Shit. Shit. Shit.
That's all I can say as we crash into the crumbling remains of a watchtower clinging to the Henigabalt cliffs like a roach to a pisspot. The Dragon nearly missed the ledge entirely, and I don't blame him. One wing's half-torn, his tail's trailing blood, and there are three arrows sticking out of his ass. One of them is humming.
He collapses into a pile of moss and broken stone, panting like an old mule.
I slide off his side, my leg immediately buckling. There's blood. Not gushing, thank the gods, but enough to soak through the strip of tunic I yanked off mid-flight. That was my favorite tunic. Silk. Embroidered. Stolen from a very rude merchant's daughter. And now it's half wrapped around my thigh and half flapping like a pathetic banner of defeat.
"Where's your damn herb pouch?" I snap.
He wheezes. "Third bag. Under the books. Next to the jar labeled 'ambergris' — which you better not touch again."
"That was one time."
"You tried to eat it."
"It looked like candy!"
We're both yelling now. I limp over to the heap of satchels and junk we barely managed to haul in and start digging. Everything reeks of old dragon and wet leather. I find the jar. Smells like perfume and fish guts. Skip. Find a brittle pouch, open it, and a puff of dried green dust hits my face.
"Is this oregano or medicine?"
"If it's oregano, stuff it up your nose and sneeze. If it's medicine, it'll burn when you crush it. Either way, move faster!"
I curse him under my breath, grab what looks vaguely healing-ish, and hobble back. He's trying to twist around and yank an arrow out with his tail. It's not working. He yelps. I wince.
"Oh for fuck's sake, stop flailing. Lie still!"
"I am still! This is dignified suffering!"
"This is you flopping like a stabbed pig."
"You don't know dignity if it bit you on the nipple."
I slap a wad of crushed leaves onto the puncture near his hip. He screams like a banshee.
"GODS, WOMAN! What did you do?!"
"You said if it burns it's the good stuff!"
"That doesn't mean rub it in like a fishwife kneading dough!"
"Do you want to live or not?!"
He snarls. I hiss. We both look like we aged a decade in the past hour.
Silence settles for a moment, broken only by the wind whining through the broken spires and my own ragged breathing.
Then he mutters, "I'm too old for this."
I sit back on my heels, leg throbbing, tunic ruined, face streaked with dirt and blood.
"Yeah," I whisper. "Me too."
He glances sideways at me. His golden eye narrows.
"You're twenty-two."
I raise a finger. "Whore years."
We both laugh, bitter and breathless.
He sighs. "The spear. You're going to have to break it off. Carefully."
I blink. "Like… now?"
"I don't think it's going to remove itself, sweetheart."
I glare at him. "If you faint, I'm stealing your hoard."
"If you make it worse, I'll roll over and crush you."
It's not a threat. It's a promise.
So I climb up his scaly side, straddle the jutting shaft of wood stuck in his back, and mutter to myself, "This is not what I meant when I said I wanted to ride you tonight…"
His groan is long and despairing.
And so, in the ruins of a forgotten tower at the edge of the world, bruised and bleeding and bitching at each other, we do what we always do.
Survive. Together. Somehow.
***
"I'm telling you, if I yank this thing out, you're going to bleed like a pig at solstice," I say, crouching next to the broken-off spear jammed into the meat of his lower back.
"If you don't, I'll get gangrene and die slowly while my scales rot off and mushrooms grow in my spine," he hisses, tail twitching dangerously close to knocking me off the ledge.
"Well, you're being dramatic."
"I am a dragon. It's expected."
We glare at each other. He's trying to stay noble and composed, but there's a twitch in his jaw that says if he could reach it with his mouth, he'd bite the damn spear out himself.
"This could kill you," I murmur. "Like actually. You could just… gush and gush and—"
"Oh shut up and pull it. Or go find someone else with opposable thumbs and a higher tolerance for gore."
I stare at the shaft again. It's thick, iron-tipped, buried half a foot into his hide, blackened at the edge like it might've been dipped in something nasty. Bastards probably meant it to fester.
"Hold still."
"I am literally carved from stone."
"Then stop trembling."
He huffs, eyes closing. I grab the shaft, plant my foot against his ribs for leverage, and brace.
"One."
"Just do it."
"Two…"
"Saya—"
"Three."
I yank.
He roars — not a theatrical grumble, not his usual gouty sigh — roars, and the entire tower shakes.
I fly backwards, land on my ass, and immediately scramble back as blood wells like a spring from the wound.
"Shit shit shit shit—" I rip off my remaining tunic, the last scrap of anything not blood-soaked or ruined, and pour the last of the aquavit from my flask onto it.
"You're wasting the good liquor," he croaks.
