I let myself lie there for a while longer. Maybe a minute. Maybe ten.

  The rain kept falling. Freezing. Sharp. It hit my face like tiny knives, and I didn't move to stop it.

  Darkness covered everything. The storm blotted out whatever passed for sky up here, and the wind howled so loud I couldn't hear myself think. Which was probably a blessing.

  I turned my head just enough to see the others.

  Zo sat a few feet away, back against the rock, her chest rising and falling in slow, controlled breaths. She looked like she'd been carved from stone. Sadie was beside her, closer than usual, leaning against Zo's shoulder for warmth.

  I closed my eyes.

  My shoulders burned. My hands were raw. The climb had stripped the skin off of my palms, and even with the worms patching me up, I could still feel the damage.

  The worms were being oddly insistent. Like a dog pulling at its leash, trying to get my attention.

  They didn't answer. They just kept moving, rippling under my skin in waves that started in my chest and spread outward.

  I groaned and pushed myself up onto my elbows.

  Zo noticed. Her head turned toward me, and even in the dark I could see the question in her eyes.

  "You good?" she asked.

  I wasn't. The worms were practically screaming now, and I still didn't know what they were trying to tell me.

  "Something's off," I said.

  Sadie shifted, her hand moving to her weapon.

  I rolled onto my stomach and forced myself up onto my hands and knees. My arms shook. My body wanted to collapse, to lie back down and stay there until the cold took me.

  The worms disagreed… they pushed me upright, flooding my limbs with just enough strength to keep me moving.

  I knelt there for a second, breathing hard, trying to figure out what the hell they were sensing.

  There was nothing. Just wind. Rain. Darkness.

  Zo stood up, slow and deliberate, and moved closer to me. Her eyes scanned the ledge, then the rock face, then the drop.

  "Fish," she said quietly. "What’s going on?"

  "I’m not sure but, there is something dangerous here."

  Sadie was on her feet now too, spear in hand, her back against the rock wall.

  I let the worms spread out further. They slipped through the cracks in the stone, crawled along the ledge, and tasted the air.

  Something was here.

  I turned my head, scanning the ledge again, there were shapes scattered across the ledge, half-buried under snow and ice. I'd thought they were boulders… they weren't.

  "Shit," I whispered.

  Zo looked where I was looking. "What are those?"

  I didn't answer right away. I sent the worms closer, let them crawl over the nearest mound and report back.

  They were organic, leathery and warm.

  "Eggs," I said.

  Sadie's breath hissed out between her teeth.

  I tried to count. The worms gave me rough locations, shapes in the dark. Some were small. Some were bigger than me.

  "At least ten," I said. "Maybe more."

  Zo cursed under her breath.

  The eggs just sat there, silent and still, like they'd been there for years.

  Or like they were waiting.

  "Why didn't we see them before?" Sadie asked.

  "Because we were dying," I said. "And it's dark."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The eggs also had some kind of natural camouflage, a texture that blended with the rock and ice. We sat next to them... without noticing.

  I looked at Zo. She looked at me.

  "We need to leave," she said.

  "Can't," I said. "Not in this storm."

  "Then what do we do?"

  I didn't have an answer. The eggs were dormant, or at least they seemed to be. But if they hatched…

  If they hatched, we were dead.

  "Stay still," I said. "Don't make noise. Don't move unless you have to."

  Sadie nodded. Zo didn't look convinced, but she sat back down, slow and careful.

  I stayed where I was, on my knees, the worms still spread out across the ledge like a net.

  The storm kept screaming. The rain kept falling.

  And the eggs sat there, patient and silent.

  If these were dragon eggs—and what the hell else would they be—then they'd need heat to survive.

  The temperature drop, the wind, and the pressure change. It would make sense. Hunker down, wait it out, conserve energy.

  Which meant they might not wake up at all.

  Or it meant we were sitting in the middle of a nest, and the second the storm passed, we'd have company.

  I glanced at Zo. She was watching me, waiting for a plan.

  I didn't have one.

  "Mabel," I thought. "You seeing this?"

  "Of course I'm seeing it, you absolute walnut," she hissed back. "We're surrounded by baby death lizards. Fantastic work."

  "They're hibernating, it seems," I said quietly.

  "How helpful," Mabel muttered. "Let's just they won't wake up and devour us in our sleep. That's worked so well for you in the past."

  I ignored her and kept studying the nearest egg. The worms gave me details I didn't want. Size. Heat signature. The slow, steady beat of something alive inside.

  "Fish." Zo's voice was barely a whisper. "Are they—"

  "Dragon eggs," I said. "Yeah..."

  Sadie shifted against the rock wall, and I held up a hand. She froze.

