Not a single structure was still standing. Charred, blackened beams and pillars stretched up against the stars like the ribs of some long dead monster, piles of ash and partially burned thatch strewn about like decaying patches of flesh and scraps of hair. The stones of the well at the village center were black with soot, and sunken on one side where the fire had been hot enough to melt the stone and send it weeping down toward the water below.

Achilles’s skin twitched and rippled, trying to shake off the invisible weight of the destruction around them, and he walked with slow, nervous steps through the ruins. The air smelled of old, rank smoke and something else, something far more disturbing that made Gwen’s stomach roil with nausea. Not everyone had made it out of the village alive. If she lingered here long enough to sift through the rubble, how many charred bodies would she find buried beneath the layers of ash and ruin?

Fury rose within her, so quick and fierce Gwen’s eyes watered with the intensity of it. If Whimsitt had spared even one man to go check on the women’s claims that a dragon had attacked their home, the truth would have been undeniable. No one who witnessed this scene could have concluded that bandits were responsible, or some careless youngster mishandling a torch. Not even the lord of Darkhaven could dismiss this attack as simply imagined by a group of women, lying for attention and hysterical with superstition.

At the far end of the village, the path ended in a wide clearing at the foot of the mountains. The entrance to the mines was no more than a squat, black, rectangular hole at the edge of the clearing.

Gwen swung a leg over Achilles’s saddle and slid to the ground, keeping her palm against his shoulder. Her big bay stallion gave a nervous whicker, his eyes rolling and nostrils flaring as he sniffed and snorted. His senses told him there was danger here—he could smell the dragon that had made this place its home centuries ago.

Gwen ran her hand over her horse’s cheek and then stroked his neck, running her fingers through his mane until his breath calmed. “Stay here,” she whispered to him as his ears flicked and swiveled toward the sound of her voice. “Unless something comes—then run.”

She left him untied, wanting him to have the option to flee if the mine was empty and the dragon came flying over while she was inside. Her mouth had gone dry, and it went drier every time she glanced at the squat little opening into which she had resolved to go. The miasma of death and sour smoke hung in the air, and Gwen’s every instinct screamed at her to turn and ride away again as fast as Achilles would take her.