The second day in the Crimson began as the first had: with the hum.
Arthur awoke in his chambers in the small castle, when the first rays of sunlight, breaking through the crimson haze over the hollow, painted the stone walls in shades of dried blood. He lay on a hard bed — a rough mattress stuffed with straw, and a blanket of coarse cloth steeped in the smell of incense — and stared at the ceiling, listening as the sea of creatures below, by the Altar, stirred awake. Demon Eyes droned in the sky. Crimers growled and scraped their claws against stone. The cultists were beginning their morning hymn, and their voices, low and rhythmic, made the walls of the small castle vibrate.
He sat up, ran a palm over his face, and made himself think.
Two days. Two days left. Mens had said the ritual would be ready in three days. One had already passed. If he wanted to survive — or at least understand exactly how he was to be consumed — he needed information. Mens would not tell him more than she already had. The priests? They looked at him like a sacrificial bull. But there were others. Servants. Acolytes. Guards who never took their eyes off him.
He rose and walked to the door. The guard — not an old one, with a nervous face and darting eyes — straightened at his appearance.
"What is your name?" Arthur asked.
The guard hesitated.
"No one has asked me that... Stranger."
"I am asking."
"Kiran," he finally managed.
Arthur nodded and leaned his shoulder against the doorframe.
"Kiran. Have you served the Brain long?"
"Five years."
"And do you believe the ritual will go as intended?"
Kiran glanced quickly about. They were alone in the corridor. Arthur noticed how the guard's fingers tightened around the shaft of his spear.
"The High Priestess says..."
"I'm not asking what the High Priestess says. I'm asking what you think."
Silence. Kiran was clearly unaccustomed to such questions — or to a victim behaving so calmly.
"I think..." He faltered. "I think that if He chose you, then it is His will."
"And if He was wrong?"
Kiran's eyes widened.
"A god cannot be wrong."
"So you believe without doubt."
"Yes."
Arthur nodded almost imperceptibly, as if approving the answer. He already understood that the young acolyte would not be a source of rebellion. But he could be a source of information.
"Tell me about the senior priests," he said. "I saw them yesterday. They are not pleased with me."
Kiran swallowed nervously but spoke nonetheless...
Arthur listened and memorized every word.
---
Veridis heard the rhythm.
It was everywhere. It seeped through the stone walls of the pen, vibrated in the air, hummed beneath the earth. Low, intrusive, alien. It was trying to crawl into her head, to fill her mind and subdue her. Just as it subdued all the creatures of the Crimson — from the tiniest slimes to the great Crimers.
But she was a dragon.
She did not understand what this rhythm was or where it came from. But her body understood: this was an invasion. An attempt to erase her will, to turn her into a part of another's pack. And she resisted. Instinctively, fiercely, with every fiber of her being.
Outside, beyond the bars of the pen, cultists would sometimes appear. They watched her with cold curiosity, made notes on parchment, whispered among themselves. One of them, tall and gaunt, his face disfigured by crimson growths, once reached his hand toward her — and immediately snatched it back when she snapped her teeth an inch from his fingers. She could not stand. She could not fight. But she could show that she was still alive and unbroken.
And all the while, she remembered the scent.
That same one. Smoke, iron, rabbit meat. It was somewhere nearby, above, in the stone structure on the cliff. She could smell it when the wind blew from that direction. She knew: he was alive. And he had not left.
She did not understand why that mattered. But her heart beat more steadily when the scent grew stronger. And she waited.
---
Toward evening, Arthur broke away from his thoughts.
He had drawn from Kiran everything he could: the names of the senior priests, their doubts, fragments of rumors about the coming war. But most importantly, he had heard at the end: "No one dares disturb the dragon. The High Priestess forbade it. She said the beast is part of the ritual."
So Mens had not lied. Veridis was alive, and no harm was being done to her.
Arthur rose from the stone floor where he had been sitting and walked to the door.
"I want to see the dragon."
Kiran flinched.
"The High Priestess said, if you were to ask..."
"I am asking. Take me."
Their path led not down to the Altar, but to the side — to where, at the foot of the cliff on which the small castle stood, lay the pens for captive beasts. It was not even a building, but several roughly built stone cages, covered overhead with wooden beams and ropes soaked in crimson salve. The smell here was even heavier than in the hollow: the sweetish rot of the Crimson mingled with a musky, feral scent, with fear and blood.
Arthur stopped at the nearest cage and froze.
Veridis lay on a bed of straw, curled into a tight ball. Her green scales had dulled, coated with dust and traces of dried blood. Her flank was bandaged with coarse cloth, her wing pressed against her body. She seemed smaller than he remembered — broken, wounded, but not dead.
She was not asleep.
Her emerald eyes were open and staring straight at him. They were not empty or hunted — in them burned the same stubborn, angry, living fire he had seen back in the clearing, when she had thrown herself at the Crimers to protect him.
She recognized him at once. Her nostrils flared, drawing in the familiar scent through the stench of the Crimson. From her throat came a low, vibrating sound — not a growl, not a moan, more like an exhale of relief. She lifted her head with difficulty, but she had not the strength to rise.
Arthur crouched before the bars of the cage. He said nothing. He simply looked at her. Assessing. Calculating. She was alive. She was breathing. She was looking at him, and in her eyes there was neither fear nor reproach — only weary recognition.
Mine. She is still mine.
He reached his hand through the bars — slowly, so as not to startle her. His fingers almost touched her snout.
Veridis did not pull away. She closed her eyes and barely perceptibly pressed her nose against his palm. The only gesture she had the strength for.
"I'll come back," he said quietly. "Wait."
She did not understand the words, but she caught the intonation. The same one — calm, confident, without fear or subservience. And she believed.
When Arthur rose and walked back, she followed him with her gaze until he disappeared around the bend in the path. And then she lowered her head onto her paws once more and waited.
She did not yet know that in two days everything would change. But now she had something more than just a scent. She had a promise.