Mel and Austin walked side by side a small distance behind the other students. Most were headed into town for the separate bunkers located there. But Austin was headed back to his mansion and the basement inside his creepy old house. Apparently, it was one of the safest places in Aldrion and Mel had just refused entrance to it.

She wanted to keep herself safe. But Mel feared Austin’s dad more than she did the shadows at this point. She didn’t know entirely why. Sure, their first interaction hadn’t been good, but there was something more. An uneasiness she always felt around him and even in his house. Mel didn’t understand how Austin could spend time with him in close quarters every night, but that was his choice.

Maybe Mel should have invited Austin to stay in her bunker instead, if she could get the permission she would. As of now, her bunker was strictly for people from the valley. There weren’t many of them in Aldrion, but the few that lived here gathered in the cellar of an old storage house each night.

“I haven’t heard you speak for a while about going back into the wastes again,” Austin said. “Are we going to get to Bahlan?”

Mel turned to look at him, seeing a golden glow from the setting sun framing his dark hair like a halo. Mel swallowed hard. She felt like there was a distance between them. He was like a noble here, and Mel hadn’t been anything close to a noble her entire life. She wished there wasn’t this divide, that he didn’t have this halo around him and that the only backdrop surrounding her wasn’t darkness.

“I don’t know,” Mel said. “I want to get there. But with the attacks and the state Aldrion is in… and then there was the explosion today and the test is coming up soon. I don’t know if this is the right time. I think we should wait until after the test, until we’ve all gotten into the next semester. We’ll have a short break then, right?”

Austin nodded. “We can wait until then. No problem. I just want to know we’re doing this. I feel it’s important that we find the ruins and make sure nothing was left there for us to find. Ever since we talked about your ancestor and the dagger, I get this feeling that we’re supposed to go out there.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mel said, and gave Austin a smile. “But I’m not sure we could survive out there alone, just the two of us.”

“It doesn’t have to be just the two of us,” Austin said. “You could ask Gabriella to join?”

Mel shook her head and looked up at Gabs walking side by side with Flavio a short distance in front of them. They were laughing and talking about something Mel couldn’t make out.

“I’m not so sure she would come with us,” Mel said. “Maybe it’s just me, but I get the feeling she’s starting to regret our friendship.”

“How so?”

“I told her something today,” Mel said. “Something I shouldn’t have told her. Something I won’t tell you, at least not yet. And her reaction was strange. Like she didn’t fully believe that I had no control over it. That it wasn’t me who instigated the conversations, if I can even call them that.”

Mel dragged a hand over her face and sighed. “I’m sorry for not telling you everything. It’s just hard to be here in Aldrion now, with everyone suspecting me of things just because of where I come from. Please don’t think I have anything to do with the black dragon coming here, please.”

Austin’s black eyes turned to Mel, and he sank his deep gaze into her. “I don’t, Melissa. Of course I don’t believe that. I know you. You wouldn’t do something like that. You wouldn’t hurt people like this.”

Mel let out a long sigh, and her shoulders slumped. “Thank you for telling me that. Can you please tell me that every once in a while? I feel like I’m going crazy from all the suspicion people treat me with.”

Austin smiled, but turned his gaze away from Mel, watching the sunset.

“I would never believe something like that about you,” he said. “I trust you now, even if I didn’t before. You know more about me than most people do. More than anyone does outside of my own family.”

They came to the fork in the road and Mel looked up at Austin, feeling like she didn’t want to say goodbye. If there had been a bunker for just the two of them, she would have liked to stay with him tonight. But life wasn’t like that. There would never be a middle ground between a Taveck and a girl from the dragon cult.

“See you tomorrow,” Mel said.

“Stay safe, Melissa.”

Mel willed her feet to keep going, to leave Austin behind by his eerie mansion. She cast one last glance at him and saw his back turned to her and in front of him the metal spires of the massive building stretched up to the sky. A shiver ran down Mel’s spine and she hurried her steps to catch up with Gabriella and the others.

At the warehouse close to Pedro’s noodle place, Mel descended the stairs down to the cellar. The evening was still quiet, and the sun had just grazed the mountains one last time for the day. They closed the hatch after her and sealed the exit shut. Two men in workers' clothing doused long pieces of cloth in water and attached it around the metal closing.

Mel sat down next to Gabriella on a blanket along the wall. The other nobles sat close to them and they were all entranced in a conversation about the war. Around the room there were a few faces that Mel had just seen here in the evenings. They were familiar to her now, but she didn’t know them by name.

“Do you think the new weapon was what destroyed the dragon forge?” Flavio asked.

“Hmm.. probably,” Brandon said.

“Then why don’t they use it on the dragon tonight?”

“It doesn’t really seem to be working correctly since they blew up the forge, right?” Clara said.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yeah, but like, who cares? Blow the whole city up if it will kill that thing.” Flavio turned his gaze to Mel. “Kill all the dragons if you ask me.”

Mel took in a deep breath and lowered her gaze. Flavio had apparently not let the fact that Mel had deserted them go. She really didn’t want to argue with him or get into some deep discussion about the war tonight.

“Totally,” Brandon said. “But I think Clara is right, though. If they don’t even know how to use the weapon and it blew up the forge. It’s probably not ready. I hope they’ll fix it soon, though, and bring that dragon down.”

“Does anyone know what happened to the dragon stones?” Gabriella asked.

The nobles all shook their heads, and Mel’s heart sank. She hadn’t gotten any new information about the explosion all day, and Mel desperately wanted to know what had happened and what the damage was. She wanted to smith weapons in the dragon forge one day. It had always been her dream, even more so than escaping Windbrook, perhaps. But now it just felt like someone had reached inside her chest and ripped out her heart.

