Page 49 of Season of Naga: Volume 2
Lurok nods once, pragmatic as ever. He retrieves the heartglass, its light brightening at his touch. When he offers it to me, our fingers brush in the exchange, and even that small contact sends electricity through my veins.
I wrap my fingers around the crystalline surface, surprised when it remains cool in my palm, its light noticeably fainter than when Lurok held it. I tighten my grip, willing it to respond as it did for him, but the heartglass remains distant, alien. A reminder of the fundamental difference still between us.
I quickly dress while Lurok gathers what little remains of our supplies: the pack, the waterskins, my shredded undergarments, and his sword. Neither of us speaks of what transpired between us in this grotto. Neither needs to. It lives in our shared glances, in the way his tail subtly shifts to steady me when I sway with fatigue, in how my hand seeks his without conscious thought.
At the narrow fissure leading back to the passage, I hesitate. Behind me lies the pool where I gave myself to him completely. Before me stretches the danger of the Ashlands and whatever lies beyond. Once we step through this crack in the stone, our sanctuary becomes memory.
"I'll go first," I say, holding the heartglass high to illuminate the narrow opening. "My shoulders are smaller."
Lurok makes a sound that might be amusement. "You have grown bolder, Serin Valen."
"I've had to," I reply, meeting his gaze one last time in our private world.
I turn and squeeze into the fissure, the stone scraping my shoulders despite my smaller frame. The heartglass lights myway. Behind me, I hear Lurok's scales rasp against rock as he follows. Each inch forward takes us farther from what we shared, closer to the world that would condemn us for it.
I emerge on the other side and wait for him, breathing in the cooler, drier air of the outer passage. When he joins me, his expression has changed, hardened into the warrior's mask I first encountered. The Lurok who held me with such tenderness remains hidden now, armored against what awaits us.
Our sanctuary lies sealed behind stone, a secret place known only to us. Whatever happens in the Ashlands, whatever awaits at Vessan-Kar, we carry that grotto within us now of a shared memory of connection that defies everything we were taught to believe.
The ash storm has subsided, and we emerge from the cave. No moon hangs in the sky, no stars pierce the thick veil of ashen clouds above. Only the heartglass in my palm casts any light, its otherworldly glow illuminating a landscape that shouldn't exist.
Ash drifts in silent waves around us, forming dunes and valleys like a mockery of the living land that once stretched here. I take my first breath outside the cave and instantly regret it. The air tastes of bitterness and something chemical that burns the back of my throat.
"Stay close to the mountain," Lurok murmurs, his voice barely carrying in the deadened air. "The ash is more stable where stone meets ground."
His hand finds my elbow, the contact both practical and comforting. The warrior has returned fully now, his movements precise and watchful, yet there remains something in his touch that speaks of our time in the grotto. A gentleness reserved only for me.
We press forward along the mountain's edge, my shoes and his massive tail creating shallow impressions in the ash that drift close behind us almost immediately. The heartglass throws ourshadows in grotesque proportions against the mountain face, stretching and shrinking with each step. Its light reveals skeletal trees rising from the ash like accusing fingers, their blackened trunks still standing in silent testament to the destruction that claimed them.
"What were they?" I ask, my voice hushed by the oppressive silence surrounding us.
"Crimson maples," Lurok answers, his grip tightening slightly on my arm as we navigate around a particularly unstable-looking patch. "They grew tall enough to shade entire naga clutches during summer gatherings. Their sap ran red as sunrise in autumn."
I try to imagine it, these charred skeletons once vibrant with life, leaves rustling, sap flowing. The contrast between that image and what surrounds us now makes my chest tighten with grief for a world I never knew.
"Follow in my path,” Lurok instructs. "The storm has churned what lies below. The surface may look solid, but it has become a hungry mouth that swallows without warning. I have known naga to disappear without even a ripple to mark their passing."
My throat constricts at the warning, at the realization that we walk through what could become our graves.
For hours now, I’ve focused on Lurok’s movements, placing my feet precisely where his massive tail leaves impressions. The ash feels wrong beneath my shoes. Not like sand or soil, but something finer, almost liquid in the way it shifts and settles, clinging to everything.
"Lighter steps here," Lurok murmurs, guiding me around what appears to be solid ground but must conceal danger. "Skirt that pit." His instructions come in low, measured tones, a litany of survival that becomes my focus in this foreign land.
The heartglass’s light catches on tiny crystalline fragments in the ash of microscopic shards of glass formed when the heat was intense enough to melt the very earth. They glitter like fallen stars, beautiful and deadly.
"Don't touch the ash directly," Lurok warns when I nearly stumble, my hand instinctively reaching out to catch myself. "The glass fragments will slice your skin without you feeling it until it is too late."
I steady myself against him instead, my fingers finding purchase on the cool scales of his arm. He bears my weight effortlessly, his massive form a bulwark against the unstable ground beneath us.
"How much farther to the obsidian gate?" I ask, trying to see beyond our small circle of heartglass light. The darkness beyond seems absolute, as though the world simply ends where our light fails to reach.
"Four miles, perhaps more," he replies, scanning the featureless horizon.
The distance stretches before us like a nightmare. Shifting dunes of treacherous, glass-laden ash hide deadly pits beneath a deceptively smooth surface. Every step could be our last, with nothing but Lurok's guidance and the heartglass's faint glow to see us through. The journey ahead seems impossible.
"We need to increase our pace," Lurok says, his voice tight with urgency. "Time is running out until detonation. Without knowing how many explosives were placed throughout Vessan-Kar, maybe I can assist the Talons searching for them."
The reminder of our time constraint sends a fresh wave of fear coursing through me. How many hours remain before they detonate?
