Jon sat at the edge of the cliff beyond the village, staring out at the jagged mountain peaks. His sword rested across his knees, untouched. No blade could cut the knot inside his chest.
He heard the great wingbeats before the dragon landed.
Velrion approached quietly — for a creature so massive, it moved like a shadow.
"You have not decided," the dragon said.
Jon shook his head. "I'm not a god. I won't weigh lives like coin."
Velrion let out a breath that steamed in the cool air. "Then you must understand why the fire fails — and what it cost to bind it."
The sky dimmed, and for a moment, Jon thought night had come early. But then images shimmered in the air: a memory, summoned by dragon-magic.
A Memory of Fire
Velrion soared above a burning world — not with sorrow, but with hunger. Once, the dragons were not creatures of wisdom. They were flame, rage, power unbound.
"Long before your kingdoms rose," Velrion said, "we were gods of fire. Cities burned beneath our wings. Mortals offered their children to appease us."
Jon felt his stomach twist.
"But one mortal girl," Velrion continued, "refused. She climbed the tallest peak to face me, unarmed. She spoke one word: mercy."
The vision showed a child standing before the dragon's open maw, her eyes unflinching.
Velrion paused. "For the first time, I hesitated."
Jon looked up at the dragon, surprised.
"She showed me what my kind had forgotten. And in shame, we vowed never to burn the innocent again. That oath… became a curse."
"And now you ask me to break it," Jon said bitterly.
"No," Velrion rumbled. "I ask you to choose what the girl chose: mercy. Even if it comes with fire."
Before Jon could speak, another voice rang out behind him:
"So… the King of Ghosts gets to play god now?"
A tall man stepped from the tree line, cloaked in grey and carrying a blackened spear.
Velrion tensed. "Kaelen of the Ashborn."
Jon turned. "Who are you?"
Kaelen's eyes were hard, his expression bitter. "One of the Flame-Bound — exiled for refusing to kneel to dragons or queens. We do not burn our own. And we do not let outsiders decide our fate."
He stepped closer, voice sharp.
"You think because you've died and come back, you can judge us? What right do you have to choose who lives?"
Jon stood slowly, calm but tense. "I don't want to choose."
"But you will," Kaelen snapped. "And when you do, remember this: the fire doesn't care if your hands were clean. Only that they were willing."
Kaelen stood just paces from Jon now, the blackened spear glinting in the mountain light. The tension between them was sharp, like drawn steel.
Velrion coiled protectively nearby, low and watchful.
Jon's voice came low and steady. "You speak of judgment like I'm eager to give it. I'm not. But if I walk away, your people die slowly — no fire, no flame. You know that."
Kaelen's jaw tensed. "Better we die with our souls intact than live by burning the innocent. We do not kneel to fire."
"And yet you survive," Jon said, eyes narrowing. "You say you don't burn the innocent — so what do you burn?"
Silence.
Kaelen didn't answer.
Instead, he turned and motioned toward the trees.
From the shadows emerged two other Ashborn: cloaked figures with ash-smudged faces and cold eyes, leading a younger woman — barely more than a girl, no older than sixteen.
Her wrists were bound with braided flameweed, ceremonial and symbolic, not for restraint. Her face bore no fear. She walked with dignity.
Jon's stomach dropped.
The girl stepped forward. "My name is Leira," she said quietly. "I offer myself to the flame."
Jon's chest tightened. "Why?"
She looked him dead in the eye. "Because my death might light the fire again. And because the ones who follow me are worth more than I am."
"No," Jon said, voice hard. "You don't get to decide your worth that way."
"I already have," Leira said. "So did my brother. And my mother. This is how the Ashborn survive."
Velrion let out a low growl, almost mournful. "They burn their own, but quietly. In secret. Ash to ash."
Kaelen stepped in. "We do not kill. They choose. And we let them. That's more than you can say."
Jon's fist curled. "There's no honor in sacrifice if you force it by silence."
"No one forces anything," Kaelen snapped. "But your dragons are starving, your Queen is desperate, and your 'choice' is an illusion. You'll choose someone to burn. The only question is how long you pretend not to."
Jon turned to Leira, his voice soft. "You don't have to do this."
"I do," she whispered. "Because if I don't, the Queen will choose someone else. Someone who doesn't get to say yes."
Her words cut deep — not because they were cruel, but because they were true.
Jon stood still, as if carved from stone. Around him, the winds howled between the peaks.
Kaelen spoke once more, his tone quieter now. "This land is not saved by kings. It's saved by the ones willing to die for others without needing to be remembered."
