Midday. Jungle heat thick enough to chew. The cursed temple loomed behind us like a sleeping jaw. We hadn't moved far. Just to the edge of the clearing where the air pretended to be breathable and the moss didn't whisper.
I sat cross-legged on a warm rock, still wrapped in a threadbare cloak that used to be my dress. My hands shook as I inspected my left forearm.
There.
A patch of skin that gleamed ever so faintly.
Not wet. Not scarred. Just… wrong. The kind of wrong you feel in your spine before your eyes can figure it out.
Was it a rune?
There'd been one in the dream. Sharp, curving, full of meanings I didn't want translated. It had pulsed like a second heartbeat.
I rubbed at the mark. Nothing came off.
Then I hiked my leg up and checked my inner thigh. Because of course that's where it would be, right? Hidden. Intimate. Branded.
Gods.
Same faint shimmer.
I hissed through my teeth. "Dragon."
He was nearby, rearranging his hoard of half-burnt mushrooms and one suspiciously singed golden spoon.
"What," he said without turning.
"What happened to me?"
He didn't answer.
"Was the Hag really here?"
Still nothing.
I stood. Marched over. "Look at me."
He sighed and turned, slow and heavy. "Yes?"
"Don't 'yes' me. Did she come?"
He tilted his head. "You were babbling. Fevered. You smelled like swamp and moss and old wine. Could've been her. Could've been your brain baking in cosmic leftovers."
"Tell me. Was it real? Or not? Was this just a bad oyster stew incident or a spiritual fucking spiral?"
He met my eyes now. Calm. Flat. Too calm.
"Saya," he said, "there are thresholds the mind crosses. Sometimes you come back with gifts. Sometimes… things hitch a ride."
I stared at him.
Then snapped.
"Oh you smug, cryptic, overgrown salamander! That is not an answer!"
"I gave you truth!"
"You gave me fog! Was it real? Was it a curse? A dream? Indigestion? Do I need an exorcism or a shit?!"
His nostrils flared. "I don't know!"
That stopped me.
Just a moment.
He growled low, frustration and guilt tangled in it. "I don't know, Saya. And that terrifies me."
I didn't speak. Just stood there. Bare feet in the grass. The mark on my arm tingling.
I hated not knowing.
Hated feeling like the dream had left a hook in me.
"I'm not going back in there," I muttered.
"No," he said. "You're not."
The trees rustled. The wind didn't.
And somewhere, very far away, I thought I heard the sound of giggling.
I stared at my arm again. Still glimmering. Not visibly. Not really. Just enough to feel like it was waiting to become visible the moment I blinked.
"…and the hedge wizard?" I asked quietly.
The Dragon exhaled like I'd just farted into a sermon. "Oh for gods' sake, Saya—"
"No, really," I cut in. "Was he there? Did he help? Did I hallucinate the bit where he argued with someone named Maud and called me too far gone?"
The Dragon snapped his head toward me. "Why does it matter?"
"Because I need to know what was real!" I shouted.
That did it.
He flared—wings twitching, tail lashing once in the grass. "No, Saya. You don't need to know."
I opened my mouth to argue. He didn't let me.
"You don't want to know. You couldn't handle it."
He was pacing now, voice rising. "You think this is one of your silly temple curse stories? Some naughty brand you can flaunt and then rub off with salt water and a hot bath?"
He stopped, glared at me.
"You bathed in something that remembers the before. You were touched by something that doesn't see time. You ate it. You let it in. And now you're asking me to unravel it all like it's a ballad with a punchline?!"
I didn't answer.
He jabbed a claw toward me. "Maybe the wizard was there. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe the Swamp Hag loaned you his soul for a minute and now he's walking around in a dream jar in her pantry. I don't know. And neither do you."
Silence.
Birdsong chirped, oblivious.
I nodded once.
"Oh."
Then: "Fine."
My fingers traced the shimmer on my forearm, then slid down to the faint glint on my thigh.
"Fine," I said again. "My skin. My body. My soul."
I looked up at him.
"But who am I to argue?"
My voice was flat. Quiet.
"Not the first time I didn't get a say in what happened to them."
The Dragon didn't speak.
And for once, that silence wasn't comforting.