Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 39 of 46

Violet reached the wild dragon's valley at dusk. The false chase had cost her days, and the memory still worried her. She had shown Kael's men a dragon in open sky. Now the lord knew for certain another one lived, and he had sent new riders. Theo's last warning stayed sharp in her mind. These searchers moved with purpose. If they traced the smoke and scraps of her old trail back westward, the marks would lead them here. She walked the valley rim and looked at her false trail on the map. It curved east, then broke at the gorge. But a careful tracker would notice the scorched ridge pointed back toward the pale wolf's home. One clear line could undo everything. She had to erase it before the riders read it. Violet climbed onto the pink dragon and flew east through the night. She landed at the scorched ridge where she had burned smoke days before. The black streak still marked the stone. She dug crimson-fronded ferns from the valley slope, plants layered like dragon scales, and packed their wet roots over the burn. The red fronds hid the char. Then she scattered fresh meat scraps far to the north, past the gorge, laying a new line that pointed away from the valley for good. The pink dragon shifted under her, restless, its bright eyes fixed east. Violet followed its gaze. Torches. A search party crossed the low pass, closer than Theo had guessed. They rode straight for the old trail. If they reached the scorched ridge now, they would still smell the burn beneath the ferns. She had one chance. Violet drove the pink dragon low over the riders, close enough for them to see its shimmering scales flash in the torchlight. Shouts rose. She turned the dragon hard north, over the fresh scraps, toward the empty range past the gorge. The riders wheeled and followed. Every hoofbeat pulled them away from the covered ridge and the valley behind it. She led them until dawn, then banked behind a stone spire and climbed into cloud. When she looked back, the torches had scattered north, chasing scent that ended at bare rock. The scorched ridge lay quiet under its red ferns. No line pointed home anymore. Violet flew back to the hidden valley and landed by the still pond. The wild dragon guarded its crystal hoard in the grass. The pale wolf watched from the rim. She had broken the trail. The riders now believed the dragon fled north, and the path to this place was gone. But she had spent her last diversion. She had no more false trails to lay, no more ridges to scorch. And she had let the riders see the pink dragon twice now. Kael would not send a search line next time. He would send someone who could bond a dragon of his own, and hunt her the way she hunted them.