A/N: Thank you CoolBreeze1347, SnidgetHex, LordLady, Guest, pallysd'Artagnan, ficklescribbler, Greenlips24, BrokenKestral, and Fleuramis for reviewing! I'm glad you liked it so far!

Chapter 2

Athos twisted his head, trying to escape the excruciating pain that dragged him from the blackness of oblivion. He couldn't. Everything was a haze of agony, confusion…strange words chanted lowly. He gasped as a surge of ice brushed across his legs. Then there was nothing again. Until the fire awoke anew and another tormented cry was torn from his throat. He heard a voice, or thought he did, but none of the words made sense. He turned, desperately seeking the one thing he counted on at the most instinctual level—his brothers. There was a flash of stunning green eyes instead, and then peace once more.

The next time awareness returned, it was calmer and more lucid. Athos slowly prized his eyelids open and squinted blearily at an array of strange objects hanging from the rafters above him. There were feathers, gourds, beads and thread woven into webs. He watched them for a delayed moment before moving his attention down to take stock of himself. The memory of pain was fresh but he felt only a shadow of it now. Tentatively, he shifted his legs. The pain spiked slightly, but he also felt the brush of a thin blanket directly against his bare legs.

He bolted his head up as he registered he was naked from the waist down. He was still wearing his shirt but his coat was gone.

He heard the creak of a door and whipped his head toward it, getting a blurred glimpse of the rest of his surroundings. He was in a small hut, lying on a low bed against the back wall.

A woman with dark curls paused in the open door. "Welcome back."

"Agnes." Athos pushed himself up onto his elbows but stopped from sitting up further before the blanket could pool much lower. She was the last person he had ever expected to run into after he'd helped fake her death when she'd been accused of witchcraft and poisoning a bunch of crops.

"How did I come to be here?" he asked with a frown. For that matter, where was here? The last he'd known, he'd been in the middle of an inferno.

"I found you, brought you here," she replied, closing the door and coming to sit in a chair a few feet from the bed.

His frowned deepened. "What were you doing out in the middle of a wildfire?"

"Doing what I could to help in the face of this disaster," she replied smoothly. He remembered she had that way about her. "As small as my efforts can be."

Athos clutched the blanket and held it as he slowly sat up further. "I thought you were going south?"

"This is south."

"Out of France."

Agnes shrugged. "I got waylaid." Her lips twitched. "My apologies to your dignity, but I needed to tend your burns."

The sting flared at the reminder, and Athos carefully lifted the edge of the blanket to get a look underneath. He was stunned to find only mild burns of raw and slightly blistered flesh on his thighs and over his right hip. He could have sworn when the flames had him in their grasp, he'd been dying.

"I have a salve for them, but I'll let you put it on," she said with a knowing smile and stood up. Retrieving a tin from a small work table, she passed it over, then picked up a pair of trousers with discolored patches covering singed lines. "I also took the liberty of patching these up as best I could. Your braes were…a little beyond repair."

Athos faltered at the last part as he saw the amount of patching she'd done and registered the daylight streaming through the windows. "How long have I been here?" he asked tensely.

"Overnight."

He almost flew from the bed right then. "I have to get back. Where's Savron?"

Agnes's brow pinched. "Your dragon?"

"Yes." Athos stiffened at her expression. "He's not here? He was with me in the fire. I think he was wounded…"

Agnes looked remorseful. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't see him when I found you. Here." She laid the pants on the chair she'd vacated, then picked up a pair of tattered underpants to put on top of them. Finally she turned her back to him as she went to putter around her counter. "Put that salve on first."

Athos almost forewent putting the stuff on, but he could hear Aramis in his head reprimanding him for it, so he opened the tin and dipped two fingers into the greasy unguent. He rubbed it quickly over his burns, gritting his teeth against the pain. Then he reached for his braes. He paused as he fingered the gaping holes lined with black—if that much of his leathers had burned away, surely his injuries should have been worse?

He flicked a look at Agnes's back. How had she dragged him out of the fire when everything had been burning and he'd been trapped under a fallen tree?

Clenching his jaw, he slipped into his pants. There were more important matters to address at the moment. "I have to get back to the village of Heron. How far is it from here?"

