Dawn came grey and cold.

  Lavender woke with Brute's warmth pressed against her back and the ache of a night spent on frozen ground. The fire had burned to ash. Zemmal lay coiled among the boulders, his breathing slow and labored. The infection in his wound pulsed with each exhale, spreading slightly further across his scales since yesterday.

  She sat up, rubbing warmth into her arms. The mountains stretched above them, peaks lost in cloud. The ridge they'd climbed was barely visible now; obscured in the maze of stone and ice they'd traveled through.

  "We need to move." Brute's voice still startled her. Three years of silence, and now every word landed like a stone in still water.

  "I know." She pushed to her feet, joints protesting. "How far?"

  "Several weeks. Maybe more, with Zemmal's injury slowing us."

  The dragon stirred at his name. One golden eye opened, fixing on Lavender with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

  I heard that. His telepathic voice was weaker than yesterday, rougher at the edges. I am not slow. I am strategic.

  "You're wounded and limping is what you are."

  I said what I said. Strategic. A hint of the old sardonic humor crept through. We draw attention, they pursue, and when they catch up, I eat them.

  Lavender knelt beside him, studying the wound. The flesh beneath looked grey and lifeless.

  "It's getting worse."

  Yes. Zemmal lifted his head with effort. The corruption feeds on my essence. Without your fire to slow it, I have perhaps a few short weeks before it reaches my heart.

  "Then why are we stopping? Why aren't we running?"

  I cannot fly. And running would exhaust what remains of my strength. Unless you have another suggestion? The dragon's eyes held hers. Lavender remained silent, knowing he was right. We walk. We conserve. We hope your fire grows stronger before the darkness reaches too deep; that you can extend my life.

  Brute moved to her side, pressing his head against her hand. "He is right, Lav. Desperation will kill him faster than patience. We move steadily. We train as we travel. We reach our destination before the corruption claims him."

  "And if we don't?"

  Brute didn't answer. His silence said enough.

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  The descent took most of the morning.

  They wound through gaps in the ridge, following paths that seemed designed for creatures far larger than humans. Lavender scrambled over boulders while Zemmal navigated around them, his wounded leg dragging with each step. Brute ranged ahead, scouting the route, occasionally doubling back to report on dangers and obscure the tracks they were leaving.

  The wilderness below was unlike anything Lavender had seen. The Barrens were harsh, frozen, stripped of life by centuries of nuclear winter. This was different. Trees grew here, twisted and strange, their bark glowing faintly in the dim light. Moss carpeted the rocks in shades of blue and silver. Fungi the size of dinner plates sprouted from fallen logs, their caps pulsing with bioluminescence.

  "What is this place?"

  "The deep wilderness." Brute's voice held something like reverence. "The places the Authority dare not reach. The places the dragons kept for themselves."

  The world before the Fall, Zemmal added. Or something close to it. Radiation transformed things here, but it also preserved them. Life finds ways to survive that your kind never imagined.

  Lavender touched one of the glowing trees. Warmth radiated from the bark, a gentle heat that had nothing to do with fire. The magic in her chest stirred in response, reaching toward the strange energy.

  "Is everything here alive with magic?"

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  Everything is alive with something. Zemmal limped past her, scales scraping against stone. Magic. Radiation. The memory of what came before. Boundaries have a way of blurring in places like this.

  They walked in silence for a while. The forest grew denser, the glowing trees pressing close, their branches interlacing overhead. Strange sounds echoed through the undergrowth; clicks and whistles and cries that belonged to nothing Lavender could name.

  "Where are we going?" she asked finally. "You said your mother lives in the mountains. Where exactly?"

  Zemmal's head turned, golden eyes catching the bioluminescent light.

  To the place where endings begin. My mother's domain.

  "That's not an answer."

  It is the only answer I can give. The dragon's voice carried something almost like apology. Some truths cannot be spoken, only witnessed. When you stand before her, you will understand.

  Lavender looked to Brute. The dog walked beside her, his silence heavy as usual.

  "Do you know what he means?" she pressed.

  "I know." Brute's voice was gentle. "But I am not permitted to share it. Not yet. When you arrive, Lav, you will see. And I promise everything will make sense."

