The Roar Silenced

The cavern reeked of sulfur and something ancient, a primal stench that clawed at the back of my throat. Agnes, a mountain of scaled fury, was cornered. Her roars had shaken the very foundations of the earth, but now they were ragged, punctuated by gasps that spoke of weakening. We were a battered, weary band, but we were still here. Roric was gone, a gaping wound in our fellowship. Keal, the viper, was gone too, his treachery a bitter poison that still lingered. It was just Bowen, Lyra, Addison, and me. Four against a dying dragon. It had been a brutal fight, but together they had weakened the dragon.

Bowen stood to my left, his axe, usually a blur of lethal motion, held steady, its edge glinting in the infernal light reflecting off Agnes’s scales. His face was a mask of grim determination, the grief from Roric’s death still etched in the lines around his eyes, but overlaid with a fierce resolve. Lyra, ever the anchor, was tending to a gash on my arm, her touch gentle but firm. Her normally bright eyes held a steely glint, a quiet strength that had become our bedrock.

And then there was Addison. She was on my right, her bow drawn, an arrow nocked and quivering. Her focus was absolute, her gaze locked onto the dragon’s vulnerable eye, the one we’d managed to nick earlier. Sweat beaded on her brow, tracing paths through the grime on her face, but her stance was unwavering, a picture of controlled power. I felt a familiar ache in my chest, a warmth that had nothing to do with the dragon’s heat. It was her. Always her.