Chapter 53 Descent into Dust
Azerath
Above the clouds, the world felt simple again. My wings cut through the cold night air in slow, powerful strokes as I soared high above the gray storm that hid the earth below like a flowing sea of mist. The clouds stretched endlessly in every direction, a vast silver ocean drifting beneath me.
Up here, the sky was clear. The moon shone bright and full, its pale light gliding across my scales. The reflection danced along the ridges of my body, turning them into dark mirrors of obsidian. Every movement sent faint glimmers across my wings. The stars glittered above—thousands of tiny diamonds scattered across the heavens. For a moment I had the strange sensation that they were watching me, congratulating me, approving.
And for once in my very long existence, I believed they had reason to.
I was happy. Not merely satisfied. Not victorious. Happy. A strange, intoxicating emotion I had rarely allowed myself to indulge in across centuries of existence.
Serafina and I had shared not one kiss tonight, but three. Even now, the memory burned warm inside me.
I knew it had been her first. The knowledge came not from guesswork but from the echo of her life that still lived within me. When her blood mingled with mine during my awakening, fragments of her past had brushed against my awareness like whispers carried on firelight.
I had seen enough to know the truth. There had never been anyone else. No lover. No stolen moments beneath moonlit trees. Only survival. Only hunger.
Only that miserable boy, Darrick, whose voice I remembered too clearly—smug, cruel, dripping with insinuation as he told her that many men would pay to have her.
The memory made heat coil inside my chest even now. If that creature ever dared repeat those words within my hearing again, I would reduce him to ash before he finished the sentence.
Serafina deserved better than the world she had been given. Better than Dust. Better than the Empire. Better than everything that had tried to crush her spirit before she ever discovered the strength inside herself.
And yet somehow she still laughed. Still argued. Still challenged me. Still kissed me as if I were not a creature capable of ending civilizations.
I exhaled slowly through my nostrils, a thin plume of heat drifting across the sky.
In all my centuries, I had never felt this light.
I was over the moon. Over the stars. Entirely, absurdly pleased with existence.
“Azerath… do you know where you're going?”
Serafina’s voice floated forward from my back, breaking my wandering thoughts.
I froze mid-flight. My wings continued to beat, holding us steady in the night air as realization slowly crept over me.
Ah. Right.
Direction.
I dipped my massive head down through the sea of gray clouds beneath us, pushing through the cold mist to look at the world below. Lantern lights shimmered faintly across the land like scattered fireflies. The kingdom stretched out beneath us, quiet and sleeping.
I squinted slightly, focusing on the walls that separated the districts.
Blue and gold.
White.
And then—
Yellow.
I blinked.
Ah. Well. That explained things.
I pulled my head back above the clouds and angled my neck toward Serafina, who sat perched comfortably between the ridges of my scales.
“I apologize, Serafina,” I said. “We appear to have flown to Ember.”
Her laugh drifted down my spine like warm sunlight.
“I thought the air felt nicer.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “That should have been my first clue.”
I tilted my wings slightly, beginning a wide turn. “Allow me to correct my mistake. We will turn back slightly and continue toward Dust.”
“I had a feeling we had strayed,” she said. She inhaled deeply. “The air here smells cleaner. Peaceful.”
That made me curious.
I twisted my long neck slightly so one golden eye could see her clearly. “Cleaner?” I repeated. “How does it usually smell in Dust?”
She was quiet for a moment. I felt her shift slightly atop my back.
“It usually smells like…” she paused, searching for the word. “…despair. Like death is hovering nearby.”
My wings beat slower for a moment. That sounded ominous.
Serafina suddenly leaned forward slightly until her face appeared beside my eye.
“You have to do something about these golden flames you have for eyes,” she said. “Is there a way to hide them?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “That was quick.”
“I will close them when we approach our landing site.”
She stared at me. “…you’ll what?”
“You will be my eyes.”
“What?” Her voice rose in confusion. “What do you mean I’ll be your eyes?”
I did not answer.
Instead, I angled my wings downward and dove.
We plunged straight into the cloud layer.
“Hold tight, my Serafina!” I laughed.
She screamed. Then she laughed too.