  "Everyone keeps saying that. 'When you arrive.' 'When you see.' " Frustration crept into her voice. "I'm walking into the unknown with a dying dragon and a talking dog who lied to me. I think I deserve more than cryptic promises and evasive answers."

  Brute stopped. He turned to face her, amber eyes holding depths she was only beginning to understand.

  "You are right to be frustrated. You are right to demand answers." His tail hung still. "But some knowledge comes with cost. If I told you what waits at the end of this, it would change you. Change how you grow. The choices you make."

  "Change how? What do you mean how I grow?"

  "The truth is heavy, Lav. It bends the one who carries it. You are not yet strong enough to bear it without breaking."

  The dog speaks wisdom. Zemmal had stopped ahead, waiting for them. I do not share everything about my mother because the knowledge will alter you forever. Not because she is terrible, though she can be. She is also gentle, and kind, and more patient than any being I have known. The dragon's voice softened. She is too much to explain. She must be experienced.

  Lavender wanted to argue. To demand answers, to threaten, to refuse to take another step until they told her the truth. But she was tired, hungry, and cold, and the forest pressed in with its strange lifeforms and stranger sounds.

  She started walking again.

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  The trio made camp as the light faded, in a hollow between the roots of an enormous tree. The trunk was wider than Lavender's hut had been, stretching up until it vanished into the glowing canopy above. Its roots formed natural walls, sheltering them from the wind for a change.

  Zemmal settled with a groan, his wounded leg stretched out before him. The oily darkness pulsed in the dim light, forever spreading slowly and steadily.

  "Let me try something." Lavender knelt beside him, her hands hovering over the wound. "You said fire slows it. Maybe I can push it back."

  Not yet. Zemmal's voice was firm. You lack control. If you try to burn the corruption now, you will burn me as well.

  "Then teach me." The words came out sharper than she intended. Too late to be sorry for it now. "You promised to teach me. Start teaching."

  The dragon studied her features for a long time. Something shifted in his expression.

  Very well. Summon fire. Now.

  Lavender straightened. She closed her eyes, reaching for the heat in her chest, the constant pressure that had defined her life for years.

  The fire came.

  It erupted from her hands in a wild burst, flames shooting sideways, scorching the roots beside her. She yelped and clamped down, forcing the fire back, and the pressure behind her eyes spiked into blinding pain.

  You fight it. Zemmal's voice cut through the agony. Stop fighting. The magic is yours. It belongs to you. Work with it, do not wrestle it.

  "I don't know how."

  You do. You simply refuse to admit it. The dragon's gaze was relentless. The magic has been with you since birth. It knows you. It wants to serve you. But you treat it like an enemy, and so it acts like one.

  Lavender's hands shook. The magic pulsed in her chest, eager and wild, straining against the walls she'd built.

  "If I let it out, it burns everything."

  Because you release it in bursts, panicked and uncontrolled. Zemmal's voice gentled slightly. Try again. This time do not summon the fire. Invite it. Treat it as an ally, not a weapon.

  She closed her eyes again. The heat waited, pressing against her ribs, demanding release. For three years, she'd fought it. Pushed it down. Strangled it before it could surface.

  This time, she opened the door.

  The fire flowed up through her chest, down her arms, into her hands. Not erupting. Moving. Controlled. She felt it pool in her palms, warm and bright, waiting.

  She opened her eyes.

  A flame danced in her cupped hands. It was steady, and contained within her palms. Hers.

  "I did it." The words came out hushed.

  So you did. Something like pride colored Zemmal's voice. A beginning. Small, but real. The dragon's head settled back onto the roots. Practice control. Master the small flame before you attempt the inferno. We have time. Not much, but enough.

  Lavender stared at the fire in her hands. All these years, she'd feared this. Hated it. Wished it would disappear.

  Now, for the first time, she saw it as something she could genuinely use.

  She let the flame die and looked up at the dark canopy above. The glowing fungi cast strange shadows. The forest creaked and seemed to whisper around them.

  Brute's ears flattened.

  "What is it?"

  He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the darkness beyond the hollow, body rigid.

  We are not alone. Zemmal's voice was a whisper. Something watches.

  Lavender's hand found her knife. The magic stirred in her chest, eager for another chance.

  A sound echoed through the trees. A clicking, chittering cry that raised every hair on her arms.

  The forest had noticed them.