Chapter 3 - The Shadow of Lord Ashby
When Commander Cassian finally found her three hours before dawn, he stopped dead in the stone doorway of the northern enclosure, his hand instantly dropping to the hilt of his broadsword out of sheer reflex.
The sight before him defied every military protocol he had sworn to uphold.
Sorcha was curled up fast asleep against Vesper’s massive ribs, using a fold of the dragon’s wing as a blanket. And the legendary monster—the beast executioners called an untamable engine of slaughter—had wrapped one enormous, leather-bound wing completely around her, shielding her from the biting draft of the stone walls like a protective dome.
Cassian didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t shout. He stood there in the freezing gloom for a long time, watching the steady rise and fall of the dragon’s chest, watching the way Sorcha murmured something in her sleep and unconsciously pressed closer to the dragon’s warmth.
When Cassian finally stepped forward and knelt beside them, Vesper’s amber eye snapped open. There was no flash of fire, no sudden movement. The dragon merely stared at the Commander with an ancient, calculating intelligence, his massive wing remaining firmly tucked around the sleeping woman.
“Sorcha,” Cassian said quietly, touching her shoulder.
She blinked awake instantly, scrambling upright with a gasp, her hands flying to her satchel before she realized where she was. Panic flashed in her eyes. “Cassian! I—I fell asleep, I didn’t mean to—”
“Hush,” Cassian interrupted softly, holding up a hand. He looked at Vesper’s bandaged foreleg, noting the clean linen and the neat knot. “You treated him.”
“Someone put a tight restraint harness on him,” Sorcha said, her voice dropping into an angry whisper as she stood up and brushed the straw from her knees. “It wasn’t an accident, Cassian. It was deliberately fitted to bite into his joint every time he flexed. They wanted him to lash out. They wanted him to injure those riders so the council would have an excuse.”
Cassian didn’t look surprised. He sat back on a low stone crate, rubbing his temples with two fingers. “I spent the last two hours reviewing the old quartermaster logs and the medical reports from the past three months.”
Sorcha’s pulse quickened. “And?”
“Every single injury report filed by those twelve riders was filled out by the same junior officer,” Cassian said, his voice hard as iron. “A clerk named Jester, who answers directly to Lord Ashby’s administrative office.”
Sorcha felt a sudden wave of cold dread wash over her, cutting right through the dragon’s warmth. “Lord Ashby. The council member who oversees the northern grazing lands.”
“The same Ashby who has petitioned the High Council for Vesper’s nesting territory for two consecutive years,” Cassian continued, his eyes locking onto hers. “Under military charter, if a dragon is culled due to chronic unbondability, his bonded territory reverts to the Crown—and is immediately put up for auction to neighboring lords.”
“Twelve men were maimed for real estate?” Sorcha’s voice trembled with a rage so pure it made her hands shake. “They crippled their own mounts, sent terrified boys into the ring with impossible orders, just to clear a piece of land?”
“A dangerous dragon gets culled,” Cassian said grimly, quoting the council’s own callous terminology. “A dead dragon loses his territory. And Lord Ashby expands his family’s estates all the way to the river valley.”
“We have to take this to the High Commander,” Sorcha said, stepping toward the exit. “We have to show him the harness, the medical logs, the pattern of—”
“We have no proof that holds up in a military tribunal,” Cassian interrupted, standing up to block her path. “Jester is a low-level clerk. He’ll claim the harness was a standard fitting error. Ashby will deny any knowledge of the training protocols. Without a smoking gun—without direct, undeniable evidence linking Ashby to the sabotage—the council will execute Vesper within forty-eight hours just to sweep the scandal under the rug.”
Sorcha looked past Cassian’s shoulder. Vesper was watching them both, his head resting on his paws, a low, sorrowful rumble vibrating through the stones beneath their boots.
“Then we find the proof,” Sorcha said, her voice dropping an octave, steady and resolute. “Before they have a chance to kill him.”
They never got the chance to search quietly.
The very next night, the illusion of safety shattered into a million pieces.
Sorcha was mixing poultices in the infirmary when the alarm bell began to toll across the fortress—a frantic, iron-lunged clanging that brought every soldier in the garrison stumbling out into the courtyards half-dressed.
North enclosure! someone screamed from the ramparts. The black dragon is down!
Sorcha dropped her mortar and pestle, sprinting across the bailey so fast her lungs burned like she was inhaling hot coals. When she burst through the heavy iron doors of the north enclosure, she found Vesper collapsed sideways against the stone wall, his massive body trembling violently.
Thick, white foam covered his jaws. His eyes were rolled back, showing the dark blue sclera beneath, and his breath came in shallow, rattling gasps that sounded like tearing parchment.
Sorcha dropped to her knees beside his massive snout, dipping one trembling fingertip into the pool of water sitting in his stone trough. She brought it to her lips, tasting it with the tip of her tongue.
The liquid was metallic, harsh, and utterly foul.
Her blood turned to ice in her veins.
May you like
“Nightroot,” she choked out, her voice breaking. “Extract of nightroot. It’s a paralytic poison.”
“CASSIAN!” she screamed into the echoing stone chamber, her voice cracking with terror. “GET IN HERE! NOW!”
