Page 25 of Scorched By Fate

Comfort didn't last long. After a breakfast of more dried rations and the sips of water we could spare, Vyne was on his feet and holding something out to me.

“Here.”

I stiffened just slightly at his tone. Cool. Professional. Not at all the sound of a man—alien—who'd wrapped me in his arms overnight like I was precious.

Get a grip, Selene.

He was holding out a blade now, its blackened edges flat against the light that flared over the ridge. The knife gleamed, a sickly edge of reflected heat glinting off its curving, jagged design.

“A souvenir?” I asked, taking refuge in dry humor like an escape route as I took the knife. It was heavier than I expected and rough-textured, carved with distinct grooves that made it feel impossibly deadly.

Vyne cast me a glance, just flat enough to make its point. “A precaution,” he said evenly. “These mountains are rife with scavengers. Both of the Drakarn variety, and vicious beasts.”

Something flickered uncomfortably in my chest, and I gripped the knife harder. “Got it,” I said, a low puff of words meant less as agreement and more as a line drawn under every conversation we weren’t about to excavate.

Vyne was scanning the horizon again, his sharp lines settled against the violent sprawl of the ridge behind him. He didn’t glance back when his wings gave a flick, catching enough sunlit distortion to create a sudden burst of heavy air between us. He simply turned, every part of him a calculation, threw his next look pointedly at the crevice hugging the edge of nearby crags, and then eased his hand into the curl against one side of his belt.

“I'm going to scout out the area before we leave to make sure we don’t encounter any company on our flight. Stay alert,” he said. “If something finds you before I'm back …” He trailed only half a beat too long before finishing, “Scream.”

Right. Just what I needed to hear.

“Not sure dramatic death screams are really my style.” I angled the blade properly at my side as I stood, though exhaustion made even that feel heavier than it was.

"Scream loud enough,Zhyvarin,and you won't die."

He burst into the air before I could ask him what the hellzhyvarinmeant.

No use lingering on it. I leaned back just enough to close my eyes for a breath or two, the knife resting across my lap like a shield, and tried not to give in to the gnawing sense that, clever blade or not, I didn’t belong here.

The suffocating quiet of the plateau stretched around me, leaving me to stew in my own thoughts while the heat bore down on me. I would give almost anything for some shade.

Some small, logical part of my brain told me to conserve energy, to ease my muscles and let the restless ache fade from my joints before I had to move again. But that part of my brain always forgot who it was dealing with—it was the soldier in methat braced, kept the flex of my hands curling and uncurling around Vyne’s blade, and sent every nerve into overdrive at the sound of even the faintest crackle of rock sliding somewhere beyond the ridge.

The sound wasn’t new. Not really. The mountains were alive in their own way—rocks falling, distant steam geysers erupting with gut-punch force every now and then. But tension didn’t leave much room for distinguishing natural from unnatural—not when survival depended on treating every noise as a threat.

And survival was always the game, wasn’t it?

I lifted the blade once more, testing its weight in my palm, its smooth handle fitting snugly into the curve of my fingers. There was a grim comfort in the way it fit with every subtle change in my grip—it felt like Vyne knew, somehow, what size and heft I’d need, like this thing had been crafted with some maddeningly intimate knowledge of what fit my hand better than, say, the hand of an average Drakarn.

A sound came again. Louder now.

I sat up straighter, fingers tightening on the hilt as sound rolled over me like a boulder I hadn’t been quick enough to dodge. My throat worked past the flat dryness of the air, my pulse climbing its way up to my ears as my senses flared to life.

There was nothing natural about the scrape of claws against stone.

The quickest way to die in unfamiliar territory was to assume you had the upper hand. One misstep, and your throat might end up torn out. I’d seen it before—trainees who wanted to play hero, underestimated an opponent or a situation until it ate them alive.

Literally, in some cases.

The mountain air thickened in my lungs, hemmed in by the heat swirling like smothering mist around the plateau.

There—a flash of movement below the ridge, quick and sharp. My stomach twisted. It wasn’t Vyne—too large for him, and it moved wrong. Too slick, too feral.

I dropped into a low stance before my brain fully caught up, bracing one foot instinctively on the uneven rock. Adrenaline hit fast and sharp, slicing through the oppressive heat stretching tight across my ribs.

Assess, position, anticipate.

The first rule of combat. It had been drilled into me in training until it mapped itself into my muscles—not always neat, not always perfect, but ready despite the brutal terrain now pressing in around me.

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