Page 69 of Saving Her Dragon

The screen door to the main house clicked open, and Carrick strode out onto the porch, Ginnie walking right beside him. They headed down the steps together, moving toward the idling vehicle to say their final goodbyes.

Ginnie stepped up first, wrapping her arms around Sydney in a tight, unhurried hug that smelled of lavender and fresh cedar. "Don't be a stranger, Syd. If this idiot starts acting like a stubborn soldier again, you call me. I have plenty of wooden spoons left."

Sydney laughed, hugging her back. "I'll keep that on file, Ginnie. Thank you. For everything."

A few feet away, Carrick and Garrett faced each other. There were no long-winded, emotional speeches. They simply reached out, their forearms locking together in the heavy, traditional clasp of Dragon Guardsmen. But as Carrick released his grip, the old Head Elder’s expression turned entirely serious, his deep voice dropping a register.

"The Council Trackers have been running a continuous sweep of the Enchanted perimeter zones since the road collapsed, lad," Carrick said, his eyes scanning the horizon. "We found traces."

Garrett's posture instantly shifted, the seasoned Scout taking over his features in a microsecond. "Traces of Leviathan?"

"Aye," Carrick nodded, keeping the data strictly contained. "Trackers picked up a fragment of his residual signature two nights ago. It wasn't a physical sighting. The bastard is wounded, and whatever happened when the road collapsed cost him dearly. He's moving fast. The trail was faint, completely unstable, and dissolved before the Tracking units could lock onto his location."

Garrett’s jaw tightened, a sudden spike of protective adrenaline rippling through the Mating Bond. Sydney felt it instantly, but she didn't step in.

He stared at Carrick, his eyes narrowing. For one heartbeat, she felt the soldier inside him surge forward—the instinct to hunt, protect, finish what Leviathan had started.

Then Garrett looked at the vehicle. At her. The tension in his shoulders eased.

“Are the new Elite Trackers on his trail?" Garrett asked firmly.

"They are," Carrick confirmed.

Garrett nodded once, his shoulders relaxing. "Then they'll find him."

"There's something else," Ginnie interrupted, her tone shifting into something stranger, a cold, analytical gravity touching her necromancer aura. "Something odd about the residual trail the Trackers pulled from the coast."

Sydney stepped closer, her brow furrowing. "Odd how?"

Ginnie looked directly into Sydney's eyes, her face uncharacteristically pale. "It carries an echo."

Behind Sydney's eyes, Kara’s golden consciousness suddenly woke up. It wasn't a flare of panic or fear, but an absolute, unblinking alertness that locked onto the Necromancer's words.

"An echo of what?" Sydney pressed, her stomach tightening.

"Buried deep inside the fading Abyssal Sorcery of Leviathan’s signature…" Ginnie explained, choosing her vocabulary with extreme precision, "…the locators picked up a secondary frequency. It was faint, completely historical, but I recognized the structural architecture from the road inside Garrett’s mind. It was Dragon Queen Magic."

Sydney's breath caught in her throat. "Kara's frequency? He stole part of her resonance when the blue stone was burning?"

“No,” Ginnie said, shaking her head. “It isn't Kara. I'm certain of that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don't know. The frequency is old, powerful, and close enough to Kara's Magical signature to make me extremely uncomfortable.”

Kara went unnaturally, chillingly still inside Sydney’s soul. The Dragon Queen didn't roar. She didn't shout. Her entire presence seemed to freeze within the Spiritual Plane, staring outward at a vast distance.

“Kara?” Sydney called out mentally, a sudden knot of dread forming in her chest. “Talk to me. What is that resonance?”

A long, agonizing pause stretched through their shared Bond before the Dragon Queen finally answered, her voice dropping into a ghostly whisper that made the hairs on Sydney's arms stand on end.

“That resonance is old, Sydney.”

“How old?”

“Older than the Clan's grief,” Kara whispered, her golden eyes flashing with a terrifying, absolute clarity. “It feels like Queen Magic. Primal. Royal.”

“You mean yours?”