Tenth Entry

Their voices dulled—just sound and syllables now, like wind through a cracked door.

Behind my eyes, a pressure built. My ears rang so loudly it was as if the old scars there were screaming, warning me to run. Not again. Not again.

I opened my mouth to speak, to beg them to stop—but nothing came. No sound. Just air and fear.

The others were too engrossed in their purpose. Too hopeful. Too trusting. Alister, with his polished calm and dragon-stitched robes, had offered to lead us to the creature itself—to parley. He claimed he could secure safe passage and knowledge, that the dragon was… cooperative.

I felt ill. My instinct, though frayed by misfires in the past, clenched at me with clarity now. This wasn’t fear of danger. This was something far more intimate.

Without meaning to, I reached for Raph’æl—just a light clutch at the edge of his sleeve. He looked back with a soft, familiar smile.

I both adore and resent that trust.

He didn’t ask why. He didn’t press. But he didn’t stop either.

And so we followed.

Alister and his strange congregation led us out into the creeping mist and ruin, toward the base of the old wizard’s tower—where the dragon roosted, where its hoard grew.

My feet felt like iron anchors in the soil, but I moved anyway.

I will not abandon them. Not again.

This path was not the black tunnels of the Underdark. There was no moss-dimmed stone, no overseer barking rituals, no ceremonial march to the altar. But my body remembered the rhythm. The dread threaded itself in the same places. I knew this walk. I had walked it before.

The liquid gold voice inside me—smooth, serene, alien—whispered reassurance: This time is different.

You have power now. You’ve earned your name. You have allies. You have magic.

You are not her anymore.

I pressed my fingers to the leather braiding of my wand, found the bead of diamond netted near its base. Held it. Grounded myself in its shape, in its shimmer. Pulled stillness into my breath, channeled readiness into my palm.

A held action.

From the corner of my eye, Jack caught the motion. Our eyes met briefly—his were narrowed, focused. He nodded once. Then, without a word, he veered into the underbrush, vanishing like a blade into mist.

One fewer body to protect.

But for the first time since stepping into this place, I felt safer.

I forced my chin up. You cannot protect what you cannot see.

The tower loomed above us—its northern perch marking the highest point in Thundertree. Once, it must have pierced the sky with pride. Now, its ruined crown had crumbled into a gaping nest of broken stone and shattered roofwork—perfect for a beast with wings and greed. An unholy throne, watching over the lost town.

We stopped just short of its shadow. I could feel the eyes on us long before we arrived.

Alister stepped forward, that absurd cowl shaped like a dragon’s head pulled over his own like a badge of madness. He raised his voice to the heavens, fearless—or too far gone to remember fear.

I prayed, stupidly, for a delay. A breath. A heartbeat of stillness.

No such grace came.

Massive talons scraped the tower’s edge as the dragon emerged. Not descended—emerged, as if he had always been there. Waiting. Listening. The curve of his neck alone was longer than a warhorse, and his wings spread wide behind him like a thunderstorm preparing to land. I knew from childhood bestiaries that this wasn’t an adult—yet. But the sight of him still made my soul retreat into the hollows of my body.

“I am Venomfang,” he thundered, voice like splintering mountains. “How dare you approach me?”

I flinched before I could help it. And in that tremble, I noticed something.

Finnegan was gone. Again.

I didn’t even need to look. His disappearances always left the same vacuum, the same resigned shift in the air.

Raph’æl stepped forward to fill it, as he always tended to do. As if it’s simply written into the rhythm of our group that he will speak when others vanish, when tempers burn too hot, when masks (literal or otherwise) stay too tightly fastened. He bowed low, with the grace of someone used to swallowing pride and calling it diplomacy.

“These humble servants beg for your wisdom, Emerald King.”

Venomfang laughed.

Not a sound of humor. Not even cruelty. It was the laugh of something that knows your story before you open your mouth.

“So,” it growled, “the little ants have grown a backbone.”

My fingers flexed around my wand, pulse thrumming in the leather braid. My breath, shallow. Venomfang knew. Of course he did. We had never once been hidden.

“Explain to me,” he purred. “Why should I help you?”

I shut my eyes. I couldn’t bear to watch the beast coil closer. Couldn’t watch him tower over Raph’æl, who, with his shoulders drawn back and voice low, calmly explained our purpose: that we sought a druid gone missing, and hoped the dragon’s omnipotence might aid us.

Venomfang listened—barely. His disdain was heavy in the air. Our request was far too dull for him, our offer far too empty.

And Raph’æl… Raph’æl was our treasurer.

I felt it before I heard it—the creeping edge of negotiation. That familiar itch behind the ribs when gold is about to be surrendered to someone with fangs. My lips tightened. I wanted to help this druid, truly. But my escape fund? My porch and windows and garden? My… freedom?

I wasn’t sure if I was ready to pay that price.

But any deals we might’ve bartered dissolved in a breath.

Alister stepped forward—arms wide, face alight with worship. “God among servants!” he cried, trembling with theatrical fervor. “I, too, wish to learn from your greatness! And unlike some, I did not come empty-handed.”

Ragar snarled. “Wait a second—”

Too late.

Alister and his congregation stepped back, clearing the space in front of Venomfang. A wide, deliberate arc—placing us at its center.

