“Imogen!”

  The voice ripped through the cavern commanding, sharp, full of raw fear.

  Darius.

  He sprinted to her side, his tall frame barely human. His eyes locked first on Imogen crumpled beside Malachite, soaked, shaking, sobbing and then on the collapsed drake at her side.

  Before Imogen could speak they heard a loud thud.

  A heavy shape slammed to the stone beside them.

  Axel shifted back with a strangled grunt, the green-scaled dragon shrinking, reshaping until he collapsed to his knees beside Malachite’s broken form. His breath came in ragged, shaking gasps.

  “Mal…” he whispered hoarsely, his hands hovering, trembling, not sure where to touch. Afraid to make it worse.

  “No, no, no!” His wide, glassy eyes searching her in desperation.

  “Come on, hammer girl…” he rasped. “Come on, don’t you dare…”

  Darius crouched beside Imogen, cupping her tear-streaked face, his voice low, tight, urgent.

  “Imogen, are you hurt? Did they touch you? Tell me. Now.”

  She shook her head fiercely, choking back sobs. “I- I’m okay, I… but Mal, Darius she-”

  His gaze snapped to Malachite. He saw the shattered stone plates. The blood. The quiet stillness.

  His jaw locked.

  “She held the line,” he murmured, reverent and furious all at once. “She saved you both.”

  Axel’s breath hitched. He bowed low over her massive form, one hand curling around her massive rocky arm, the other fisting in the dust beside her.

  “Mal,” he choked, voice raw. “You’re too damn stubborn to go out like this. Don’t you dare leave me.”

  Imogen crumpled into Darius’s arms, sobbing into his chest. He held her tight, one hand cupping the back of her head, his heart thundering against hers.

  All around them, the cavern fell still. Only the drip of water. The sharp scent of blood. The silence after violence.

  Axel trembled beside her, holding her cracked arm in both hands.

  “Mal… please…” he whispered.

  Then he looked desperate, breaking into Imogen.

  “Imogen!” he cried, voice cracking like glass. “You’re the Dragon Singer you can do something, right?! Please help her!”

  Imogen’s throat tightened as she knelt beside Malachite, her trembling hands hovering over the cracked stone of her friend’s arm.

  “I- I don’t…” she gasped, tears spilling freely. “I don’t know how.”

  Her magic remained stubbornly silent, buried deep. No spark. No warmth. Nothing.

  Axel let out a broken, guttural sound sob. He bowed over Malachite again, shoulders shaking, his fingers tightening as though he could hold her together by sheer will alone. His jaw clenched so tightly it trembled.

  Behind them, Darius stood like a statue, arms crossed over his chest, eyes hard, voice flat.

  “She did her duty,” he said coldly. “She protected her queen. That’s her job.”

  Axel’s head jerked up like something inside him had snapped clean in two.

  His expression twisted with fury, he surged to his feet and stormed across the space between them. His finger jabbed hard into Darius’s chestplate with a clang.

  “Her job?!” Axel spat, voice trembling with barely contained rage. “You think this is just her job?! She’s not a piece on a war board, Darius! She’s not some faceless soldier!”

  His voice cracked.“She’s someone’s daughter! She’s my-” The words caught in his throat like a blade.

  Darius didn’t flinch. His eyes narrowed, cold and kingly.

  “I am the Dragon King,” he said quietly, voice like ice against fire. “I protect the people by leading them. By commanding them. She played her part.”

  And that was it.

  Axel snapped.

  He slammed both hands against Darius’s chest, shoving him back a step.

  “You don’t get to say that,” he hissed, voice raw, broken. “You don’t get to stand there and talk like her life was just a move you made on a battlefield!”

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  “You can’t toss people aside just because they swore loyalty to you. You can’t pretend it doesn’t matter when they bleed for you, when they break for you!”

  Darius’s jaw flexed the only sign he was even listening. His wings were tight against his back, his posture taut, coiled.

  Axel took one last step forward, chest heaving.

  “A good king wouldn’t just command his people to die for him,” he snarled. “A good king would try to save them.”

  A shout echoed down from above sharp, urgent.

  “We have a dragon bringing a stretcher! The Healer’s Guild is out front, they're waiting for her!” The words hung in the air like a lifeline.

  But in the cavern’s heart, silence still reigned.

  For a long, taut moment, the two men stood locked in place Axel’s chest heaving, his fists trembling, his eyes blazing with a grief too raw to contain. Darius stared back, expression hard as stone, but his shoulders were drawn tight, his posture rigid.

  Imogen huddled close to Malachite, soaked in blood and dust, clutching her hand like it was the last thing tethering them both to this world. Her chest tight watching the two most powerful men in her life teeter on the edge of something that might never be undone.

  The cavern held its breath.

  Axel didn’t back down; he stood chest-to-chest with his king, his rage thrumming just beneath his skin like fire begging for release.

  Darius’s sharp gaze wavered. Just slightly.

  A flicker behind his icy eyes. A crack in the armor.