The bells sounded over the city and the bunker fell quiet. The noble's conversation died down and they all leaned back, listening to the bells ring. A roar could be heard over the city and a faint sound of wings. A shiver ran down Mel’s spine and she brought up the book from her backpack. A way of guarding herself from the realities of the world.

It was the same book she always had with her, A mage smith’s memoir. By now she had read it a dozen times, but it still seemed to bring her comfort in frightening moments. She cracked the book open and brushed her fingers over the embroidered piece of cloth she had received from her mother.

“That’s pretty.”

Mel’s eyes shot up to a woman standing close to her and peering down at Mel. She watched Mel’s bookmark and Mel closed the book fast with a thump.

“Sorry,” Mel said. “Who are you?”

The woman sat down in front of her and Gabs and gave them a smile. “I’m Sarah. We’re all from the valley here. I thought I might join you tonight.”

“Where in the valley are you from?”

“Cairn,” Sarah said. “But it was many years ago now that I was back home. I live in Aldrion with my family. They’re Aldrion born, and I’m not allowed into their bunker.”

“Really?” Mel said. “That’s strange. Why would they separate you?”

Sarah shrugged. “It’s always been like this. It’s always been a difference between me and my husband. I’m not from here and they won’t let me forget that.”

“I’ve been to Cairn a lot,” Gabs said. “I used to go there as a child all the time.”

“Where are you from?” Sarah asked.

“Stonehearth,” Gabs said. “But my father owns the mine in Cairn and the one in Auburn Hills, too.”

Sarah’s face grew dark suddenly, and she looked down at her hands. Her expression dampened, and she cleared her throat.

“I’ll leave you for the night,” she said. “Stay safe, Melissa.”

“You too,” Mel said.

She looked from Sarah to Gabriella in confusion, not quite understanding what had happened. Sarah walked back to the other side of the room and seemed to whisper something to an older woman next to her. The older woman stared at Gabs with contempt in her eyes after Sarah had stopped speaking.

Mel turned to Gabs. Her shoulder slumped, and she was picking at the blanket with her fingers. The other nobles didn’t say anything, they just looked off into the distance, seeming to think this was normal.

“What happened?” Mel asked, leaning closer to Gabs.

“What always happens,” Gabs said. “I shouldn’t have told her who I was.”

“Why not?”

Gabs looked up and met Mel’s gaze. “Because it’s not who I am that’s important. It’s who my father is. Who I was born to become.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a noble, Mel,” Gabs said. “We’re all nobles. Do you know how someone becomes a noble?”

“You are born as one?”

Gabs shook her head. “No, first your family exploits people for centuries. Then they are elevated by the king above the rest. Then your bloodline will stay noble as long as they keep exploiting people and make money for the crown. That’s what I will do, Mel. That’s what we’ll all do when we get back to Stonehearth.”

Mel’s gaze roamed over the nobles. They didn’t meet her gaze anymore. They looked guilty, shameful.

“So don’t go back then?” Mel said. “You told me once that you didn’t want to go back after Falden. You wanted to stay here and fight.”

“Yeah,” Gabs said. “Maybe. But it’s not that easy. It’s not like I can just defy the king. My father can force me back to Stonehearth. He has the ties. Then what will I do? I have to come back someday.”

Mel leaned back against the cold stone wall and rested her head against it. She hadn’t thought about that. She hadn’t really thought about any of the nobles in this way. To Mel, they always seemed free to do as they pleased. Having more money than should be possible, they could buy anything they wanted or anyone. Except their own freedom, she guessed.

The silence had stretched throughout the room and Mel could feel the tense pressure coming from the other side of the bunker. The other people from the valley, watching them as if they were the plague. Mel was used to it by now and honestly, she preferred being thought of as a rich noble rather than someone from the dragon cult. It was easier, after all.

Mel opened up her book again and brushed away the bookmark this time. She read the passage of Alexander Etrope’s journey once more.

They kneeled in front of the black sky, eyes up toward the heavens, but their God isn’t up there. Mine is. They covered their faces in blood. From where it came, I do not know.

Mel let the text sink in and she thought about the meaning of those words. The people of the wastes, their god wasn’t up in the black sky but Alexander’s was. That didn’t make sense to Mel. Shouldn’t darkness and therefore a dark sky be the thing the void worshipers prayed to? Wasn’t that the void?

Or were the people that Mel had met in the wastes, like Hanon and Luthel, not void worshipers at all? Had they been her allies, after all? But in that case, why had they left her in the village with the beast and the shadow lurking there?

Mel felt her head spin, and she closed the book in her hands. She had too many questions, and the book had given her so few answers. She knew she needed to go back out there. To get to the ruins of Bahlan. She would take Austin with her and she would ask Gabs to come with them, too. She needed help if she was going to survive out there this time.

Mel leaned her head back against the wall again, the book still resting in her hands. She closed her eyes and thought about the wastes, imagining she was out there again. Walking with Luthel and Hanon toward Bahlan.

“They destroyed the dragon stones,” a woman’s voice said.

Mel sat up with a jerk, and her eyes opened in a flash. But no one was speaking to her in the room.

“You’re all dead,” the voice said.

This time, Mel knew it was coming from inside her.

Gabs grabbed her hand and squeezed. Mel turned and met Gabs’ gaze. She had a concerned expression on her face.

“What are they saying?” Gabs whispered.

Mel looked around the room, but no one seemed to be paying attention to her and Gabs.

“The dragon stones,” Mel said. “They said they're gone.”

Gabs’ brow furrowed. “What?”

“The dragons said they were destroyed.”