Smoke lingered long after the fighting moved away.
It clung low to the ground, thick with the smell of scorched blood and burned stone. What remained of the road was a mess of broken wagons, torn banners, and bodies laid out in uneven rows where medics could reach them.
Nino stood where he had been left.
No one had told him to move.
Vyrn sat beside him, wings folded tight, tail curled around its own feet. The dragon's eyes tracked every passing figure with quiet alertness, not the dull exhaustion Nino expected after the march and the shockwave of the battle.
That bothered him.
"Rear units, report in!"
A logistics officer moved down the line, slate in hand, boots crunching over debris. Names were called. Voices answered—some steady, some shaking.
When the officer reached Nino, he paused.
"Verhain?"
"Yes."
The officer frowned and flipped the slate around, scanning it again. "That can't be right."
Nino waited.
"You were marked KIA," the man said slowly. "Rear line—incineration zone."
A cold thread slid down Nino's spine. "I wasn't there yet."
The officer looked up sharply. "You weren't?"
"No."
Silence stretched.
Behind them, a corpse was lifted onto a stretcher, armor warped black from heat. Nino recognized the unit markings—rear support.
The officer swallowed. "Then who—"
He shook his head and scribbled something onto the slate. "Doesn't matter. You're alive. That's what matters."
It didn't sound convincing.
They moved on.
A medic flagged Nino down not long after, eyeing him with professional suspicion. "You. Rider. Over here."
"I'm not injured," Nino said.
"Everyone says that." The medic jerked his chin toward a tent pitched hastily near the road. "Sit."
Inside, the air smelled of antiseptic herbs and blood. Wounded groaned on cots, some unconscious, some staring at nothing. Nino took a seat near the flap, Vyrn curling protectively at his feet.
The medic checked his pulse, his eyes, his hands. Frowned. Checked again.
"No burns. No fractures."
"I said," Nino replied.
The medic grunted. "You should be dead."
That made two of them.
Outside, voices rose and fell as reports were gathered. Names repeated. Corrections made. Confusion layered over exhaustion.
Nino overheard a captain speaking sharply to a clerk. "That's the third discrepancy. Fix it."
The clerk hesitated. "Sir Verhain's name appears in two after-action reports. One lists him deceased. The other lists him as a survivor attached to failed unit logistics."
The captain cursed under his breath.
Nino's fingers tightened against his knee.
This is bad, he thought. Extras are supposed to disappear cleanly.
The medic finished, stepping back. "Get out of my tent. And stay where I can see you."
Nino stood.
As he did, Vyrn rose with him—smooth, silent, perfectly in sync.
The medic blinked. "Huh."
They stepped back into the open air.
The battlefield had changed. The immediate danger was gone, but something else had taken its place—eyes that lingered a moment too long, conversations that cut off when Nino drew near.
Surviving had made him noticeable.
And that, Nino knew, was almost as dangerous as dying.
The healer's enclosure was quieter than the rest of the encampment.
Canvas walls dulled the noise of the aftermath, turning distant shouts into a low, constant hum. Inside, the air was heavy with resin smoke and cooling salves meant for scales rather than skin.
"Bring it here," the healer said, already rolling up his sleeves.
He was old, older than most riders Nino had seen—his armor long since replaced by layered robes reinforced with bone charms and faded runes. His eyes, however, were sharp, and they lingered on Vyrn with open curiosity rather than judgment.
Nino guided the dragon forward.
"Easy," he murmured.
Vyrn complied without hesitation, lowering its head and settling onto its haunches in the center of the enclosure. It folded its wings carefully, angling the injured one outward as if presenting it.
The healer paused.
"Did you train it to do that?"
"No," Nino said.
The healer grunted and knelt, fingers hovering just above the damaged membrane. A soft glow formed around his hands, pale green and steady.
"Old injuries," he muttered. "Healed wrong. These would cripple most fledglings."
The glow intensified briefly, then faded.
"Hm."
Nino waited.
The healer leaned back, frowning. "There's no tearing. No fresh strain. After today, there should be."
He reached into a pouch and pulled out a thin metal rod etched with markings. "Stand back."
He tapped it once against Vyrn's shoulder.
The dragon flinched—but did not move away.
"Good tolerance," the healer said absently. He tapped again, this time along the rib line. Then the leg. Each time, Vyrn adjusted its stance minutely, redistributing weight with careful precision.