  Guilt.

  Realization.

  A quiet thread of understanding.

  And without a word, Darius exhaled a slow, shuddering breath and took a step back.

  His jaw clenched. His gaze dipped, just slightly. Not a surrender. But a choice.

  The tension broke.

  Axel’s shoulders sagged as the rage bled out, leaving behind something heavier, grief. Fear. A raw ache pulsing deep in his chest. His fists unclenched, though his hands still trembled at his sides.

  A soft, broken sound pierced the silence.

  Barely audible. A faint, rasping whisper.

  Imogen’s head snapped around, eyes wide.

  “…Mal?”

  Malachite’s hand twitched faintly in hers, the stone cracked and bloodied but alive.

  Her heavy lids fluttered, her mouth parting with a faint wheeze, her rocky brow creasing ever so slightly.

  “Malachite!” Imogen sobbed, clutching tighter. “Hold on we’ve got help coming, you’re going to be okay just stay with me!”

  Malachite didn’t speak, but her fingers weakly curled around Imogen’s.

  Axel dropped to his knees beside her again, his eyes wide, shining with disbelief and desperate relief.

  “…Stubborn girl,” he choked softly.

  Darius stepped back toward them at last, his eyes fixed on the cracked figure lying on the cavern floor, the copper-veined drake who had held the line.

  And this time, when he looked at her…

  He didn’t see a soldier. He saw a protector. He saw family.

  Malachite gave a faint, strained groan as her battered, rocky form shifted on the cavern floor.

  The heavy plates of her drake body cracked as she moved, her voice rough and faintly slurred.

  "You’re so stupidly stubborn…” his voice was tight. “Mal, you idiot. You’re-”

  Malachite’s eyes fluttered open, her cracked lips pulling into a faint, wobbly grin.

  “'I’m fine… just…” she rasped, her voice thready, “…maybe don’t let me punch any more giant snakes today…”

  Even as she tried to joke, her body shook faintly, her breath growing thinner, weaker. She was hanging on.

  A sudden thud echoed through the cavern entrance as two dragon kin in black armor approached, carrying a massive reinforced canvas stretcher between them. They unrolled it beside Malachite’s body with swift, practiced ease.

  “The only way we found you,” one of the soldiers muttered with a crooked grin, “was following the ground-rattling roars.”

  Darius knelt beside them, his sharp gaze sweeping over Malachite’s wounds, his jaw tight.

  “We need to get her to the healers,” he said, voice low but urgent.

  Axel didn’t look up.

  “I’ll do it,” he said immediately.

  One of the soldiers opened his mouth. “We can handle the grunt work, Commander-”

  Axel’s head snapped toward him, his eyes flashing with fury.

  “Shut your mouth,” he growled, the sound low and dangerous. “She’s not grunt work.”

  There was no further argument.

  Without waiting for permission, Axel shifted green scales rippling across his arms and shoulders, claws elongating just enough for precision and gently moved to lift Malachite’s broken form. His movements were careful, reverent.

  “Easy, hammer girl…” he murmured, voice rough, cracked. “I’ve got you.”

  Malachite let out a faint, wheezing breath, her head tipping lightly against his shoulder, her eyes half-lidded but still glittering with that spark, the one that never left.

  “…Knew you’d… come running…” she whispered.

  Axel gave a quiet, broken huff half a laugh, half a sob as he held her close.

  “Yeah,” he whispered. “Always.”

  Axel’s eyes locked onto Imogen. His jaw clenched tightly.

  “I’ll take her to the village,” he said, voice low but firm, cutting through the thick air like a blade.

  He rose to his feet, Malachite still cradled gently in his arms. Powerful green wings flared from his back, catching the soft, glimmering light of the cavern.

  He shifted the canvas stretcher’s handle between his teeth, bracing it carefully. Even then, he never once looked at Darius.

  Not at the king he had followed into battle a hundred times. Not at the friend who had been like a brother.

  Didn’t meet his eyes. Didn’t offer a nod, a word, a glance. Only silence.

  He simply gathered Malachite close, his wings flexing wide, strong, ready and turned away.

  Her shallow breaths stirred faintly against his neck, her weight solid and precious in his hold.

  Axel launched into the air, the wind from his wings sweeping across the cavern as he carried her toward safety. Toward home.

  Darius stood frozen, his eyes locked on the space where Axel had vanished into the sky.

  He didn’t move. Not with the sound of Malachite’s labored breaths still echoing in his ears. Not with the look Axel had given him not a look at all, but the deliberate absence of one.

  For the first time in a long, long time… something broke.

  Not just cracked, shattered.

  Imogen stepped silently beside him. Her small, dirt-streaked hand slipped into his. Her fingers were trembling, but she still held on. Her eyes glistening with unshed tears, she looked up at him like her heart had been carved out.

  “…Darius,” she whispered, voice barely there.

  He swallowed hard, but it did nothing to ease the weight crushing his chest. His voice, when it came, was hoarse. Hollow.

  “I used her.