"Oh, now you're picky?" I snarl, pressing the soaked cloth hard into the wound. He thrashes once, then stills.
"You didn't have to use the forty-year-old bottle," he mutters weakly.
"You're not dying over a vintage. Shut up."
The aquavit burns. Smells like herbs, honey, and poor decisions. But the bleeding slows. The tunic darkens. I press harder. He groans again, quieter this time. His tail curls slightly, like a child clinging to a blanket.
"How do you even bandage a dragon?" I ask aloud, mostly to myself. "You're basically a barn with scales."
"You wrap me in lies and regret," he mumbles.
I snort, still shaking.
It's a mess. He's a mess. I'm a half-naked, bloodied harlot with nothing left but a half-empty pouch of oregano and one sandal.
But his eyes are still open. He's breathing. And for now, that's enough.
We'll figure out the rest later. We always do.
***
The sun is dying behind the clouds like a drunk choking on smoke.
We've barely spoken for an hour now. Just the sound of the wind, the occasional drip of blood hitting stone, and our breaths—shallow, ragged, almost synchronized.
I sit slumped against his side, the heat of him barely there anymore. His scales are dull. That's the worst sign. His gold always glowed even when he was pretending not to care. Even when he was scolding me for buying glitter for my nipples instead of trail rations. Now… he looks like a coin left in a piss puddle.
His voice is a rasp. Barely a whisper.
"You need to go."
I blink. "What?"
"The witch," he says, eyes half-lidded. "The one with the—" He gestures vaguely at my crotch. "The glowing... fae rot. She fixed it."
"First of all, it wasn't rot, it was spores. Magical spores. Second of all, you said she was a crackpot. With soup breath."
"She's a healer," he breathes. "And we're both infected with something worse than soup breath. I can feel the fever clawing up my spine. You're limping and that cut's turning purple."
I look down. It is. Shit.
"She's down the cliff trail. Then follow the river east until it starts to stink. You'll know the swamp. And her hut. It'll smell like… wet goat and burnt sex."
I laugh, hoarse and bitter. "Why does everything in our life smell like that."
"Because we're cursed. Go."
I don't want to. Leaving him here feels wrong. He's big, he's scary, he breathes fire and sarcasm—but right now he looks like a dying dog trying to be noble.
I push myself up with a grunt. My leg screams. I almost fall over. My whole body feels like chewed wax. But I stagger to the mess of discarded supplies. My fingers are trembling as I dig.
Old sandals—straps frayed, one buckle snapped—stuffed under the pack. A tunic that smells like mildew and moth piss. I yank it over my head anyway.
He watches me silently. I know that look. He's trying not to beg.
So I make it easier for both of us.
"Don't die while I'm gone," I say, tying my hair back. "I swear to all the gods, if you die and I have to drag your corpse into that swamp, I'll reanimate you just to bitch at you one more time."
"Deal," he murmurs. "If I die, I'll haunt your panties."
"Joke's on you. I'm not wearing any."
He actually smiles.
I grab the flask, the last pouch of dried herbs, a knife with a chipped blade, and whatever scraps of dignity I have left. My leg buckles again as I step toward the tower opening.
It's a long way down.
By sundown, I might reach her.
By dawn, I need to bring her back.
Because if I don't… there'll be no one left in the tower but bones, smoke, and a lot of very sarcastic echoes.
***
The path down the cliffside is a sadistic joke carved by some goat-loving mountain god who hates whores and dragons.
Every step jars my leg. Every rock is sharp and angry. My stick—a gnarled thing I snapped from a dead tree—does half the work dragging me forward while I curse every celestial being that ever spat me into this world.
By the time I reach the river, I'm already half-dead. But I keep moving. Limp. Step. Drag. Breathe.
The river trail is kinder. Barely. The mud sucks at my sandals. Mosquitos hum like tiny executioners. Somewhere a frog croaks obscenely, like it's laughing at me. I flip it off and keep walking.
My tunic is plastered to me with sweat and blood. My leg is on fire. My hands are blistered from the stick. My eyes blur. The world sways.
And then… nothing.
Blackness.
Dripping.
Heat.
A smell—pungent herbs, wet moss, swamp rot, and under it all, old onions and old woman.
I crack one eye open and see a crone's face looming over mine. Deep wrinkles, yellowed teeth, eyes like murky pearls with too much knowledge in them.
"You again," she croaks, smug as sin. "Didn't get enough last time, glow-crotch?"
I try to speak. Maybe to curse. Maybe to cry.
Instead I pass out again, face-first into a pile of nettles and feathers.
***
When I come to again, it's with the taste of boiled weeds and frog ass in my mouth.