"On foot? A few hours," she replied without turning around.

Athos found his boots at the end of the bed and put them on. "I have to report what I encountered, and I have to find Savron."

"Encountered?" Agnes repeated, starting to turn but catching herself.

"I'm decent."

She craned her head to look at him. "You encountered something in the fire?"

Athos hesitated. He didn't even know how to explain what he saw. "I don't know. For a moment, there seemed to be…something. I heard an animalistic screech and the fire exploded. Savron was caught and the fire hurt him."

Fire wasn't supposed to hurt a dragon.

Athos shook his head. "Perhaps it's a demon." Which made him cringe to admit. "And if it is, the fire isn't going to stop on its own." Thus he needed to report back as quickly as possible.

He spotted his coat and snatched it up; it reeked of smoke. His weapons belt was last but he faltered at putting it around his waist with his hip still tender, so he opted to carry it instead.

"Thank you for your help," he said as he made his way toward the door, only to pull up short upon stepping outside. A wide stretch of green surrounded Agnes's hut, beyond which was the charred remains of the forest. And all around this remarkably untouched greenery were dozens of woodland creatures clustered together.

Athos turned to give Agnes an incredulous look.

"I've been trying to save what animals I can," she explained.

He glanced back at foxes and rabbits huddled together, not to mention squirrels and deer, all manner of species intermingled.

"It's amazing how creatures can put aside differences in a common state of disaster," she commented.

He didn't know what to make of that. "You're very lucky the fire passed you by," he said carefully.

"Indeed."

Athos's jaw ticked. He was getting the same sensation he'd had the first time he'd worked with her on the diseased crops: a prickling on the back of his neck at something just this side of too strange to explain.

Agnes's expression turned thoughtful. "You saw this fire demon where I found you?"

Athos furrowed his brow. "Yes. Why?"

"No reason," she deflected. "Just that someone should go take a look. The fire would have burned past that area by now."

"You cannot be serious—"

"Why not?" she challenged.

"It's dangerous."

"I can take care of myself."

Athos stared at her dubiously. "There is a demon running around perpetuating this fire."

Dear god, he'd said it.

"And it needs to be stopped," she replied, accepting the declaration without blinking. She stepped out and closed her door behind her. "Heron is that way," she said, pointing northwest before turning and heading a different direction.

Athos drew in a long breath and went after her.

Agnes cast a look over her shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"You can't go alone," he said grudgingly.

"I really can."

Athos shook his head in irritation. "Regardless, it might be prudent for me to have more information before I report back."

It was a weak excuse but not necessarily a false one. He just hoped Savron had made it back safely, and that his brothers weren't going out of their minds with worry for him in the meantime.

.o.0.o.

Aramis and Rhaego soared over a landscape of blackened earth and ash-white sticks protruding from the ground—the skeletal remains of a once beautiful woodland. The fire still burned, heading north, but the sky was clear of dragons for the moment. It had taken everyone working tirelessly through the night but they'd managed to stop the wildfire from reaching the camp. It was a hollow victory though, because in that time Athos had yet to return to them, and everything in the fire's wake had been laid to waste, making it impossible to trace their way back to where they'd found Savron and look for him. And since the fire wasn't fully out yet, there was more work ahead and they couldn't afford to dispatch a search party. The only reason Aramis and Rhaego were out now was to put some distance between the russet dragon and some others primed for a scuffle.

Aramis scanned the land below, hoping against hope to spot their missing brother before it was time to head back and resume his shift on fire suppression.

He didn't.

He did, however, see a group of figures gathered in a burned out section of the forest. He tapped Rhaego's neck to indicate he wanted the dragon to pull up into a hover and then pulled out his spyglass from one of the saddle pouches. Aramis frowned to himself. Those were the newcomers from yesterday. What were they doing out there? Aramis shifted the spyglass to each of them, wondering if maybe they'd found Athos…but they hadn't.

"Take us down," he instructed Rhaego, who turned into a dive. They landed a short distance away behind a small knoll, then proceeded to make their way closer on foot.