The clouds swallowed us instantly. Cold mist wrapped around my wings as we descended through the thick gray layers. Water clung to my scales and gathered along the edges of my wings, adding weight to every movement. But the concealment was worth it.
Below us, the land slowly revealed itself again.
The districts appeared one by one.
White.
Yellow.
Yellow faded slowly into orange.
I descended further until only a thin layer of clouds remained between us and the ground below.
Then the colors shifted again.
Orange into red. Bingo.
Dust.
The red district walls stretched across the dark land like dried blood beneath the moonlight.
And rising high above them—the tower. It loomed like a single watchful eye over the entire district.
The Warden’s tower.
Beyond the walls stretched the barren landscape of the Dusty Hills, where towering dunes of pale sand glimmered faintly under the lantern lights.
I adjusted my wings carefully, reducing the strength of my wingbeats. Noise carried far at night, and I did not intend to announce our arrival.
As we glided past the tower, I saw movement near the top.
A shadow. Someone had heard us.
The window opened slightly. A woman leaned outward, peering into the night. The Warden, most likely.
I lowered my voice to a whisper.
“Blink.”
Below us came a soft answering hoot.
A dark shape shifted in the sky. Blink had transformed into a blank-banded owl.
An excellent choice. Ravens feared owls instinctively.
“Distract the person in the tower,” I murmured.
The owl swooped downward immediately, circling the tower in a wide arc. The woman’s attention snapped toward it.
Perfect.
I folded my wings.
Serafina grabbed tightly onto my scales as gravity took hold.
We dropped. Fast.
The ground rushed upward beneath us. Sand dunes rose like pale mountains below the red walls.
At the last moment I spread my wings slightly and angled my descent.
I landed behind one of the larger sand hills with a heavy but controlled thud.
The impact sent vibrations through the ground.
Immediately the sand began to move. A low, eerie hissing filled the air. Streams of pale grains began sliding toward us from every direction. Within seconds the sand had already swallowed my tail.
Serafina slid carefully down my side. “Don’t move,” she whispered.
I froze.
She placed one cautious foot onto the sand. Then another.
“The sand moves toward the source of movement,” she explained quietly. “The sick from Dust are usually dropped off here to die. When they crawl… the sand follows them.”
That was deeply unpleasant information.
“They get buried alive,” she continued softly. “Then when sunrise comes, the sand rises toward the heat of the sun.”
Charming. Absolutely charming.
I immediately shifted into human form. My massive body shrank rapidly, scales dissolving into sparks of heat as bone and muscle reshaped into something far less noticeable. Standing knee-deep in hungry sand as a dragon felt like a poor life decision. Standing there as a man felt only slightly better.
I looked around carefully.
“If we move too fast, we die,” I muttered. I looked back at her. “This is an outstanding idea.”
She raised an eyebrow. "Did you have a better one?"
“We could have simply walked through the front gates.”
“The guards would see us," she argued.
“The guards seeing us would be preferable to being eaten by sand," I shot back.
She pointed toward the red wall several long steps ahead of us.
“The back gate is right there.”
I followed her gaze. Sure enough, a small gate stood partially hidden between the dunes.
And no guards.
“…from what I can see,” she added, “no one is guarding it.”
I scoffed. The movement alone caused the sand to swirl around my boots.
“Why would anyone guard it?” I said dryly. “Anyone attempting to enter from here is clearly attempting suicide.”
Serafina rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a coil of rope. With quick, practiced motions she tied one end around her arm.
Then she handed the other end to me.
I stared at it. “…what is this?”
“Insurance.” She smiled innocently. “If the sand starts swallowing you, I’ll yank you out.”
I looked from the rope, to her, then back at the sand slowly circling my boots.
I sighed.
In all my centuries of existence, this might be the most ridiculous infiltration plan I had ever participated in.
And yet I took the rope anyway.
Because Serafina was already walking forward into the shifting sand.
And there was absolutely no chance I was letting her face Dust alone.
Even if the ground itself was trying to eat us.
“Fine,” I muttered, following her carefully. “But if this sand kills me, I am haunting you forever.”
She laughed softly over her shoulder. "It won't. I have a plan."
And somehow—despite the deadly dunes, the Warden's tower, and the dangers waiting inside those red walls—I found myself smiling.