Odran ducked into the tent just as I was contemplating whether drinking perfume counted as breakfast.
He flopped onto the nearest pillow with the air of someone who had survived something emotionally scarring, like an opera or a family reunion.
"So," he said, rubbing his temples, "that was awkward."
I looked up slowly. "And?"
He exhaled through his nose like a man who had stepped in something wet and furry. "Your dragon is still mad at me."
I blinked. "About what?"
"You know. That time I robbed you both blind and vanished into the night with the loot, the medallion, the enchanted dagger, and—gods forgive me—your sandals."
I dropped my head into my hands. "Oh for—Odran."
He raised both hands. "I left a note! A charming one. Signed it and everything."
Odran nodded with an expression that said yes, but also I'd like praise for not dying.
"He says he can't go on a rescue mission right now," Odran added, voice flat. "Claims he's got a migraine. And also… house cleaning."
I lifted my head, slowly.
"House cleaning."
"Yup. Hoard reorganization. Apparently, there's a whole side-pile of cursed goblets he's been meaning to sort."
"And you believed him?"
"Absolutely not. But he said it while fluffing a velvet cushion, so I didn't press."
I groaned. Loudly. Rolled onto my side and punched the pillow. It poofed like a cloud of disappointment.
"Did you at least mention Velgarth's army? Y'know, the reason I sent you in the first place?"
Odran scratched the back of his neck. "I might have mentioned it."
I narrowed my eyes. "Might have?"
"I said there were… people. I avoided numbers. Details. Military formations."
I buried my face in the pillow and screamed. Muffled and primal.
"Fucking cowardly lizard," I hissed into the linen. "Of course he's hiding. Big, scaly bag of antique nerves. He'll show up to burn a haystack, but gods forbid there be actual swords involved."
Odran shrugged. "He did look mildly unwell when I used the word 'host.' Like he swallowed a sharp coin."
"Of course he did," I said, sitting up with hair like a thundercloud. "The dragon who once challenged a storm elemental won't fly within five miles of an organized army. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
I hurled a pillow across the tent. It hit the side with a dull plap and fell like everything else in my life.
"So we're on our own?" I asked.
Odran nodded. "Pretty much. But hey—I brought you a boiled egg."
He held it out like it was a peace offering from a doomed civilization.
I took it. Bit down. Hard.
"You tell him," I said with my mouth full, "if I die here, I will haunt his dreams. Naked. Covered in Velgarth's blood. Screaming obscenities in dockside Seebulban."
Odran gave a mock salute. "I'll add echo effects. Really drive the message home."
***
The sun was already punishing by the time we set off. High and hot, like a grudge. Even the pines lining the narrow trail gave only half-hearted shade, more like teasing fingers than mercy.
Sir Odran rode beside me, his back straighter than his morals. His armor gleamed. His boots shone. His face, however, betrayed him. Tight jaw, twitchy eyes, sweating through the bravado. I could tell he was dying inside. Nothing like being part of a delusional death march to bring out a knight's quiet existential crisis.
Up front, Velgarth rode like he thought this was a procession for a conquering emperor—not a peasant mob shambling toward suicide. His black charger looked like it had eaten smaller horses for breakfast. Cloak flapping, helmet polished, posture smug enough to make statues weep.
Beside him, the captain of the hoplites clung to a mule that looked one insult away from throwing him into a ravine. The mule, frankly, was the smartest creature in this whole damn parade.
Behind them, the mercenaries. Gods. What a crew.
They were singing some bawdy tune about a brewer's daughter and a half-cured sausage. Missing teeth, dented helmets, more hangovers than loyalty. I could smell the ale sweats from my saddle. They were loud, loose, and laughing like this was all still a joke.
Maybe it was.
They gave me a good horse at least. A grey mare with alert ears and better manners than anyone else here. Probably figured I'd need something decent to die on.
I was side-saddle, of course—because heaven forbid a prophetess rides like a real person. Draped in silk layers, embroidered sashes, and a stupid lacy veil that made me look like a mobile pastry. Every time I breathed, it tickled my nose. I was going to sneeze straight into destiny.
I tried counting the troops.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
Scarcely seven dozen.
Shit.
Double shit.
We wouldn't make it past the first fortified checkpoint, let alone storm a city. Velgarth was hallucinating an empire with fewer than a hundred men, a third of them probably drunk or hungover. This wasn't a warband. This was a funeral procession with extra steps.
I kept my face turned skyward, as if searching for divine inspiration. Truthfully, I was looking for wings. For a flash of fire or scaled silhouette. For any sign that the old bastard up in his cave had finally dragged his cowardly tail off his hoard.
He knew now.
He knew.
I was in it deep—dragged into prophecy, paraded like a relic, shackled to a war I never believed in.
Maybe...
Maybe he gathers the courage—
And then the road was blocked.
