“Mars, come on. The poison wore off ages ago. I can walk by myself.”

My throbbing arms cried out for me to listen to Aster, but I gritted my teeth and trudged onward. Letting him down an hour ago had ended up with him face-first in a snow drift and me struggling to drag him out. I wasn’t anxious to go through that again. 

I crested a snowy hill, and a spot of light on the horizon flashed into view. Thank goodness, we were almost to the hunters’ camp. Though ‘almost’ was a relative term when I was exhausted and sore beyond belief. A messenger sent from the village had easily outpaced me ages ago, and I could see his mount tied up alongside the hunters’ tents—a white snowstrider that Izzy said looked like Mars Jr. That was good news for the borins, at least. In the morning, the hunters would be able to start heading toward the refugees from the village. Their quick, uninjured mounts would carry them to the others in the blink of an eye. I, on the other hand, would be trailing far behind them for days.

“Maaaaars,” Aster said with a groan, “Can’t you-”

A meow from Izzy’s shoulders cut him off. “Are we there yet?” Fleck asked emphatically, as if she hadn’t asked the same question at least three times an hour for half a day. “I’m hungry.”

“We’re all hungry.” I wanted to add a jab about how she was basically snack-sized to a dragon like me, but I bit my tongue. She was just a little kid. It was normal for her to be antsy. “But we’re almost there.”

She mewed and hopped on Izzy’s head to get a better view. “I think I see it.”

“I would hope so.” After all, voidcats were supposed to have extremely good night vision. I was lucky enough to enjoy the same sharp vision, but I would’ve traded it in a heartbeat to get her cold resistance. My feathers were capable of putting off heat, but when I’d run out of free-moving magic and my adrenaline wasn’t pumping enough to force out some emergency-supply magic, my feathers weren’t cut out to keep me warm in this weather. Good thing my face was already numb, so at least the cold couldn’t hurt it. 

“What’re you talking about?” Aster asked, crossing his arms like a particularly disgruntled baby.

“We’re almost there.”

Izzy sighed in relief. “Finally. My butt hurts so much, and even with the scarf, I can’t feel my face.”

“Finally is right.” Aster scowled. “This is ridiculous. I’m not incapacitated.”

“Having to dig you out of the snow is ridiculous. You weigh a ton now.” I tried to push my trembling legs past their exhaustion, but a snail’s pace was the most I could manage. Ah, well, we would arrive at the hunters’ camp eventually. 

Izzy raised her hand like she was in class waiting for the teacher to call on her. 

I huffed. “Yes?”

“Can I ride ahead and tell them we’re coming?” Her voice was timid with a hint of guilty pleasure. 

I assumed she was anxious to see Vance, but she might’ve just been looking forward to warming her hands at the fire. Either way, I couldn’t really blame her for wanting to outpace me. She shouldn’t have a problem getting lost on the way to the fire, as even with her weak human eyes, the fire’s light would stand out against the black background. 

“Yeah, go ahead.”

She tapped her heels against the dufflar’s sides, and the graceful creature danced across the surface of the snow. She and Fleck reached the camp a few minutes later, making me curse my clumsy dinosaur feet even more. Sure, I was an impressive climber and a half-decent runner on snow-free ground, but here I might as well have been a toddler stumbling through the mud.

“So, are you going to tell her or should I?” Aster asked with an uncharacteristic smirk on his face. 

“Tell her what?” I had an inkling of what he meant, but my brain was moving as sluggishly as my feet.

He chuckled. “That she was right, that we’re made for each other.”

I bit back an annoyed response and reformulated my thoughts into a semi-tactful statement. “I don’t know if I’d say a phoenix and a half-void dragon, half-human are ‘made for each other.’ But I don’t want to tell her either way. She’s insufferable enough as it is.”

He snorted. “What, you want to keep it a secret? We’re the only four humans on the planet, and you think we can keep anything a secret from each other for long?”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “There are other humans on the planet. Some fell through portals from Earth and had kids. Besides, you and I aren’t all human.”

“I guess not.” He frowned. “That’ll take some getting used to—not being all human.”

“Tell me about it.” There wasn’t an ounce of human in me.

“You have to admit, there are some perks to being dragons.” He snapped his fingers together and summoned a ball of flame over his palm.

An invisible force crushed my lungs, bringing me to my knees. I gasped for air and threw out my wings for balance. Aster slipped from my grasp. The snow spun. He was saying something, but I couldn’t make it out. He touched my shoulder, and I jerked away. I knew it’d been an accident, that he hadn’t known what he was doing, but I couldn’t bear for it to happen again. 

Slowly, painfully, the tension in my chest diminished to a faint throb. I sat back on my heels, taking steady breaths.

Aster’s voice rang in my ears, this time much clearer than before. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing.” My first instinct was that I didn’t want to make him feel guilty for hurting me, but more than that, I needed to make sure he never did it again. “Just don’t use my magic without asking.”

He stiffened. “Sorry, I didn’t think-”

I nudged his shoulder with my wing. “I’m fine. I’m just out of free-moving magic, so you drew on my emergency stores. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not a huge deal.” I reached out to pick him up again, but he shuffled back. 

“I’m walking.”

I opened my beak to argue, but a hollowness in my chest sapped the little strength I’d had left. I trudged toward the hunters’ camp with Aster on my heels. As far as I could tell, he had no trouble following in my footsteps. Every time my tail swung with my steps, it brushed against his side, so he hadn’t fallen behind at least. 

After another tedious half-hour of walking, I stopped beside the hunters’ fire. Collapsing to the ground, I groaned at the sight of dying coals. I fanned them with my wing and spit my flammable venom on it. The coals—which smelled strongly of animal dung—flickered and burned brighter. I was too cold to care about the smell. Then again, maybe I didn’t want my feathers to smell like dung in the morning. I scooted back a little before curling around the fire.

Across the fire rose several mounds of snow with bits of fur sticking out of them. I smelled recently-butchered meat. My stomach growled, and I buried my beak under my wing to block the scent. If those were dufflar-size animals, I could easily eat an entire beast, depriving the hunters of days or even weeks worth of food. After the loss of their village, starvation was the last thing they needed.

A hand on my tail prompted me to peek out from behind my wing. Aster was crouched beside the fire with his hands over the coals. 

His brow furrowed. “It feels too warm for a fire this big.”

I huffed. “You’re definitely half void dragon. It’s freezing, even for me.” 

Shrugging, he sat back from the fire and glanced toward the tents. “Do you mind if I check in on the others?”

“Of course not. You don’t have to ask me permission to go in the tent.” My stomach rumbled. I didn’t know if I had it in me to chase down dinner. Maybe in the morning, assuming I could sleep on an empty stomach. 

“Is someone hangry?” Aster asked in a sing-song voice. 

I glared at him, which was apparently the only answer he needed. 

Grimacing, he stood and headed toward the nearest tent. “I’ll try and find something for you to eat.” He peeked inside, backed out with his hands raised, and went into the second tent, which was illuminated by a flickering lamp.