As the dust clouds engulfed the hill base and continued to spread outward in an eerie fashion, we managed to get to the western gate, where our indigo horses were still waiting, albeit neighing and restless.

Silence slowly worked its way out from beneath Kerentrith, a sinkhole left in its wake after the city had been swallowed by Draconis. The smell of smoke, burning flesh, and charred wood invaded my nostrils. Harper scanned the area for daemons.

“There are some still standing, but I doubt they can see us through this smoke,” she muttered, then helped Vesta pull the horses out from their hiding place.

The worst part was pretty much over at this point. Despite the thick dust trying to work its way through my lungs, I felt as though I could breathe again. Jax stopped by my side, settled Ryker back on his feet, and gently squeezed my hand—a sweet reminder that I could still touch him, that we were still alive and together. It filled my very soul with energy, enough to add that extra kick in my heels for what lay ahead.

Fiona then cut her palm and brought it up to Blaze’s mouth. He squirmed a little, but relented and parted his lips, letting the crimson liquid drizzle over his tongue. Three minutes later, he was back at full strength.

“I think the tendon was severed,” Blaze muttered, checking his boot while twisting his foot. “It makes it difficult to shift when I’m wounded like that.”

“You’re okay now,” Caia said, giving him a warm smile, then giggled. “Although I’m impressed with how long you lasted before you had to be carried.”

Blaze didn’t seem pleased about that, pressing his lips into a thin line. Caia was swift in putting her hands on his shoulders. “Hey, even the mighty fall!”

“That being said, we need you to go full dragon,” Harper interjected with a playful smirk. “We’ll have our heaviest ride you, and keep the horses for ourselves.”

Harper and Caspian got the delegation members on horseback. Ryker and Laughlan rode solo, while the couples got a horse each. That left us with four horses to share between us. Caspian and Harper took one, and Fiona took another, while Jax and I agreed to share the third stallion, leaving a fourth for Vesta.

“What about us? Oh, we’re ‘your heaviest’. Noted,” Velnias scoffed, crossing his bulky arms and giving Zane a sideways glance, too, for good measure. Zane shrugged, slightly amused.

“We get to ride the dragon, my good friend,” Zane replied.

“That’s what I get for helping you people escape and destroy my city? Vertigo?” Velnias muttered, obviously displeased.

Blaze shuddered and stretched his arms out, while the rest of us got on our horses and Laughlan let the Ekar bird loose from his backpack. I was constantly amazed by that damn bird. It could survive pretty much anything, including a city collapsing in on itself, it seemed, without so much as a peep.

“I’m not too comfortable with the idea, either,” Blaze retorted, “but it’ll be faster if we fly. You two won’t be able to keep up with the indigo horses, trust me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zane replied, stroking the neck of Fiona’s stallion. The looks on their faces made me blush. Those two were becoming an item, and I had no idea as to how I felt about it. But this wasn’t the time nor the place to worry about that, as Harper quickly pointed out.

“I can hear daemons coming. We really need to move now,” she said.

“So, where to? Ragnar Peak?” Blaze asked, slipping out of his clothes and handing everything over to Caia to hold on to. It made us all look away, our heads turning so fast, I could swear I heard my own neck snap with the motion.

“Not while daemons are tailing us,” Velnias said, slightly pale and unable to look Blaze in the eyes.

Welcome to the club, Velnias. No one can look Blaze in the eyes when he’s stark naked. Well, except maybe Caia.

“I counted about thirty of them,” Harper replied, looking over her shoulder. “Blaze could take them on, easily.”

“You’re forgetting about the hordes that are still out and about, looking for you. Complete with pit wolves and Death Claws. They all heard the explosions. They saw the city collapse. They’re on their way back as we speak. We’ve got the delegation with us, too,” Velnias replied. “We’re better off if we make ourselves scarce before we run into any reinforcements. No more time left to waste.”

“I know where we can go,” Zane interjected, then pointed somewhere to the southeast. “There’s an abandoned farm that way, about two hundred miles from here. It’s surrounded by red sand dunes and treacherous marshes. It’s extremely humid and hot, but there’s a dry pocket in the middle that used to thrive as a farm. Most daemons don’t know about it because few dared to venture into it. No one’s interested in exploring Neraka’s marshes, only this time there really is a hidden gem there.”

“How do you know about it?” Fiona asked, her eyebrows raised with surprise.

