Ashes Embraced

26

They did not climb immediately.

That would have been suicide.

Instead, they went to the lake.

The one below the cliffs.

The one where smoke sometimes rolled across the water when dragons descended to drink.

The trees were thinner here.

The wind sharper.

Elias stood at the shoreline and looked up.

The cliffs rose black against the morning sky.

The nest could not be seen from here.

Only stone.

Only height.

Only inevitability.

"She would have come here," Elias muttered.

The former soldier — Garrick — crouched near the water's edge, studying the mud.

"Dragons drink here," Garrick said quietly. "And bathe."

"And hunt," another man added.

Elias ignored that.

He scanned the treeline.

"If they bring her down..."

"They won't bring her down often," Garrick interrupted. "If she is marked, she stays close to the queen."

The word marked still twisted something in Elias's gut.

"We don't need the queen," Elias said. "We need her."

Garrick rose slowly.

"And if the queen does not separate from her?"

Silence.

They all knew the answer.

Steel would not solve that.

But desperation makes men inventive.

"We trap," Elias said.

A few heads turned.

"Trap?" one of the younger men repeated.

"Dragons bleed," Elias said. "They can be cut."

Garrick studied him.

"With what?" he asked evenly. "Rope?"

"Not rope," Elias replied.

He gestured toward the bundles they had carried.

Heavy nets.

Thick, tar-coated rope woven with iron hooks at the seams.

Old war stock.

Never used.

"We anchor it between the trees," Elias continued. "If she flies low. If she lands."

"She's not a deer," Garrick said.

"No," Elias replied quietly. "She's not."

But she was flesh.

And flesh could be caught.

The men worked in silence.

They stretched the nets between two thick oaks, camouflaging the lines with brush and mud.

Another group dug shallow pits near the treeline.

Not deep enough to kill.

Deep enough to stagger.

Elias knelt and drove a metal spike into the earth with shaking hands.

"She was barefoot," he muttered.

Garrick heard him.

"You keep saying that."

"She had no shoes."

"Maybe they burned."

Elias shook his head.

"She stood there like she didn't need them."

That was what haunted him.

Not fear.

Not injury.

Stillness.

As if the stone belonged to her.

"Listen to me," Garrick said firmly.

Elias looked up.

"If we see her," Garrick continued, "we do not rush. We do not shout. We do not provoke the queen."

"She is my daughter."

"And she is in a dragon's nest," Garrick snapped softly. "You get one mistake."

Elias looked back toward the cliffs.

"I won't leave without her."

"That isn't the same as bringing her home."

The men finished anchoring the last line.

Hooks hidden.
Rope disguised.
Steel ready.

It would not stop the queen.

They all knew that.

But maybe—

Maybe it would slow her.

Maybe it would buy seconds.

Maybe seconds would be enough.

Elias stepped back into the trees.

They melted into cover.

Still.

Waiting.

Above them, the cliffs stood silent.

Wind moved across the lake.

Ripples broke the surface.

And far above—

Unseen.

Something shifted in the stone.