Just when they’d been getting along so well.
Chapter 23 - Lana
The days dragged on. Lana had forgotten what it felt like not to live with the constant, crushing press of anxiety weighing on her like a brick on the back of her neck. She felt like she could just scream with frustration. It had been three days since they’d discovered the cave-ins, discovered the Fog in the abandoned tunnels around the cavern, slowly creeping in… and still, the dragons were arguing about what they should do about it. Lana had been forced to back down, in the end. She was aware her position here was fragile, and some instinct had told her that strong-arming Captain Acantha about the excavation of the tunnels wasn’t the right move. She couldn’t risk making such a powerful enemy… so she’d agreed, after a long discussion, that they’d search for another solution.
Seth was sympathetic, but not much help. His wolves were willing to take the risk and excavate the tunnels, but they couldn’t do much without dragon claws—and besides, Acantha had set guards on every known entrance to the tunnel. Lana tried not to hate the stoic Captain. She was only doing what she thought was best… and she was right to fear the Fog taking more lives than it already had. But what alternative was there?
More research, she supposed. And so she threw herself into the work, alongside Arric and Hartwell and their intrepid research squad. She ricocheted from topic to topic, following her instincts, flipping through books at random, knowing in her bones that the answer was eluding her. And all the while, the hours were turning into days. If Conrad was still out there, still alive, the chances of finding him that way were shrinking with every passing minute. And every instinct she had was telling her she had todosomething.
“What if I just excavate the stupid tunnels myself?”
Seth looked up from where he was leafing through a book in their bed, his brow furrowing a little. “Alone?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“Where do I start? It’s dangerous, it’ll be incredibly slow going, Acantha will catch you—”
“She’s not my mother,” Lana muttered. “I have todosomething, Seth. I can’t just read a thousand transcriptions of the same stupid poem over and over again.” She gestured at him with the dusty book in her hands. “The Fog devours, the Fog devours. It’s going to drive me insane.” She scowled down at the page… then frowned. “That’s weird.”
“Hm?”
“The pages are stuck together.” She hesitated, just for a moment. “Want to see something cool?”
It was a trick she’d learned from a dragon down in Florida—manipulating the magic to allow just a single body part to transform. With practice, she’d gotten quite good at it. Good enough to allow a single finger to transform into a long, sharp talon. Seth recoiled in shock, and she grinned, sliding the razor-sharp edge of her claw carefully into the tiny parting she’d noticed between two pages. She shook her hand and the talon disappeared. Ever so gently, she peeled the page back….
“That’s disgusting,” Seth said frankly. But she barely heard him. She was too busy scanning the page she’d revealed, her heart pounding hard in her chest.
“I have to find Arric,” she whispered. The archivist was going to lose his mind. But Seth shook his head.
“He’s been up for thirty hours straight, Lana. We only just convinced him to get some sleep.”
“Time’s a factor, Seth,” she snapped, feeling the frustration she’d barely been keeping under control break loose. “Conrad could still be out there—”
“We can find your fiancé in the morning,” Seth snapped. She saw the look of regret in his eyes immediately, but it was too late to stop the ice that was rushing through her veins, freezing her solid. “Lana—”
“I’m going for a walk, and I would prefer to be alone,” she said coldly. And before he had the chance to talk her out of it, she closed the bedroom door behind her.
She’d wasted enough time here. They had their plan—clear out the tunnels and restore the patrols. That would chase the Fog away, put an end to the disappearances for good… but first, she needed to prove that the Fog wasn’t as dangerous as everyone seemed to think it was. She’d been out in it for hours before it had begun to threaten her, hadn’t she? Not to mention the wolves, who’d been patrolling close to it for thousands of years. Maybe she’d been wrong to run from the Fog after it had claimed Conrad. Maybe if she’d stayed there a little longer, she’d have learned what the dragon in the poem had clearly learned.
“The Fog devours,” she murmured, tapping her fingers against her leg as she walked. “The Fog devours, the Fog restores. The Fog is a grave, the Fog is a door.” She’d left the book open in her quarters—hopefully, Seth would think to take it to Arric in the morning.
He’d be thrilled to learn that the last verse of the poem hadn’t been lost after all.
It was a cold, cloudless night, the stars bright and remote above her as she winged her steady way towards the edge of the valley, a trip that was becoming all too familiar. Down below, she could just make out the wolves’ ancient trails, recognized the pattern they’d all been poring over on maps for days. Seth had sent his parents back to the pack to reinstate the patrols the minute they’d realized their mistake—she only hoped the damage done by the lapse was repairable.
Then again, if what she was about to try was successful, maybe they wouldn’t need to worry about disappearances any longer.
She flew until the Fog was too dense to see, and then she dove through the thick forest canopy, heedless of the branches scratching and scraping at her body. Once she’d landed, she shifted into her human form and strode into the mist. Strange that she’d never noticed how light it was. It had been the middle of the night when she’d first arrived here, and she’d never thought to question the fact that she could see perfectly well among the trees.
It was as though the Fog itself was lighting her way.
Focus, she told herself, feeling a certain lightness beginning to creep into her thoughts. Remember why you’re here. That was the trick—last time, she’d been upset, she’d been trying to run away from what lay behind her. No wonder the Fog had claimed her memory, turned her into someone who didn’t even recognize Conrad, one of the closest friends she’d ever had. She pictured his face in her mind as she walked, lengthened her stride, resisted the urge to run. That would draw the attention of the monstrosities, and that was a complication she didn’t need.
She whispered Conrad’s name as she walked… and then she added the others that she’d learned over the last few weeks, the people who’d disappeared. Around her, the Fog grew thicker and thicker, obscuring her surroundings until she could barely see a few inches in front of her. No more trees, no more rocks—no more forest floor beneath her feet, even. This was it. This was how deep she’d been when Conrad had found her. Lana came to a halt, took a deep breath, and hoped like hell that she hadn’t just made a suicidally stupid mistake.
“I am here for my friends,” she said, her voice oddly muted. She felt the cool touch of the Fog on her lips and tongue as she spoke, wrinkled her nose a little at the invasion. “I know you took my friend Conrad. I would like him back—along with everyone else you took.”
Nothing but silence answered her… and it was hard not to feel stupid, talking to the emptiness. She gritted her teeth, focused hard on her memory of Conrad… on the stories she’d heard about the other missing dragons, on Elza’s heartbreaking smile as she’d whispered the name of her missing soulmate. And then, so quickly that she almost thought she’d imagined it, she saw the Fog condense.