They traveled through the night.

  Zemmal set the pace, slow and deliberate, his wounded leg dragging with each step. The mountains rose around them, dark shapes against a darker sky. Stars wheeled overhead, indifferent to the struggle below.

  Lavender walked in silence, saving her breath for the climb. Brute ranged ahead, a dark shape against the snow, occasionally circling back to check on them.

  She didn't understand how the dog knew where to go. But he did. Every turn, every path through the rocks, he navigated with the confidence of someone who'd walked this route before.

  Your beast knows the way.

  Zemmal's voice in her head made her flinch. The telepathy still unsettled her, the intimacy of having another mind touch hers.

  "What was the agreement? Besides, he's never been this far from the Barrens."

  Hasn't he? The dragon's tone carried dry amusement. You assume much about what he is and what he has done.

  Lavender looked at Brute, trotting through the snow ahead of them. He glanced back, amber eyes catching starlight.

  "He's a dog."

  Zemmal made a sound that might have been a laugh. The effort cost him. He stopped, sides heaving, and lowered his wounded hindquarter to the ground.

  We rest here.

  Lavender didn't argue. The landscape had opened into a shallow bowl between ridges, sheltered from the wind. A few stunted trees clung to the rocks, their branches laden with ice. Poor cover, but better than nothing.

  "Is it safe to build a fire?"

  Fire would be a risk. Light could be seen for miles in these mountains. But Zemmal was shivering, and the cold pressed down with crushing weight.

  The Authority should not find us tonight. They are still organizing their response. By dawn, perhaps. Zemmal's eyes had half-closed. Build your fire, little flame. The cold is our greater enemy now.

  She gathered what dry branches she could find, scraping away snow to reach the protected wood beneath.

  Lavender struck sparks from her flint and steel. The tinder caught, tiny flames licking at the dried moss. She fed them carefully, adding twigs, then branches, until a proper fire crackled in the shallow pit she'd scraped from the frozen ground.

  Warmth spread through the bowl. Zemmal shifted closer, scales gleaming in the firelight. The oily darkness in his wound pulsed, visible even from across the camp. It seemed to shrink back from the flames.

  "So…all fire hurts it?"

  Yes. Zemmal's voice carried satisfaction. *Fire and darkness have always been enemies. Your flame is small, but it gives the corruption something to fight other than my flesh.*

  Lavender sat back on her heels, studying the wound. The edges had stopped spreading, held in check by the fire's presence. A small victory.

  Brute appeared at her side, settling onto the ground beside her. His warmth pressed against her leg, familiar and comforting.

  "How do you know where to go?" she asked him, the way she'd asked questions a hundred times before. Speaking to a dog, expecting no answer, just the comfort of voice in the silence.

  "I have walked these paths before."

  Lavender went rigid.

  The voice had come from Brute. From the dog beside her. Deep, warm, unmistakably his.

  She turned her head slowly. Brute watched her with eyes that held depths she'd never let herself see. His tail wagged once, slow and deliberate.

  "I apologize for the deception, Lav. It was necessary. You were not ready."

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  The world tilted.

  Lavender scrambled backward, feet sliding in the snow. Her back hit a boulder. She couldn't look away from the dog who had been her companion for three years, who had slept beside her fire, who had hunted with her and mourned with her and never, never spoken a word.

  "What..."

  "I am what I have always been." Brute didn't move. He sat in the firelight, patient as stone. "Your protector. Your guide. Sent to watch over you until the time was right."

  No mere dog, this one. Zemmal's voice held no surprise. I wondered when you would reveal yourself.

  "The dragon saw through me from the first moment." Brute's gaze shifted to Zemmal. "But you understood the necessity of waiting."

  I understand many things. Zemmal's eyes glittered. Including the nature of those who serve the ancient ones.

  Lavender's breath came in sharp gasps. Her hands had found her knife without conscious thought. The blade trembled in her grip.

  "Three years." The words tore out of her. "Three years you've been with me. And you never said anything. You let me talk to you like a dog. You let me cry on you and complain to you and tell you everything, and you were..." She trailed off. Swallowed. "You were listening the whole time?"