Too careful.
The healer straightened slowly. "Your dragon compensates."
Nino nodded. "It doesn't have much choice."
"That's not what I mean." The healer's gaze sharpened. "Most weak dragons overcompensate. They panic. Burn stamina. This one economizes."
He gestured sharply. "Walk it."
Nino did.
Vyrn moved forward in a smooth, even gait, injured leg barely noticeable now. The healer circled, watching from multiple angles.
"Again," he said. "But faster."
Nino hesitated. "It's exhausted."
"Humor me."
Nino clicked his tongue once and stepped back.
Vyrn quickened its pace.
The change was immediate—and unsettling.
The dragon shortened its stride, adjusted wing balance without spreading them, shifted its center of gravity forward in a way that mirrored the movement of a much larger class. It wasn't fast.
It was efficient.
The healer's mouth twitched. "Do that again."
They did.
The second time, Vyrn adjusted earlier.
Nino felt it through the bond—a faint pulse, like a note being struck and immediately corrected.
The healer lowered his rod. "That's not healing."
Nino swallowed. "Then what is it?"
"Learning," the healer said.
He glanced at Nino, then back at Vyrn. "Rapid adaptation. Not growth. Not mutation. It's… observation followed by correction."
He scoffed softly. "On paper, I'd call it coincidence."
On paper.
Vyrn stopped walking and looked at Nino.
The bond shifted—quiet, expectant.
Before Nino could speak, the dragon sat.
Perfectly.
The command had never been given.
The healer froze.
"Did you just—"
Nino's heart hammered once, hard.
He forced his voice to stay even. "Sit."
Vyrn did not move.
It was already there.
A long silence followed.
The healer exhaled and straightened, suddenly all professionalism again. "Fatigue response," he said flatly. "Muscle memory misfire."
He turned away, already writing notes. "Failed dragons do strange things under stress."
Nino nodded.
Vyrn folded its tail tighter around its body, eyes lowered, as if it understood something had to remain unseen.
As they left the enclosure, Nino kept his hand against Vyrn's shoulder—not reassuring.
Warning.
Not everything that learnedwas meant to be noticed.
The encampment settled into an uneasy rhythm as night pressed in.
Fires burned low, contained and controlled. Dragons rested in clustered rings, some sleeping, others staring into the dark with eyes that caught and reflected every flicker of flame. The war had moved elsewhere, but its weight still hung over the ground like a held breath.
Nino sat on a supply crate near the edge of the camp.
Vyrn lay curled beside him, chin resting on its forelegs, eyes half-lidded but alert. Every so often, its tail shifted, scraping softly against the dirt.
Footsteps approached.
Two riders stopped several paces away, unaware they'd chosen a spot already occupied.
"I'm telling you, it shouldn't have worked," the first said, voice low. "That hit would've taken his head clean off."
The second snorted quietly. "You didn't see his reaction time. He moved before the strike landed."
Nino didn't look over.
"Lucky?"
A pause.
"No," the second rider said slowly. "Not lucky. Like he already knew where it was coming from."
Nino's fingers stilled.
"Name?" the first asked.
"Doesn't matter. He's one of the ace candidates. Took command mid-fight like he'd rehearsed it."
The first rider let out a short laugh. "Sounds like confidence to me."
"That's not confidence," the second replied. "That's memory."
They fell silent, then one of them shifted uncomfortably.
"He was supposed to die there," the first said. "Command had already marked him."
The words slid under Nino's skin.
"Marked?" the second asked.
"Yeah. Early casualty. That's what the projection said."
A projection.
Nino exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Guess the projections were wrong," the second rider muttered.
"Or someone changed the outcome."
Their footsteps retreated, conversation dissolving into the general noise of the camp.
Nino remained still.
He didn't know the name they'd mentioned. Didn't recognize the description as anyone important from the novel he remembered. Ace riders came and went in droves early on.
This wasn't his concern.
He looked down at Vyrn.
The dragon's eyes were open now, watching him—not anxiously, not eagerly.
Attentively.
"Doesn't matter," Nino said quietly, more to himself than to the dragon. "As long as I stay low, the story will correct itself."
Vyrn did not respond.
Somewhere deeper in the camp, a dragon let out a low, distant rumble—too steady to be a dream.
Nino stared into the firelight, unaware that elsewhere, another survivor was thinking the exact same thing.