  The eggs didn't react. The storm kept howling. We sat there in the freezing rain, surrounded by things that could kill us without trying, and nobody said anything for a while.

  I tried to count them again. Ten for certain. Maybe twelve. The worms couldn't get an exact number because some of the eggs were buried too deep under snow and ice.

  And we'd climbed right into the middle of them.

  "Here's the thing," I said, keeping my voice low. "They're cold. Really cold. Like they've been here a while."

  "That's supposed to make me feel better?" Zo asked.

  "No," I said. "But it means they're not hatching anytime soon. The storm's probably keeping them in some kind of stasis."

  "Probably," Mabel repeated. "Such confidence. Such certainty. I feel so safe."

  "Mabel, be quiet." I hissed at her.

  "Make me."

  Sadie leaned forward slightly, her eyes scanning the ledge. "How long do dragon eggs hibernate?"

  "I have absolutely no idea," I said.

  "What about Cedric's memories?" she asked.

  I searched through the fragments I'd taken from the Keeper. There was something there about dragons and breeding cycles, but it was scattered and incomplete.

  "Months," I said finally. "Sometimes years. They wait for the right conditions. Heat. Food. Safety."

  "And when they wake up?" Zo asked.

  I didn't answer. We all knew what happened when they woke up.

  Sadie shifted again, and this time a small piece of ice broke loose from her boot. It skittered across the ledge with a faint scraping sound.

  We all stopped breathing.

  The eggs didn't move.

  I let the air out of my lungs slowly. "We need a plan."

  "The plan is don't die," Zo said.

  "Great plan," Mabel said. "Very detailed. I'm sure the eggs will respect your wishes."

  "Can we kill them?" Sadie asked.

  I looked at the nearest egg. It was maybe three feet tall, covered in a thick leathery shell that looked tougher than stone. The worms told me it was dense, reinforced and built to survive.

  "Maybe," I said. "One at a time..."

  "And if they're not hibernating as you think?" Zo asked.

  Then we'd be dead. That was the truth of it. If even one of those things hatched while I was trying to kill the others, we'd have a very short, very painful conversation about poor life choices.

  But if we did nothing, we'd still be sitting in a nest when the storm passed. And I didn't know what would happen then. Maybe the eggs stayed asleep. Maybe their parents would come back.

  Maybe we got lucky and they all just ignored us.

  I didn't believe in luck anymore.

  "I'll start with the furthest one," I said. "If it goes wrong—"

  "It won't," Sadie said.

  I looked at her. She was watching me with those cold, empty eyes. The same eyes that reminded me of Mikkel.

  But she wasn't Mikkel. She'd proven that already.

  "If it does," I said. "Run. Don't try to help me. Just get off this ledge and keep moving."

  "No," Zo said flatly.

  "Zo—"

  "I said no." She crossed her arms. "We didn't climb all this way just to leave you behind because you decided to play hero."

  "I'm not playing hero," I said. "I'm trying to keep you alive."

  "Then don't get yourself killed," she said. "Problem solved."

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell her that I was the expendable one, that they needed to survive, that I wasn't worth the risk.

  But I'd already tried that argument before. It never worked.

  "Fine," I said. "But stay quiet. Stay still. And if I signal you to move, you move."

  Sadie nodded. Zo just stared at me.

  "Mabel," I said. "You ready?"

  "Oh, absolutely," she said. "This is my favorite kind of plan. The suicidal kind where we die horribly if you sneeze too loud."

  I stood up slowly, letting the worms reinforce my legs so I didn't make noise. The rain kept falling, hammering against the rock and ice, covering any small sounds I made.

  That was good. The storm was the only advantage we had.

  I moved toward the furthest egg, the one closest to the drop. It was half-buried in snow, covered in a thin layer of ice that cracked under my boots.

  The worms spread out ahead of me, testing the ground, checking for unstable rock or hidden crevices. They reported back in waves of sensation that I could barely understand.

  I reached the egg and knelt beside it.

  Up close, it was bigger than I'd thought. Maybe four feet tall. The shell was mottled gray and white, It looked like stone, and there were faint patterns carved into the surface. Natural or intentional, I couldn't tell.

  The worms touched it, tasting the shell, reporting back.

  I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

  "Now what?" Mabel asked.

  Now I kill it.

  I formed a gauntlet of worms around my right arm, reinforcing the muscle and bone until it felt solid. Then I summoned my sword, letting it grow from my forearm in a smooth, silent motion.

  The blade was pale and slick, lined with sharp serrated teeth. It felt heavier than before. Sharper.

  I raised it above the egg, aiming for the center where the shell looked thinnest.

  "One shot," Mabel said. "Make it count."

  I drove the blade down with everything I had.