There wasn't a lot of cover for a man with a red dragon to sneak up on the group, but they were all apparently too preoccupied to notice. Aramis slowed to a stop behind some large oak trunks and watched in confusion as the men wrestled with an iron cage. Inside they had captured a very large bird, almost the size of a peacock but without the noteworthy tail. It was mostly brown, though with some red, orange, and yellow streaked feathers. The bird was thrashing and screeching in distress, rocking the cage the men were trying to lift up. Then it started to glow.

"Stop it!" one of the men shouted in warning.

There was more yelling and someone banged the bars of the cage, but then the bird exploded into several bursts of flames that shot out between the bars. Aramis jolted in flabbergasted shock at the sight. The men scattered to get out of reach of the flames.

Could that have anything to do with the wildfire? What was he even seeing? The cage was wreathed in flames now, but the surrounding area was already charred and so they didn't spread. It was several long moments before the fire died down, leaving the bird inside the cage, seemingly untouched. It was lying on the floor of the cage, panting and keening though.

Rhaego let out a roar and suddenly charged forward, nearly knocking Aramis down in his haste.

"Wh- Rhaego!"

But it was too late, the dragon was barreling into the clearing and sending the men fleeing. He went straight for the cage where he whipped around, taking a protective stance over it. The men sputtered in dismay but quickly recovered and drew their weapons. Aramis thought he caught a glimpse of obsidian among them, and so he drew his sword and plunged into the fight. They looked just as surprised to see him as Rhaego, but it was clear after a moment that these were hardened mercenaries. Two met Aramis head-on while the others faced the dragon.

Rhaego screeched and swiped his tail around, knocking three clear off their feet. He spun the other direction and opened his maw as his belly began to glow.

Aramis parried a blow and deflected another. He caught sight of one of the men grabbing some refroidi from a pouch, and so he whipped out his pistol and shot him before he could quench Rhaego's fire. Twisting away, he clubbed another man in the face with the hot side of the barrel.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the mercenaries reach for his gun. Rhaego unleashed a geyser of fire upon him and his nearby companions. There were a few cries as the flames whooshed too close, and the men finally turned tail and fled. Aramis ran his sword through his last opponent and then staggered back to catch his breath. Three men lay on the ground, dead or unconscious.

Rhaego turned to the cage and seized the bars with his talons. Then he began gnawing at the hinges in an attempt to work the joining rod free so the door would just fall off.

Aramis approached cautiously, a wary eye on the bird that moments before had been a blazing torch. He didn't know what kind of creature it was, but his dragon seemed mighty protective of it.

Metal creaked as it bent under the dragon's earnest efforts.

"Hang on," Aramis interjected, wedging himself in to open the series of latches himself.

Once the door was open, Rhaego lowered his head to the ground and poked his nose gently into the cage. The bird let out a plaintive squawk in return.

Aramis went around the side and crouched down to get a better look at it. There wasn't a single burn mark or singed feather. And if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would have thought it just an overly large pheasant.

He canted his head as he noticed a metallic glint. There was a bolt shaft protruding from the bird's shoulder at the wing juncture. Aramis pressed his lips together and carefully reached through the bars. The bird flinched and he made to grab it quickly, hoping to pull the bolt out in one go. But he'd scarcely seized it when the bird began to shriek and flap wildly…and flames started to lick across its feathers.

Aramis yanked his hands back and gaped in bewilderment. "Okay…" That wasn't going to be an option. He looked over at Rhaego. "Any ideas?"

Rhaego gave him the dragon equivalent of a shrug and leaned down again to coo at the bird.

Aramis shook his head. Of all things, his dragon had decided to randomly make friends with a bird that turned into fire.

He supposed it made sense on some level.

Aramis stood and looked around, at a loss as to what to do. He didn't want to touch the bird again. Nor did he think it a good idea to attempt bringing it back to camp, not if there was a chance it would explode into flames again. Could a creature such as that have hurt Savron? But Rhaego wasn't frightened of it. And what did that mean for Athos?

Aramis removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair. There was a wildfire consuming the country, and this creature could have started it. Those men who'd been hunting it could come back, and likely would. They wouldn't want a prize like this to get away. Aramis was out in the middle of nothing with no way to get a message to the others.

So, he had absolutely no idea what to do now.