mountains folded around them like a held breath. Ignis labored through the thin air, each wingbeat a visible struggle, his scales dulled to the color of old ash. Elara pressed herself against his neck, feeling the fever radiating through his hide, and tried not to count the shuddering gaps between his breaths.

“There,” Aldric said from behind Kael, pointing toward a cleft in the granite face ahead. “That pass cuts through to the Graywash Valley. No riders patrol there.”

“How do you know?” Kael asked. His voice was tight—the wound in his side had reopened during the escape, and dark blood stained his tunic.

“Because I mapped every peak within a hundred miles during my first year as a rider.” Aldric’s jaw tightened. “And because Voss’s people never went near it. Too much superstition. They say the valley is haunted by disgraced riders.”

Ignis banked toward the cleft, and Elara felt his muscles bunch and release in desperate rhythm. The pass was narrow, barely wide enough for his wingspan, and the stone scraped against his wingtips as they threaded through. Then the valley opened before them, and Elara understood why no one came here.

Smoke rose from chimneys. A dozen stone cottages huddled along a stream, their roofs patched with moss and Riverhide leather. Fields of hardy grain climbed the lower slopes, and children—actual children—ran between the buildings chasing a ball made of bound cloth.

“They built a life here,” Elara breathed.

“They built a secret,” Aldric corrected. “And secrets have a way of protecting their own.”

Ignis descended in a long, exhausted glide, landing hard on the valley floor. His legs buckled, and Elara slid off before he could collapse fully, her boots hitting packed earth. By the time she turned around, the children had stopped their game. Adults were emerging from the cottages—men and women in worn rider leathers, some bearing the scars of expulsion, others carrying tools that could become weapons in a heartbeat.

An older woman stepped forward. Her hair was white, cropped close to her skull, and a deep burn scar ran from her left temple down to her jaw. She studied Ignis first, her eyes narrowing. Then she looked at Elara.

“That dragon is dying,” she said. No greeting. No question.

“I know,” Elara said. “That’s why we came.”

The woman’s gaze moved to Aldric, and something flickered across her face—recognition, then disbelief. “Aldric?” Her voice cracked on the second syllable. “They said you were dead. Three years ago, they said you fell in the northern wastes.”

“They lied, Mara.” Aldric slid from Ignis’s back, his movements stiff from imprisonment. “Voss lied. She always lies.”

Mara’s scarred face worked through a dozen emotions before settling on grim acceptance. She turned to the gathered outcasts. “Bring the wounded inside. And someone get water for that dragon—cold water, from the stream, and fetch the gray moss from the crags. He’s burning up from the inside.”

In the largest cottage, which served as a communal hall, Elara sat on a rough-hewn bench while an outcast named Thorne—a former healer’s apprentice expelled for questioning a noble’s treatment of his mount—cleaned and stitched Kael’s wound. Kael gritted his teeth but made no sound, his eyes fixed on Elara across the room.

Aldric was speaking in low tones with Mara and two other former riders. Elara caught fragments: *draining*, *under-depths*, *immortality*. The words hung in the air like smoke.

“You should know what you’re asking us to shelter,” Mara finally said, turning to Elara. Her voice was not unkind, but it was careful. “We are outcasts. We were expelled, branded, and left for dead. We survived because we stopped fighting Voss. If we shelter you, we start fighting again.”

“I’m not asking you to fight,” Elara said. “I’m asking you to let Ignis rest. He carried us here. He’s sick because of what Voss did to him.” She hesitated. “Because of what she does to all of them.”

Mara’s expression shifted. She exchanged a glance with Aldric, then nodded slowly. “Rest. But we will talk more when your people are healed.”

The outcasts moved with practiced efficiency, bringing blankets and bowls of stew. The gray moss Thorne had mentioned was pressed against Ignis’s flanks, and within the hour, his breathing eased. Elara sat beside him, her back against his foreleg, watching the steam rise from the cooling moss.

“He’ll survive the night,” Thorne said, crouching beside her. He was young—perhaps twenty—with quick eyes and a healer’s steady hands. “But the damage is deeper than the fever. Something’s been eating at his essence, not just his hide.”

“Saddle leather poison,” Elara said. “That’s what they thought. But it’s more than that.”

“It is.” Aldric approached, his newly cleaned face revealing the gauntness of three years in a cell. “I didn’t tell you everything in the dungeon. I couldn’t—I didn’t know if you were a spy or a savior.” He sat heavily on the ground beside her. “Voss isn’t just poisoning dragons. She’s been harvesting their essence—pulling it out of them slowly, over years, storing it in vessels beneath the academy.”

“For the immortality spell,” Elara said.

“Yes.” Aldric’s voice dropped. “But the spell isn’t just for her. She’s been building it for decades. She intends to become something beyond human—something that doesn’t age, doesn’t weaken, doesn’t die.” He paused. “And when she completes it, she won’t need the dragons anymore. She’ll kill them all. Every last one. The academy isn’t raising riders to protect the realm. It’s raising a sacrificial herd.”

The stew in Elara’s bowl suddenly seemed tasteless. She set it aside. “How do we stop her?”

Aldric started to answer, but Mara interrupted, approaching with a bundle of cloth in her hands. She knelt and unfolded it, revealing a book—old, bound in black leather that had cracked with age.

“This was my grandmother’s,” Mara said. “She was a rider, like me. But she was also a scholar, and she grew suspicious of the Voss family generations ago. She began recording their activities. Their rituals. Their spells.” She pushed the book toward Elara. “Voss discovered her research and had her expelled. But she hid the book before they could take it.”

Elara touched the leather. It felt warm, almost alive, and she could sense something humming beneath her fingers—a residue of power that made her skin prickle.

“There’s a reason she searches every year for old archives,” Mara said. “She knows this book exists. She knows it contains the spells she uses—and the weaknesses in them.”

“Why are you giving this to me?” Elara asked.

“Because you stood up to her. You escaped her dungeon. You have her dragon—the last free dragon—and you’ve exposed her poisoning plot.” Mara met Elara’s eyes. “And because Aldric says you’re the one who can end this. I believe him, because I don’t want to believe that three generations of my family suffered for nothing.”

Elara took the book and opened it. The pages were filled with precise handwriting, diagrams of magical circles, sketches of dragon anatomy with arrows pointing to where essence pooled and could be drawn. And toward the back, circled in red ink, a single spell rendered in ornate script.

*The Binding of Eternal Hours.*

“If she completes this,” Elara said slowly, reading the notes beside the spell, “she won’t just become immortal. She’ll become a dragon.” She looked up, stunned. “She’ll become a creature stronger than any living dragon, feeding on their essence for eternity.”

Aldric’s face went gray. “A dragon that consumes dragon kind. An abomination.”

“Then we destroy the spell before she completes it.” Elara closed the book. “The notes say the spell is anchored in the under-depths, tied to the essence of a bound dragon.” She looked at Aldric. “Nyx.”

He nodded, his jaw tight. “If we free Nyx, the spell collapses. But she’s guarded, and Voss will know the moment we touch the anchor.”

“Then we don’t give her time to react.” Elara stood. Ignis raised his head, and she placed a hand on his muzzle. “She thinks we’re running. She thinks we’re beaten. That’s the only weapon we have left.”

Mara looked at her, the scar on her face catching the firelight. “You’d go back? Now? You just escaped.”

“I didn’t escape to hide,” Elara said. “I escaped to fight.”

Outside, the wind carried the faint sound of distant wings—riders, hunting them through the mountains. The outcasts looked up, alarm crossing their faces.

Elara’s hand tightened on the book. Voss was coming. And Elara had just discovered the only way to stop her.