Two months.

  That’s how long it took me to reach the eastern cliffs.

  The wind carried me farther than I’d ever flown. Across forests and rivers, over mountains whose peaks scraped the clouds. I passed villages where humans lived tucked into stone, and other places where the land felt too quiet—as if the dragons who once ruled there had long since gone.

  Along the way, I encountered harpies with wings sharp as knives, and griffins with eyes that tracked me from the treetops. There were battles I couldn’t avoid, and I learned—sound was more than a tool. It was a weapon.

  I fought not with claws, but with echoes. With piercing cries that disoriented and drove back creatures twice my size. I couldn’t rely on scent anymore, but my ears… they had become my greatest defense. I listened to heartbeats, to shifting talons in the grass, to the flutter of wings before an ambush. And I survived. Again and again, I survived.

  I tried to keep my hope in check. I told myself not to believe too deeply, not to imagine the moment it might happen. The moment I’d breathe and the world would come rushing back to me.

  But hope is a stubborn thing.

  It crept in at night, when I lay awake listening to the hush of the sea. It followed me through storms and silence, flickering like a heartbeat I couldn’t let go of. Every time I took in a breath, I imagined it—that one breath, the one that would bring it all back. The salt, the wind, the warmth of another’s presence. The scent of belonging.

  I clung to the idea of the Water Dragon like a lifeline. The one whose healing could go deeper than skin, deeper than bone. The one who might be able to reach the part of me that felt like it had been hollowed out.

  Maybe, just maybe, she could fix what had been broken.

  When I finally reached the cliffs, I didn’t find her.

  I searched for another month.

  I stayed close to the sea, letting the sound of the waves remind me that there were still rhythms in the world worth chasing. I shifted into my human form more often, learning to live the way they did—quietly, among crowds, never quite touching. I wore a heavy cloak to hide my eyes, my skin, the shimmer in my veins that marked me as something other.

  I slept in forests and crept along the edges of their towns, always listening. Waiting. Asking carefully.

  And then, one evening, a group of sailors came ashore.

  They spoke of a pod of Water Dragons who lived deep in the sea caves, hidden among the eastern cliffs, just a few miles north of where I was.

  They said the dragons didn’t come to shore often, and when they did, it was only to hunt or vanish back into the sea.

  I listened with my heart pounding.

  This was the closest I’d ever come to something real.

  And I wasn’t going to lose it.

  The very next morning, I took to the skies again, flying low along the shoreline, scanning every crevice and inlet. The cliffs jutted high and sheer against the sea, battered smooth by centuries of waves. It took hours, but eventually, I found signs—shimmering scales caught in the rocks, deep gouges in the stone where claws had gripped during takeoff. Evidence. Dragons had been here.

  I waited.

  I perched on a crag overlooking the waves, wings tucked close, eyes fixed on the water. The sea stretched endlessly, blue and vast, but I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. I waited until, at last, the surface broke.

  Three dragons rose from the sea—sleek, elegant, fluid as the tides themselves. Their scales shimmered in shades of blue and green, catching the sunlight like refracted glass. Fins extended from their backs and tails like translucent veils, shifting gently with the movement of the water. Their wings, lighter and more delicate than mine, rippled rather than flared, built not for sky but for swift currents and tight turns beneath the waves.

  Compared to them, I was heavy and angular, made for the open air and long flights. They were the sea’s children. I was sky’s orphan.

  Their heads turned toward me the moment they emerged, and I knew I must’ve looked out of place, perched and still.

  I bowed my head.

  I tucked my wings in and lowered my body to the stone, showing deference. Showing that I was not a threat.

  I couldn’t smell them, but I was sure they were exuding warning pheromones—something that would have once made my instincts recoil. I felt none of it. Just the stillness of the air and the pounding of my own heart.

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  When I spoke, my voice trembled. “I mean no harm. I’ve come seeking a healer. I lost my scent. I have nothing left but sound.”

  They exchanged glances, their eyes narrowing. But when I mentioned my lost scent, something shifted. Their bodies relaxed just slightly. One stepped forward and nodded once.

  They didn’t speak. Instead, they dove.

  And a moment later, they surged out of the sea again—grasping me with careful claws.

  We dove together, cutting into the water so fast it stole my breath. I forced my eyes open, catching flashes of coral and stone as we swam through a winding network of tunnels. But the moment we entered the depths, the world became chaos.

  The sounds under the water were disorienting—muffled and warped, bouncing strangely off the curved rock. I couldn’t tell how far things were, or what direction they came from. Every flick of a fin, every shift in current, echoed like a storm in a sealed cave. The vibrations that normally guided me twisted into something foreign. For someone who had grown to rely on sound, it was like being blind again.

  Still, I held on. I followed the pull of the dragons through the confusion, heart racing. We passed through a narrow opening in the cliffs, and then—upward.

  I broke the surface of an underground chamber, gasping. The air here was thick with moisture, warm and echoing with the soft drip of water on stone. Light shimmered from somewhere unseen, refracting in the rippling pool around me, casting dancing patterns across the curved walls. The stone was smooth and dark, veined with streaks of iridescent mineral, as if the ocean itself had bled into the rock.

