Chapter 46 The Valley of Ash-Breath
They didn’t stop running until the valley had become a bruised memory behind them.
Rin’s breath tore in and out as the group climbed the last stretch of the western ridge. The air grew thinner, colder, harsher each inhale sharp enough to sting her lungs. Stones skittered beneath their boots and clattered down the slope, swallowed by the poisoned dawn that still crawled over the world.
By the time they reached the crest, everyone slowed to a halt, chests heaving, sweat mixed with dust. The ridge flattened into a narrow trail that wound between jagged spires of black rock. The scent of smoke clung faintly to the air, an aftertaste of the dragonfire she’d unleashed.
Rin swallowed hard. Her hands were trembling.
Not from exertion but from the memory of losing control.
Again.
Kairo moved close to her, not touching, but close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him. “How’s your breathing?”
Rin rubbed her chest. “Shaky. But I’m fine.”
He didn’t look convinced.
He never was when it came to her safety.
Elias stepped forward, wiping grime from his face. “We need to find a temporary shelter. It won’t be long before those beasts regroup or worse, before their summoner tracks us.”
Lira let out a bitter laugh. “Tracks us? Elias, he was in Rin’s head. He doesn’t need to track anything.”
Rin stiffened. The reminder tightened her throat.
Master Aethren lifted a hand, the gesture weary but firm. “Enough. Blame won’t keep us alive. We must assess the damage and find higher ground. The corrupted dawn hasn’t faded it’s grown stronger.”
Everyone glanced up.
The sky above them, once pale with morning light, now swirled with ripples of gold and grey. Sunlight flickered like an injured flame, casting long, warped shadows across the ridge. The world looked sick.
“I don’t understand,” Rin murmured. “Why dawn? Why this time of day?”
Aethren’s eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. “Because dawn is a threshold. A boundary. And boundaries are easiest to break when something powerful pushes from the other side.”
Kairo tensed. “Meaning… the corruption is breaching the veil between realms?”
“Precisely.”
The words pressed on Rin’s skull like a tightening band. Her dragonfire stirred uneasily, sensing something she couldn’t name.
Elias scanned the horizon. “We move. Now.”
The group continued along the ridge trail. The wind howled between the stone spires, dragging clouds of dust into spirals around them. Rin lifted her hood to shield her face, but the wind still found her cold, needling, strangely purposeful.
Like fingers trailing across her skin.
Kairo leaned toward her. “If you feel anything anything tell me.”
Rin hesitated. “I’ll try.”
He caught the hesitation. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t press further.
The trail dipped and widened, revealing a small plateau that overlooked a dark forest below. The trees swayed in unnatural rhythm, their branches twitching instead of bending. The whole forest seemed to breathe.
“Absolutely not,” Lira said immediately. “We’re not going in there.”
“Agreed,” Elias said. “We skirt around the edge. We can reach the ancient watchtower by nightfall if we push hard.”
Aethren hummed. “The old towers are dangerous… but they’re one of the few places the corruption struggles to touch.”
Rin frowned. “Why?”
“Because they were built with dragonstone,” Aethren answered. “Material shaped by dragonfire. It repels corruption.”
Dragonfire.
Rin’s stomach twisted.
As they moved along the ridge, Rin’s gaze drifted back to the valley they’d escaped. The beasts were no longer visible, but a dark haze hung over the ground like fumes rising from something rotting beneath the earth.
A shiver crawled down her spine.
She could still feel the summoner’s gaze.
Child of flame…
Her feet faltered.
Kairo immediately stepped in front of her. “Rin?”
She tried to speak, but the pressure hit her again a cold whisper brushing the edges of her consciousness.
Come home…
Her knees buckled.
Kairo caught her before she fell. “Rin!”
Elias and Lira rushed over. Aethren hurried, muttering an incantation that flickered weakly in the corrupted light.
Rin’s vision dimmed at the edges, like ink bleeding outward.
“I… I hear him,” Rin choked out. “He’s calling me.”
“Fight it!” Lira snapped.
“I’m trying!”
The pressure tightened, cold fingers digging into her mind, pulling at the dragonfire like someone trying to drag her heart out of her chest.
Kairo cupped her face, forcing her to look at him. “Rin, stay with me. Look at me.”
His voice was steady. Grounding.
Her heartbeat steadied in answer.
The whisper changed.
He weakens you…
Rin flinched.
Kairo heard her gasp. “What did he say?”
She grabbed his wrist, fingers digging in. “Don’t don’t ask. It’s trying to turn me against”
Break the tether.
“No!” Rin shouted aloud, and the word shattered the pressure like a glass sphere dropped on stone.
The whisper cut off.
Her mind snapped back into clarity.
The dragonfire settled like molten metal cooling in her veins.
Rin collapsed to her knees, panting.
Kairo knelt beside her, pulling her into his arms without hesitation. His heartbeat hammered against her cheek.
Elias exhaled shakily. “Is it getting stronger?”
Aethren’s expression was grim. “The corruption is learning.”
Lira muttered a curse. “Perfect. Just what we needed.”
Rin forced herself to stand, using Kairo’s arm for balance.
“I won’t let him in again,” she said, though her voice trembled.
Kairo stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You don’t have to fight this alone. You hear me?”
Rin swallowed hard. “I know.”
But she didn’t know how much longer she could hold him out.
As they continued along the ridge, the air grew colder. The corrupted dawn dimmed into a strange half-light, like the world couldn’t decide whether it was morning or dusk.
A distant rumble echoed from behind them.
Lira stiffened. “Tell me that was thunder.”
A second rumble. Closer. Heavier.
Elias drew his blade. “It’s them. They’re coming.”
Rin felt the earth vibrate under her feet.
Kairo stepped in front of her. “We’re out of time. We push to the watchtower or we die on this ridge.”
Aethren raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the horizon.
“There,” he whispered.
In the distance, half-shrouded in fog and corrupted light, the ancient watchtower rose from the mountainside broken, looming, but still intact.
A beacon of dragonstone.
A beacon of salvation.
The ground shook again.
A shadowbeast roared in the distance closer than any of them wanted to acknowledge.
Elias didn’t wait.
“Run!”
They sprinted.
Rin forced her legs to move, lungs burning, vision shaking with every footfall.
The summoner’s whisper didn’t return
but she felt his presence growing.
Stronger.
Closer.
Certain.
As they ran toward the tower, Rin knew one thing with absolute clarity:
This was no longer a hunt.
It was a siege.
And she was the prize.