“I offer,” Alister proclaimed, eyes glassy with fanatic joy, “these living sacrifices.”

No.

NO.

Everything inside me screamed.

Venomfang smiled.

Or—no. Bared teeth. That’s all it was. A row of pale green knives stretching beneath split lips, some cruel mimicry of humanoid expression. And then he leapt from the ruined perch. When he landed, the ground didn’t shake—it shuddered, as if the bones of the earth flinched beneath him.

I let the spell fly.

The chromatic orb in my palm—thunder—crackled to life and tore through the air like a war drum, but missed him completely. Up, into the sky. Gone. Along with my courage.

Damn me.

I staggered back, bracing for the retaliation that never came. Venomfang’s gaze skimmed right over me—too small, too inconsequential. He lunged instead for Ragar.

But Raph’æl was already there. Always there.

He moved like instinct—shield raised, blade flashing. The claws struck with such force that his sword flew from his grasp, but he didn’t falter. No, he answered. One hand extended, and a pulse of necrotic energy surged from his fist, catching Venomfang clean across the chest, followed closely by Ragar’s barrage of daggers. The dragon reeled back—not wounded, not truly, but staggered just enough.

Then came the inhale.

A low, terrible pull of air that turned my veins to ice.

Super’s voice: “Wuh-oh.”

That was the last clear sound before everything was swallowed by green.

The poison overtook the air in a dense, choking cloud. My lungs rebelled. My vision swam. Coughs and cries and the shifting of boots in the soil all blurred together.

Not our boots.

The cultists were running.

Cowards.

And then—like divine punctuation—crack—BOOM. From the tree line, thunder erupted. Not spellwork. Jack.

The rhythmic blast of his firearm rang out again, again, until he broke through the treeline like a stormfront, eyes lit with fury. Smoke curled from the muzzle of a smaller weapon in his other hand—each shot punctuated with a puff of black pepper.

He screamed something at Venomfang in a language I didn’t know.

Draconic, perhaps. Whatever it was, the words had weight.

Venomfang snarled. With a furious sweep of his wings, he cleared the last of his own poisonous fog. The gust nearly sent me rolling down the hill, but I held my footing, tunic whipping at my knees. The dragon hovered above us now, flinching away from the sting of resistance. Not broken. Not beaten. But rattled. And rising.

He’s retreating to higher ground.

My limbs moved before my mind caught up. I bolted toward the tower’s broken entryway, heart thudding like it was trying to claw its way free of my ribs.

Catch him before he disappears. Do something, anything, useful—

Inside: dust, rot, and a second door. Sturdy. Iron-banded. Closed.

I rattled the handle. Locked.

I pushed, pulled—slammed my shoulder into it. Nothing.

“Stand back, Fanesca.”

His voice cut through the haze. Soft, urgent. Familiar.

Raph’æl.

He had followed me.

Why?

My thoughts stuttered. I moved aside.

He mirrored my attempts, struck the door again—twice, three times—and stopped. Frustration painted his face, but he stayed composed.

“It’s a magic seal,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry.

My fists clenched. My jaw locked.

Not because he failed. Not because of the seal. Because I had pulled him from the fight. Because he chased after me.

I was wasting time.

His time.

“Go,” I managed to rasp, barely louder than a breath.

Raph’æl didn’t argue. He just looked at me—steady, unreadable, maddeningly kind—and then turned back toward the door, his silhouette framed for a heartbeat in fractured light before he vanished into the fight.

I stayed.

Behind the door. Behind the action. Behind them.

From where I stood, I could hear the tide turning: Super’s relentless rhythm of strikes from above, each landing with a reverberating thud; Jack’s thunderous volleys, tearing through the sky like judgment itself; the wet slicing of Ragar’s blades, and Raph’æl’s voice—duplicated, overlapping, disorienting, commanding.

And I…

…I was here.

Listening.

To Venomfang’s roars of pain split the heavens. To the heavy beats of his wings receding into the clouds. To Jack cursing furiously at the empty sky. To the wind returning, as though nature itself sighed in relief.

Another battle survived.

Another I barely contributed to.

…

Why do they keep me with them?

What do I offer but burden and worry? What role do I serve that isn’t already fulfilled ten times over by people braver, smarter, stronger?

If I cared for them—if I truly cared for them—I’d stop making them carry my weight. I would find a way to stop needing them.

Go. Just go.

“Hey-o.”

I looked up, startled. At the doorway stood Super—grinning, hand raised in that awkward, ironic wave he’s made an art form.

“I noticed you missed my, uh, super-cool moves back there,” he said, that trademark sarcasm barely masking the concern beneath. “You wanna hear about ’em while we find a way into the horde?”

A lifeline wrapped in absurdity.

Another time, I might’ve found his ridiculousness comforting—might’ve let it break the spiral. But it was the second half of what he said that rooted my feet, steadied my breath.

The horde.

Yes. That’s right. The gold. My ticket out. My freedom. My sanctuary. The final piece I need to leave them in peace.

To vanish, and let them finally stop worrying.

“…Yeah,” I said quietly, pushing myself upright, each joint reluctant but yielding. I dusted my palms against my tunic and followed him.

“Sure.”