  The lava tube system was massive—carved long ago by fire, now claimed by the sea. Narrow channels branched off in every direction, disappearing into shadow, while above, the ceiling arched so high it felt like the sky had been sealed inside the earth. It was a hidden world beneath the cliffs, beautiful and breathless and utterly still.

  The Water Dragons surfaced beside me, silent guides in a cathedral of stone and salt. They led me deeper into the caves until I saw her.

  A dragon in human form, her skin pale as pearls, her hair tangled with seaweed, was bent over a glowing cauldron. Vials lined the stone shelves. Salves shimmered in shallow dishes. She stirred slowly, rhythmically, like she was weaving a spell into the very water.

  This was her.

  The healer I had crossed the continent to find.

  She looked up as I stepped into the chamber, her pale eyes steady, her presence calm like the tide. Her gaze swept over my dragon form, taking in the stiffness in my wings, the tension around my muzzle.

  “You’ve come a long way,” she said, her voice soft but certain.

  I lowered my head respectfully. “My name is Sovarielle,” I said, my voice rasping slightly from the long journey. “I came… because I lost something. I can’t smell anymore. I was attacked—fire and poison. My horde is gone. My family…”

  The healer’s expression softened even further. She stepped forward, her movements gentle, sure.

  “Yes,” she said quietly, her tone laced with understanding. “I felt it the moment you walked in. You cannot perceive scent. Only silence.”

  She approached, barefoot and deliberate, her hands cool as they pressed gently along my snout. Her touch was kind. Patient. She moved with a rhythm I hadn’t realized I’d been missing—a steady, maternal sort of care that reminded me achingly of my mother.

  “I’ll try everything,” she said, brushing her fingers across the bridge of my nose where the pain still pulsed faintly.

  She began with a wash—cool water infused with herbs that glowed faintly green, trickling over the scales of my snout in slow, deliberate waves. Her hands moved with practiced grace, cupping the water, smoothing it into the grooves of my scales as she hummed a low melody that seemed to echo off the cavern walls. The sound was ancient, soothing, like a lullaby meant for grief.

  Next, she crushed dried petals and roots into a thick poultice, mixing them with saltwater in a stone bowl. She smeared it gently across the bridge of my nose, her touch never hurried, never harsh. The paste tingled faintly against my skin, a prickle of hope sparking in my chest.

  Then came the breath-linked magic. She placed one hand over my chest, the other over her own heart. Our eyes met, and she gave me a small, steady nod. I inhaled. She did the same. Our breaths fell into rhythm, and with each cycle, I could feel the pulse of her magic pushing gently into me—searching, coaxing, healing. It moved like water itself: fluid, unforced, all-encompassing.

  And still… I waited.

  I closed my eyes. I wanted to believe—needed to believe. The ache in my chest wasn’t just desperation; it was the last thread I was holding onto. I pictured what it would feel like to breathe and finally know the world again. To catch the scent of saltwater, stone, home. To feel whole. I clung to that image like a starving thing, afraid to hope—but hoping anyway. I wanted so badly for this to work.

  She tried again. A rune, drawn in saltwater. A mist, laced with silver and kelp. I lost count of the methods. I didn’t move.

  Finally, after what felt like days, she stepped back. Her face was calm, but her eyes were full of sorrow.

  “It’s gone, little one,” she said, so gently it nearly broke me. “What was taken will not return.”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t speak.

  I just stood there—still and hollow—as everything I had been clinging to slowly, quietly, unraveled inside me.

  “No,” I whispered, barely audible. “There has to be something else. You haven’t tried—”

  She shook her head, gentle but firm. “Sovarielle, I have done all I can. I’ve searched with every sense I possess. There is nothing left for me to reach.”

  My wings drooped. My chest tightened. I wanted to scream, to deny it, to demand she try again—but I saw the truth in her eyes. She wasn’t holding back. She had given me everything.

  And it still wasn’t enough.

  The grief didn’t come all at once. It crept in—slow, crushing, suffocating. A thick, invisible tide that swallowed everything I’d been trying to hold together. My horde—the warmth of familiar wings overhead. My family—their voices, their scents, the steady heartbeat of belonging. My scent—my anchor to the world, to myself. My identity—unraveled like thread in water.

  Gone. All of it.

  And in its place, only silence. Only the echo of who I used to be.

  The healer reached up, brushing my snout once more. “You are not broken, little one. But I will give you space.”

  And with that, she turned and stepped quietly out of the chamber.

  I was alone.

  I lowered myself to the cool stone floor, breathing deeply—again and again—trying to catch the smallest trace of something familiar.

  Nothing. Not even the salt of the ocean. Not the damp of the air.

  A memory surfaced. My mother’s voice—soft, full of certainty.

  “Even in the dark, your scent will always guide you back to me, to your family.”

  I crumpled, curling into myself, the tears slipping hot down my scales.

  “Then I will never find anyone,” I whispered.