The ash was falling again.
It drifted in lazy spirals across the ground, clinging to Astrid’s boots, dusting Kurai’s coat a pale gray.
Behind them, the dragon graveyard stretched away — broken bones jagged against the horizon, silent and watching.
They hadn’t spoken in a while.
Astrid tightened her pack and fell into step beside him.
The ground crackled underfoot — brittle volcanic ash layered over black glassy veins.
It should have felt like progress.
Instead, it felt like walking deeper into a grave.
---
"It’s been too quiet," Astrid said finally, her voice low.
Kurai glanced over, gold eyes sharp under the ash-smudged hood of his coat.
"Think they gave up?" she added, forcing a thin smile.
He didn’t return it.
Just scanned the ash-blown ridges stretching far into the distance.
"No," he said. "They’re still watching. Waiting."
Astrid’s heart kicked against her ribs.
She scanned the shattered landscape — every shadow suddenly too still, too deliberate.
Kurai touched her shoulder — a steady, grounding pressure.
"It’s just a gut feeling," he said.
"But I trust it."
Astrid swallowed, searching his eyes.
For once, he didn’t look away.
---
They pressed on.
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Ash whispered across the ground, their footsteps the only sound left in this hollow world.
Every so often, Kurai would glance upward — scanning broken ridges, scorched craters.
And Astrid found herself doing it too.
But nothing moved.
Only ash.
Only silence.
Still, the hair on the back of her neck refused to lie flat.
The ash near Kurai seemed to drift slower, almost suspended in the air around him — like the world itself was holding its breath.
She didn’t ask about it.
Didn’t dare.
But the pull between him and this broken land was getting harder to ignore.
---
The brittle ground gave way again — shifting into glassy black stone that caught and fractured the light.
Astrid frowned, nudging Kurai with her elbow.
"You seeing that?"
He crouched, running a hand across the surface.
The glass rippled under his touch — slow and heavy — like something deep beneath the earth stirred at his presence.
Astrid’s chest tightened.
It didn’t ripple outward.
It pulled inward.
Toward him.
Kurai stood slowly, jaw tight.
"Magic," he said. "Old. Twisted."
The air shimmered faintly even in the growing chill.
Astrid pulled her coat tighter around herself, but the cold didn’t feel like it came from the wind.
---
They kept walking.
Through crumbling arches and broken pillars half-swallowed by ash.
Each ruin they passed whispered of a history lost — or buried.
Astrid paused at one ruined arch, brushing soot from the stone.
Beneath the grime, a carving.
A dragon.
Not monstrous.
Not feared.
Standing beside a figure — a child or a mortal, it was hard to tell — but not bowing, not attacking.
Standing with them.
---
A pit opened in her stomach.
"Kurai," she said quietly. "What really happened to the dragons?"
He didn’t answer at first.
Just walked a few steps ahead, boots crunching softly over cracked earth.
"The Council says they grew wild," he said eventually. "That they became dangerous. That the war killed them."
He shook his head — a small, brittle motion.
"They said they were protecting us."
Astrid brushed her hand against the carving, dust crumbling beneath her fingertips.
The stone didn’t feel dead.
It felt wounded.
Waiting.
"You believe that?"
The ash hissed around them.
Far beneath her boots, Astrid thought she felt a faint tremble — like the earth breathing in its sleep.
Kurai’s voice came slower this time.
"I don’t know what to believe anymore."
The lie they had lived under — the one stitched into the Council’s banners and burned into history — was cracking under their feet.
Bleeding through the stones.
---
The sun sank lower, dragging long shadows across the basin.
The ruins thickened — more arches, more statues, half-sunken bones.
Everything here felt ancient. Waiting.
Astrid traced another carving — another dragon.
Not a weapon.
Not a monster.
Something grand.
Someone trusted.
"They lied," she whispered.
Kurai didn’t ask who.
He just nodded — once. Heavy.
And kept walking.
---
They made camp at the edge of the basin — a small hollow between two blackened slabs of stone.
Astrid sparked a tiny fire — not for warmth, but for light.
Kurai moved silently, circling the perimeter, checking shadows.
He moved like he expected a fight.
Like the earth itself might rise against them.
---
Astrid pulled her coat tighter and huddled near the fire.
In the flickering light, she watched Kurai settle nearby — cross-legged, silent, staring into the flames with a distant look.
They were alone here.
Surrounded by the dead.
Hunted by the living.
And every step closer to the mountain pulled Kurai deeper into something Astrid couldn’t follow.
She rested her chin on her knees, watching him.
She wanted to ask:
Do you feel it too?
Is it calling you?
Are you already slipping away?
But she didn’t.
She was too afraid of the answer.
He never promised to come back with her. But somewhere along the way, she’d let herself believe he might.
Bridge and flame. What if she was never meant to follow him to the end?
Maybe she was here to guide him on his journey? Just get him to a certain point?
---
The ground thrummed faintly beneath them.
Tomorrow, they would keep moving.
But tonight —
she stayed close.
Close enough that when Kurai finally drifted to sleep, the tips of their boots brushed.
Neither of them pulled away.
And for now —
for tonight —
that was enough.