I gag, sputter, and sit up too fast. Bad idea. My head spins like a drunken tambourine dancer, and something in my leg twinges—sharp but not burning. A good sign?
The hut is the same as I half-remember: crooked beams, ceiling stuffed with herbs and bones, a cauldron bubbling something green, and a chicken giving me the evil eye from a shelf.
The crone's there too. Sitting on a stool, sharpening a rusted hook like it's a perfectly normal morning.
"Well," she says without looking up, "you lived. Bit of a shame, I was eyeing that tunic."
I glance down. My leg is cleaned, bandaged with actual care. There's a sour-smelling poultice on it and a vague throb, but no purple, no streaks. The fever haze is gone.
"You fixed me," I mumble.
She snorts. "You're lucky I remembered that spore rash. Thought I was just curing a fae itch again. Took me a moment to realize this was blood, not glow-juice."
"I…" I swallow. "I need help."
She stops sharpening. Looks at me now. Slowly.
"It's not for me," I add. "My partner. He's hurt. Really bad. Fever. Wounds. Metal still in him, maybe. I—I left him in the tower."
She stares. Her lips curl into something between a smirk and a leer.
"I see," she says. "And what is this 'partner'? Some soldier? Mercenary? A goat with manners?"
I take a breath.
"He's a dragon."
Silence.
A long one.
She doesn't blink.
Then: "A dragon."
I nod.
She scratches her chin. "Big one?"
"Very."
"Color?"
"Gold. Kind of dulled right now."
"Name?"
"Doesn't like to share."
She hums. "Secretive. Moody. Full of riddles?"
"Mostly full of complaints."
She nods like I just said he was left-handed and allergic to shellfish.
"Alright," she says. "That'll cost extra. Dragons are a squirmy lot."
"You're not… surprised?"
She snorts. "Girl, I've midwifed a centaur, exorcised a possessed goat, and lanced boils off a manticore's cock. You think a dragon's going to faze me?"
I blink.
She leans in close, breath like fermented leeks. "Now go eat that stew before I have to carry you again. We'll head out at dusk. I'll need the big satchel, the blood-salve, and something to keep him from flailing. You got rope?"
"I have a sash."
"Good enough. Dragons hate sashes."
She cackles. I eat. And outside, the swamp starts to hum like it knows something's coming.
***
The old crone gives the dragon's side one last slap, this time more of a pat than a punishment. His scales twitch under her palm like he's trying to decide whether to thank her or bite her.
"Right," she says, standing back with a groan. "That's the last o' it. Wounds are dressed, guts are in, fever's broken. Now we wait. If no maggots show up by next full moon, he'll live."
"Maggots?" I say.
"Standard prognosis, love," she chirps, tossing bloody rags into the fire. "If the wounds stay clean, we'll call it a win. If they start squirming…" She shrugs. "You'll need a shovel."
The dragon doesn't respond. He's half-asleep already, tail curled like an old cat, snoring softly through his nose. I can't believe I was ready to drag him into the swamp two days ago. Now he looks like he belongs to the hut.
"Oh, and that hip," the crone adds, cracking her knuckles. "Gonna need some physio."
"He doesn't do physio," I mumble. "He barely does movement."
"Well he better learn," she says. "Or he'll be flyin' in circles for the rest of his miserable centuries."
I snort. He grunts. Peace.
And then she turns to me.
I don't like that look. That sly, squinty look. Like she's about to name your future or your worst sex mistake.
Her eyes narrow. Her head tilts.
"You," she says slowly. "You, lass… you're carryin' a Taurean bastard."
My blood turns to ice.
"What?!"
She just nods solemnly. "Yup. I can smell it. Bull seed."
My jaw drops. My legs go cold. I almost collapse.
"Are you—what—no! No, that's not— I haven't seen Bollo in—"
Then she grins. Full teeth. Wicked.
"I'm just pullin' yer leg, love. You shoulda seen yer face."
I nearly fall over. "You evil swamp bitch."
"Language," she says, smirking as she pokes at the fire. "Don't worry. No calf cookin' inside ya. Least not this week."
I don't know whether to laugh or throttle her.
The dragon makes a half-asleep noise. Something like a chuckle and a cough.
The crone stretches, her joints popping like firecrackers. "Right then. Now for the payment."
I freeze again.
"We're a little… light on coin," I say, trying to sound apologetic and not desperate.
"Oh, I know that, sweetheart," she says with a grin. "You both smell like debt and bad decisions."
She walks over, leans on her cane, and looks between the two of us.
"So here's how it's gonna be. You two owe me. Big time. And since yer broke as shattered vows, I'll be needin' somethin' else."
I swallow. "Like what?"
She grins wider.
"Oh, we'll think of something."
Gods save us. This isn't over.