Then he turned, melting back into the trees, the Ashborn fading behind him.
Velrion lowered his massive head beside Jon, voice like distant thunder. "The fire will not wait much longer."
Jon looked to the girl, her eyes so young yet full of grave resolve.
This was not a choice of kings. It was a crucible of souls.
The girl, Leira, had returned to the Ashborn's camp to prepare. They said there were rites. Ash to ash. No chains, no altar. Only choice.
Jon remained on the cliffside. Alone now — or as alone as one could be with a dragon watching.
Velrion lay coiled in silence, head low to the ground. The dragon's massive golden eye stared at Jon, unblinking.
Jon finally broke the silence. "You said once that a mortal girl taught you mercy."
Velrion rumbled low. "She reminded me what I had forgotten."
Jon's voice was quiet, bitter. "And what was that, exactly? That mercy means letting someone die for others?"
"No," Velrion said. "She taught me that mercy is not the absence of death. It is the presence of choice."
Jon stood and paced, restless. "Choice?" He scoffed. "You speak like you understand what that means. But you've never held a sword and hesitated. You've never stood over someone and wondered if saving many was worth killing one."
Velrion's tail shifted, slow and heavy like falling snow. "You believe I do not suffer the weight of decisions. But I carry a thousand years of memory. Every time I see a face like hers…" — he gestured vaguely in the direction of Leira — "I remember the girl who faced me on the mountain and did not flinch."
Jon turned sharply, eyes flashing. "Then why let this happen again?"
"Because," Velrion said quietly, "mercy is not yours or mine to give. Only to honor when it is offered."
Jon's breath caught.
He looked away, suddenly unsure.
"What if she dies," he said, "and the flame still does not return?"
Velrion's eyes glowed like twin suns. "Then the fire will remember her name. And it will remember yours — if you let her make the choice."
Jon sank to one knee, gripping the hilt of his sword. The cold wind raked across the cliff, but he barely felt it.
"I want to believe this is mercy," he whispered. "But it feels like surrender."
Velrion's voice was softer than Jon had ever heard. "Perhaps. But surrender is not always defeat. Sometimes, it is trust."
Later That Day — The Hall of Ash and Flame
Queen Maelya stood at the center of the fire-scarred temple, its stone walls carved with ancient runes. Smoke curled up from the braziers, and golden light filtered through high windows.
She turned when Jon entered — alone, but with Leira walking quietly beside him.
The Queen's eyes swept over the girl, then locked on Jon's face. "She's one of the Ashborn."
"She volunteered," Jon said.
Maelya blinked, as if she hadn't expected that answer.
"She understands the risk. But she came of her own will."
Leira stepped forward, head high, eyes unwavering. "I would die with meaning, not wait in the dark while others suffer."
Maelya studied her. "And if the flame does not return?"
"Then it dies with me," Leira said. "And I'll know I gave it everything I had."
Maelya's face softened — not with warmth, but with respect.
"Then we begin at dusk," the queen said. "And may the flame remember you."
Jon turned away, jaw tight. He didn't speak. But deep in his chest, something burned — not rage, not sorrow.
Something like prayer.
The sky burned orange as dusk fell over the high temple.
Leira stood before the ancient brazier — the Heart of Flame — its fire long dead, the stones cold as bone. She wore no crown of flowers, no ceremonial robe, only a simple ash-gray cloak of the Ashborn, tied at her throat with a thread of fireweed.
Around her, a silent circle had gathered — Queen Maelya, the dragon Velrion perched in shadow above, Jon Snow beside the stone altar, his knuckles white from holding his sword too tightly.
The air was still.
Maelya stepped forward and raised her hand. "We gather not to burn a child, but to light the last hope. Let the fire judge her gift."
Velrion let out a deep, echoing breath. "She is willing. That is all the flame asks."
Jon said nothing. He hadn't spoken in hours.
Leira approached the brazier. She reached up slowly with the ember-flint torch — the one used only in these sacred rites.
She struck it once. A spark caught.
She knelt, about to touch the flame to the basin of firewood and ancient coals—
And then the wind screamed.
Violent, howling, unnatural — like it had torn straight down from the gods themselves.
The brazier flared before she touched it — a sudden flash of red-orange light, blinding.
The crowd recoiled. Jon lunged forward, grabbing Leira and pulling her back. She cried out but wasn't burned — the fire had rejected her.
Velrion roared, wings outspread.
A voice — hoarse, broken, but unmistakably human — rang out from the edge of the temple:
"Stop! The sacrifice is wrong!"
Next: Chapter 3 - The Fire That Refused…
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