It started, as most countryside uprisings do, with sheep. Fat, self-important wool bricks standing across the path like they owned the valley. One of them—a billy goat with a torn ear and bad attitude—was headbutting a tree with what I could only describe as revolutionary fervor.
Behind the livestock: bodies.
The front row looked serious. Burly men from hill villages, the kind whose forearms spoke louder than their words. A few teenage lads barely old enough to shave, clutching hoes and pitchforks like they were ancestral blades. A knot of horsy women with wild eyes and sensible boots. One had a saddle over her shoulder like she intended to beat someone with it.
And there, of course, was Bera's heartthrob. Gods help us. Shirt open to the third button, curls bouncing, a smug glint like he'd just invented revolution between bouts of poetry and failed carpentry.
Behind them, it only got worse. A shuffling wall of aproned grandmothers, small children with slingstones, girls with kitchen knives, and one wizened crone waving a soup ladle like a divine instrument of wrath. And banners—gods, the banners—bedsheets hastily dyed and bearing what I assume were meant to be dragons, but most looked like angry worms with wings. One of them had suspiciously testicular shading.
Velgarth's column stumbled to a stop. Horses huffed. Boots shuffled. Mercenaries muttered.
And then, from the front line:
"Lord Vulgarity, you are a scoundrel!"
Gasps. Murmurs. A nervous giggle.
Velgarth turned in his saddle, puffing up.
"We are the Peasant Liberation Revolutionary Army!" someone shouted with far too much pride.
"Release the prophetess and give us our taxes back!" another voice rang out.
"No taxation without representation!" screamed a lad with braces on his legs and a wooden sword held high like it was Excalibur.
Then the rocks started flying.
The first one hit a hoplite's shield with a thunk. The second nailed a mercenary in the thigh. A cabbage soared through the air and splattered against a helmet. Someone hurled a turnip that struck Velgarth square in the chest with a wet thwack.
Behind us—because of course—more shouting.
I twisted in the saddle. The rear guard had stopped. Another crowd. Another mess of linen banners and pitchforks and indignant villagers. A second goat bleated and headbutted a mercenary's horse.
We were boxed in.
Velgarth rose in his stirrups to say something rousing, but got interrupted by a tomato to the face.
Someone in the crowd cheered. Someone else started chanting. The horsy women advanced a step, like they smelled weakness.
I adjusted my veil, tried not to sweat through my robes, and muttered through clenched teeth:
"Fucking dragon. This better be your plan."
And then it was a battle.
Not the proper kind, no. No gleaming standards or trumpet blasts or flanking maneuvers. Just screaming. Screaming, flailing, goat-braying chaos erupting in a sunlit pine corridor.
Velgarth's "host"—gods save us—turned out to be seven dozen mercenaries, some hungover hoplites, a few misguided orcs, and one warlord with a theatrical streak and a destiny kink.
The valley? It had sent everyone.
Hundreds. Maybe a thousand. From every farmstead, every forgotten hamlet, every roadside tavern. All bearing something sharp, heavy, or on fire. Frying pans. Axes. A sack full of cutlery. One woman had a rake in each hand and screamed like she was possessed by an agricultural demon.
They came pouring from the trees like angry foliage. It wasn't even a fight—it was a stampede.
The first to fall were the orcs. Predictably.
They charged like this was the climax of some bard's drunken saga. One took down three villagers before a pitchfork caught him in the thigh and the rest of the mob swarmed like ants on sugar.
Sir Odran, ever the reluctant knight, tried to hold the line. He smacked one village lad across the face with the flat of his sword and booted another in the chest when they lunged for his horse's reins.
Then the miller's wife came at him.
She was a mountain of a woman, all forearms and fury, swinging a club that looked suspiciously like a rolling pin wrapped in barbed wire and spite.
Odran took one look, yelped something that may have been a prayer, and spurred his horse.
"See you around, Saya!" he shouted, then vanished into the pines like a man with excellent instincts.
I didn't blame him.
But then someone screamed behind me—something shrill and porcine—and my mare, bless her snobby thoroughbred bloodline, decided she had lived long enough among mortals.
She reared, bucked, and I went flying.
Side-saddle, silk, and pride all parted ways with the earth. I landed hard, rolled once, smacked into a shrub, and ended up sprawled in a tangle of legs and curses. The bush smelled like goat piss and broken dreams.
No one noticed.
Good.
I pulled myself up, tore off the remains of my veil, and ran. Uphill. Anywhere. Didn't matter. Just away from the battle, the banners, the cabbage-fueled revolution.
My heart was a hammer in my ribs. Branches clawed at me. My knee was bleeding. One sandal gone. Hair wild. Dignity even wilder.
But I was alive. And free. And nobody was shouting prophetess in my direction.
Until they were.
"Wait up, prophetess! Wait up!"
Gods damn it.
I kept climbing, but slowed. And then he was there.
Lord Velgarth. Tattered. Bruised. Bloody. One eye swelling. Half his cape missing. Shirt torn open like a tragic romance hero, only less attractive and more pathetic. He looked like he'd been mugged by irony.