  "Yes."

  Lavender's pulse stopped. Then started again, too fast, hammering in her throat until she couldn't breathe. Sound distorted, muffling the crackle of fire and the wind in the trees. Her vision narrowed to Brute's amber eyes, watching her with that same patient calm he'd always had. That false calm. That lie.

  Every conversation. Every secret. Every tear she'd cried into his fur while the nightmares faded and the loneliness pressed down. He'd heard. He'd understood. He'd said nothing.

  The simple admission cracked something in her chest. Anger flooded through her, hot and bright, and the fire beside her flared. Flames shot up, sparks scattering into the night. She didn't try to control it.

  "How dare you! How dare you pretend to be something you're not. How dare you make me trust you while you were lying every single day."

  "I was protecting you." Brute's voice remained calm. "The fire in you is dangerous, Lav. It needed to grow slowly, naturally, without the burden of knowledge. If you had known the truth too soon, you would have feared me. You would have run. And the magic would have consumed you."

  "That was my choice to make."

  "No." For the first time, an edge crept into Brute's voice. "It was not. You were a child when I came to you. Broken by grief. Terrified of what you carried. You needed comfort, not revelation. You needed time to grow strong enough to bear the truth."

  "And now!? Am I strong enough now?"

  "You walked into dragon territory alone. You bargained with an ancient creature for your survival. You stand in the presence of truth and demand answers instead of cowering." Brute's tail swept once across the snow. "Yes, Lav. You are strong enough now."

  The fire subsided. Lavender's anger didn't, but she forced it down, packed it away where it could smolder without burning.

  "What are you?"

  "A servant. A guardian. A piece of something greater than myself." Brute rose and padded toward her, stopping just out of reach. "I was sent to watch over you. To protect you until you were ready to walk the path your magic has chosen."

  "Sent by who?"

  Brute's eyes flicked to Zemmal. The dragon's head had risen, golden gaze fixed on the dog with an intensity that bordered on reverence.

  You know who sent him, little flame. Zemmal's voice was soft. You have known since I spoke of my mother.

  Lavender's heart hammered.

  "His mother sent you?"

  "She watches many things." Brute's voice gentled. "She saw your fire kindle before you were born. She saw the path it would carve through this world. And she asked me to guard you until you could walk that path yourself."

  "Why? What does she want from me?"

  "That is not for me to say. Only she can answer that question."

  Lavender stood with her knife in her hand and her world crumbling around her. Everything she'd believed about Brute, about her life, about the quiet years of survival in the Barrens, had been a lie. A carefully constructed performance designed to prepare her for this moment.

  And yet.

  He had been there. Through everything. Her father's death, the terror of her magic, the long lonely nights when she'd had no one else to turn to. He had brought her food and warmth and the simple comfort of not being alone.

  That couldn't all be manipulation.

  "Why do you call me that?" she asked. "Lav. Who said you could?"

  Brute's tail wagged. "Because close is what I felt we are. It is my affection and familiarity for you. Do you not agree?"

  She should hate him. She should rage and scream and never trust him again. But she was too tired, and the anger was already fading, replaced by something closer to exhaustion.

  "Yes." It came out breathless and reluctant.

  "I don't forgive you," she said. "Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I'm not going to send you away."

  "I would not go if you tried." Brute's eyes held warmth. "I am bound to you, Lav. By ancient oath and genuine love. Wherever you walk, I walk beside you."

  Lavender sheathed her knife. Her hands had stopped shaking.

  "Then let's walk."

  At first light. Zemmal's voice cut through the tension. The Authority will be moving by then. We need the night to rest and plan. His gaze moved between Lavender and Brute. And perhaps to discuss what other secrets remain hidden.

  Brute settled beside the fire, his familiar bulk a strange comfort despite everything. Lavender sat across from him, the flames between them.

  Three years of lies. Three years of hidden truths.

  And still, she couldn't imagine facing the dark without him.