The world smelled of ash and healing herbs.
Val stirred beneath rough bandages, his ribs creaking like cracked armour. Every movement sent pain shooting through his body — pain so complete, so deep it felt like a second heartbeat. He could breathe again, barely, but each breath tasted like iron.
He'd lived through it. They all had.
Some cruel part of him wished he hadn't, if only so he could stop wanting the things just out of reach — her touch, her voice, the hatchlings' laughter.
He lay still on the scorched earth, half-buried in bandages that barely hid the angry golden glow of his scales beneath. Pride was the only thing keeping him from calling her name through the mind link. Pride… and fear.
He knew she'd hear him if he called. Yara always did. She was the true curse he'd never undone — not in this life, not in any he might live after. Her presence burned through him like sunlight through frost. Beautiful. Unforgiving. Irrevocable.
He had a right to his anger.