"They ambushed us," he gasped, clutching his side. "Cowards. Rabble. But I see it now."
I didn't say a word. Just stared at him through the one eye not full of sweat and pine bark.
"This… this is the crucible. The trial. The gods test me—not to destroy me, no—but to temper me. They tear down what is weak. And leave only… the hero."
He raised a trembling, grimy hand toward the sun.
"And you…" he said, voice full of awe, "you didn't abandon me. You were there at the beginning. And now, you climb with me. Still by my side. My prophetess."
I rolled my eyes. So hard I saw last week.
And then—whoosh.
The air bucked. Trees bent. The smell of scorched pine needles hit like a slap. And with all the smug flourish of a god descending from a thundercloud, the dragon landed.
Wings wide. Talons clutching earth. Smoke curling from his nostrils like he'd just blown up someone's expectations. His scales shimmered with self-satisfaction. His eyes sparkled like two coins freshly stolen from a dying king.
I didn't even blink. I pointed a finger right at his oversized snout.
"So now you have courage?" I shouted. "Now you show up? I could've been butchered in Lerida, bled out in a ditch, humiliated before half the kingdom—and my alleged partner was curled up in a cave polishing his gold!"
He tilted his head, smug enough to crack a continent.
"Prey tell," he rumbled, "where do you think the villagers got the courage to stage a revolution?"
I froze. "What."
"You're welcome," he said, absolutely insufferable.
My mouth hung open.
"I gave them a nudge," he said. "Middle of the night. I scorched a few haystacks. A peach orchard. Maybe a scarecrow or two. Then I descended on the valley in full performance mode. Smoke, thunder, the voice of doom. The works."
"You… what?"
"I called them cowards. Told them they were the blight of the world. That I had come to burn them all unless they learned to fight. Gave them a little apocalyptic kick in the rear."
I blinked.
He grinned wider. "Told them I was an ancient prophecy. That the gods had sent them a holy seeress—you—and if they didn't rise up and reclaim their prophetess, I would reduce them to compost."
I stared at him.
"You're welcome. Again."
The dragon hadn't even finished preening when Velgarth burst out of the trees, bruised and battered, his shirt in tatters, but beaming like a zealot who just saw his god moonwalk across a lake.
"You… you did summon him!" he shouted, eyes wild. "Yes! Of course! A divine sign! You are my prophetess!"
He spun in a giddy circle, nearly tripping over a root. "With you two—a dragon and a seeress—I can take Lerida alone! No need for mercenaries. No need for orcs. Just us! The triumphant trio!"
He was practically frothing.
I didn't even look at him. "What now?" I asked the dragon.
He shrugged his massive wings like it was obvious. "We bolt. The jig is proverbially up."
"And the loot?"
"Moved it yesterday. Three valleys over. Safely buried under a ruined shrine, beneath a suspiciously lazy donkey."
I raised an eyebrow. "You sure it won't wander off?"
"It's tied to a rock."
I sighed. "Fine."
I stepped toward him. He crouched low, letting one wing dip just enough for me to climb.
Then I glanced back at Velgarth, who was currently drawing battle formations in the dirt with a stick and whispering grandiose nonsense to himself.
"What about him?"
The dragon tilted his head. "We leave him?"
"Hmm…"
I tapped my lip, thinking.
"He does have noble blood," I said slowly. "Technically. We could kidnap him. Hold him for ransom. Maybe shake out some jewelry from his cousins."
The dragon gave a thoughtful hum. "Sounds profitable. Also annoying."
"Like most things worth doing," I muttered, and prepared to mount.
The dragon crouched. I swung myself up with all the grace of someone who had absolutely stopped caring about grace. My thigh caught on a spine. I hissed. He grunted.
"Hold on," he muttered.
"I am," I snapped. "And if you do that stomach-plummeting spiral thing again, I will throw up down your neck."
Wings stretched. Muscles coiled.
And we were airborne.
The trees dropped away. Wind roared. My hair became a snarl of twigs and regrets.
"MY PROPHETESS!"
Oh, for the love of—
Velgarth.
He'd somehow leapt and latched onto the dragon's tail like a deluded squirrel.
"Take me with you!" he screamed. "We are destined! You and I!"
The dragon twisted his head slightly, entirely unamused.
With one elegant flick of his tail—thwack—Velgarth became airborne again, this time in the opposite direction. He somersaulted like a flailing turnip and vanished into the treetops.
A distant crash. Maybe a scream. Or a squeak.
"He is annoying," the dragon noted, completely deadpan.
"You could've killed him," I yelled over the wind.
"I aimed for something soft."
"That was a pine tree!"
"Better than a cliff."
I groaned. "We're going to have to deal with him again, aren't we?"
"Most definitely."
We caught an updraft, banking left.
"At least he didn't scream about destiny on the way down."
"Oh, he did," said the dragon. "Just ran out of air halfway through 'divine ascension.'"