Zane responded with a boyish grin. “I used to play around Draconis a lot when I was a kid,” he replied. “I had a habit of running away once every other full moon or so. Father obviously kept finding me, but the biggest scare for him was when I hid in that farm and nobody was able to track me. I went back, eventually, and spent years making it up to my mother. But the farm is still there.”

A couple of seconds passed as we all looked at each other, until I nodded, and Fiona took a deep breath. “Okay then, lead the way,” she said.

“Hop on,” Blaze replied, smirking at Velnias and Zane, then burst into full dragon form. Our invisibility spells would wear off soon, but Blaze’s faded the moment he turned.

Velnias stifled a squeal, equal parts fascinated and terrified. Zane chuckled and gave him a friendly pat on the back, while Blaze lowered his head, allowing both daemons to climb onto his back. Harper, Jax, and I took the lead on horseback, followed closely by Fiona, Caia, and the others.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Velnias breathed, his voice trembling as he settled between Blaze’s sharp shoulder blades.

Zane climbed up behind him, firmly grabbing Blaze’s large black scales. The dragon shook his head, blinking and huffing as he adjusted his eyesight to the darkness. The smoke and dust billowing from Kerentrith had covered the entire area around us, completely obscuring the sky and the stars.

“Probably, but I also think riding a dragon is more fun than riding a Death Claw,” Zane replied, prompting Velnias to chuckle.

“You tried that, too, huh?” the former High Warden of Draconis asked.

“Their bite is the worst,” Zane laughed, then yelped and held on tight as Blaze took off without any warning. “Hold on!”

The dragon’s wings flapped several times, vanishing above and beyond the thick layer of black smoke. Harper used her True Sight to follow him. Zane relayed directions from Blaze’s back, and the rest of us followed.

I wrapped my arms around Jax’s waist as he beckoned our indigo horse to go fast. He clicked his teeth once, and the stallion darted off like the sudden winds of summer on Calliope. I could hear daemons behind us, but they’d yet to spot us, given the low visibility.

“We’ll most likely spend the night at the farm, then head off to Ragnar Peak in the morning,” Jax said. I held on tight and welcomed the flow of air brushing against my cheeks.

“I pray there’s water there. I need a hot bath,” I replied.

“We all do,” Harper chuckled, a couple of feet ahead of us. “I imagine we’ll all dunk ourselves in hot water once we get there.”

“Hey, we deserve it!” Fiona shot back, stifling a smirk.

We most certainly did.

“I’ll set up a cloaking spell once we get there, just in case,” Vesta said, patting the bag filled with precious supplies she’d packed at the palace. “We raided some pantries while we were setting the fuses. Found all kinds of goodies in the kitchen and in the abandoned armory.”

“Good, we’ll need whatever we can carry, going forward,” I replied. “It’s not over for us. Far from it.”

I let out a long sigh. We weren’t where we wanted to be just yet, but damn it, we’d made incredible progress, and it was all thanks to the brilliant minds of everyone involved. I was most fortunate to have come to Neraka with warriors like Harper and her Shadians.

The city of Draconis had fallen, both figuratively and literally. The blow we’d dealt to Shaytan with this one was sure to reverberate across the continent. If he’d been worried about Infernis, I could only dream about the look on his face once he heard the news about Draconis.

We’d brought down his precious prison city, we’d let the daemon pacifists loose, we’d killed Cayn, and we’d managed to escape with the delegation prisoners. Our greatest advantage was that Shaytan wasn’t aware that Laughlan had learned where they were keeping Lumi. We didn’t have a clear path to her, per se, but we knew she was in Azure Heights, and, most importantly, we knew who stood between us and her—between us and freedom.

As we left the ruins of Kerentrith behind, I smiled. The smoke around us dissipated, Blaze once again visible overhead and leading us to the marsh farm. Harper scanned the area on a radius of up to three miles, confirming that there were, in fact, daemon troops scuttling back to Draconis.

However, they couldn’t see us from where they were, and, as soon as they entered the cloud of smoke and dust surrounding the collapsed hill, they could barely see three feet ahead of them. We had an easy ride to the farm, which was a much-needed respite, after what we’d just accomplished and after everything we’d endured.

Despite the many questions we still had about how the Exiled Maras and daemons were handling this whole Nerakian domination, and keeping the outside world out of their business, we also had answers. The single most important one was Lumi.

As we crossed the dry plains and headed into the red desert south of Kerentrith, I kept smiling. We’d come a long way, after some truly horrific hundred-and-eighty-degree turns. We’d survived a lot. If anyone deserved to soak in hot water for hours on end, before resuming this monstrous battle, it was us.