Zhurrem’s bronze wings thump hard, lifting them higher into the thin, biting air. Below, the marsh still glows sickly where the pit was breached, and the rhythm in the air matches the beat under Kamakulzar’s skin.
The glow below grows with each wingbeat.
Zhurrem
They cannot reach us now.
He banks right, away from the ruined pit, toward a chain of wide, fat, round mountains rising from the frozen marsh like dark shields.
Then the truth bites through the flight. The sick light below does not fade with distance, it answers the motion. Every powerful beat of Zhurrem’s wings feeds the bone-mark’s waking hunger.
The Hooded Figure
Too late.
The Second Cloaked Figure
Keep it moving.
The Third Cloaked Figure
The mark is rising.
The three cloaked figures remain far behind on the marsh rim, their voices carried thinly by the wind, while the glow under the ice pulses brighter in answer to the dragon’s climb.