The emptiness in my chest was a constant, hollow ache. Three months. Three months since Megan had just… left. No note, no call, just a void where our future should have been. I’d packed her things, banished every trace from my sight, yet she was everywhere. Abeloth, my dragon, raged silently within me, a mirror to my own fury and confusion. I’d tried to be better, for her, but now I was back to being the old Ryder, the one who walked into a bar alone and never left that way. The pitying glances from my family and friends were a constant reminder of my humiliation, a public rejection that gnawed at me.

My return to old habits was swift and brutal. I worked, I drank, I sought oblivion in fleeting encounters, carefully avoiding any dragonkin woman from my lair. It didn't help. Her memory, stubbornly vivid, clung to me like a shadow. Link and Emily watched me with wary eyes, their concern a burden I couldn't bear. I was in a slump, a deep, dark hole I couldn't dig myself out of.

That's when my team arrived, a noisy, insistent storm on my doorstep. Bermuda. Two weeks of sun, sand, and forced revelry. They meant well, a desperate attempt to cheer me up, to make the 'real Ryder' live again. I went along, playing the part, but the emptiness remained. Until the call came. A chilling, urgent summons that ripped through the carefully constructed facade of my indifference.