Jared’s gaze locked on the Serpent King. In that instant, he remembered the blood that burned in his veins, the Golden Dragon bloodline, sovereign of beasts, born to command anything that slithered or crawled.
Without hesitation, he tore a line across his fingertip. Crimson drops struck the stone. A silent detonation of dragon’s power unfurled from him, rippling outward in concentric waves that rattled pebbles and bent cold air to his will.
The smaller snakes recoiled at once, hissing in primal terror, scales rasping as they scrambled over one another. Even the arrogant Serpent King faltered, eyes wide, before it wheeled and vanished into the darkness, its following horde slithering after like a retreating storm.
Relief crashed over Jared and Sylvia. They collapsed hard onto the rock, lungs clawing for breath, every limb trembling with spent adrenaline until even raising a finger felt impossible.
“That was far too close,” Sylvia whispered, voice still quavering. “Without your dragon blood, we’d be bones by now.”
Jared managed a weary nod. “The bloodline earns its keep when it matters. We need shelter, and we need to patch these bites before venom thinks otherwise.”
Footfalls drifted from the tunnel mouth, soft, deliberate, human.
Instantly, their weapons rose again, eyes narrowing toward the sound, every muscle tensing despite the ache.
Out of the gloom shuffled a frail, silver-haired woman, a boy of maybe fifteen hovering at her side.
The old woman, Evelyn Grey, leaned on a knotty cane, each step tentative yet stubborn.
Time had written deep stories across her face. Beside her, the boy, young Hugo, stared at the blood-streaked strangers with a mixture of fear and shining curiosity.
“Who are you, and what madness brings outsiders this deep?” Evelyn’s knuckles tightened around her cane as she spoke.
Jared lowered his blade a fraction. “We’re travelers who lost our path. Could you tell us where we’ve landed?”
Some of the wariness eased from the woman’s eyes. “You stand in the Spirit Wasteland Realm, a corner of existence most have forgotten. How did you pierce its veil?”
“Spirit Wasteland Realm?” Jared and Sylvia echoed, the name tasting utterly alien on their tongues.
They traded a glance, unspoken questions crowding the space between them. Neither had ever heard of such a realm, nor could they imagine how, or why, they had been drawn into it.
Jared drew a slow breath, then spoke, his voice hoarse from exhaustion yet steady with purpose. “Ma’am, I swear we have no idea how we ended up here. We were inside an ancient ruin. I brushed my fingers across an old manuscript, and the next thing I knew, the world went black… When we opened our eyes again, we were lying on the ground in this place, confused, battered, and bleeding.”
Evelyn’s bramble-thin brows furrowed as she rolled the words around in her mind. “An old manuscript? Could it be the one the legends whisper of?”
She caught herself and waved the thought aside. “Never mind that for now. You two look half dead. Come back to Greedfall Hamlet with us. We still keep a few herbs in the storeroom. They’ll stitch those wounds better than panic ever could.”
Jared and Sylvia traded a wary glance. Their ribs ached, their heads swam, and this barren land offered no other mercy. Trust would have to wait; survival could not. They nodded and fell into step behind the old woman and the kid.
The path curled through withered wheat and crooked fences. All the while, Evelyn filled the air with gentle chatter, asking about distant cities, about the color of the sea, about whether the sun still set red in lands beyond her hills.
Jared answered in cautious fragments, watching the road. Sylvia, limping badly, kept one hand on her dagger and her eyes on the boy. Hugo only stared straight ahead, silent as twilight.
At last, the hamlet appeared, a knot of mud-brick cottages clinging to a hillside like barnacles to stone. Smoke drifted from low chimneys. Doors creaked. Faces peeked from every window. As Evelyn shepherded the strangers through the main lane, those faces followed, studying the newcomers the way wolves size up wounded deer.
She led them into a sagging hut that smelled of wet earth and stale straw. There, by the glow of a single tallow candle, Evelyn crushed herbs and pressed poultices over split skin.
The moment her back turned, Jared noticed other villagers outside the doorway, their pupils gleaming with something colder than curiosity, something that looked very much like greed.
