The fire was coming.
Kael could feel it, see it, hear it — a roaring tide of white-hot death coiling in the dragon's throat. His instincts screamed to dive, to roll, to flee, but his body might as well have been carved from stone.
The voice inside him was the only thing that moved.
It pulsed. Not in sound, but in weight, pressing into the corners of his mind like the tide pressing against a dam.
Say it, it whispered. Say yes, and I will give you the strength to kill it.
Kael's breath hitched. His eyes darted to Elara. She had fallen, tangled in debris, the child crying in her arms. The dragon's gaze wasn't even on her anymore — it was on him, the obstacle between it and easy slaughter.
Heat licked at his skin. His lungs burned. In that instant, Kael understood that no bow, no steel, no human craft could stand against this thing.
And yet…
He wanted to stand.
The voice throbbed again, each syllable a cold ripple down his spine.
Feed me, hunter.
The fire exploded forward.
Kael's mouth moved before he knew what he was saying.
"Yes."
The world shattered.
Something tore through him — not from outside, but from within, as if a door had been kicked open in the deepest chamber of his soul. His vision went black, then red, then something deeper, darker, like staring into the belly of the night sky.
Pain ripped through his chest, his arms, his skull. The roar of the dragon was drowned in another sound — a deeper, hungrier roar that came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
And then… silence.
Kael was standing, but not in the street. The air here was cold enough to bite. Shadows writhed like smoke, rising from a floor of glassy black stone. Above, there was no ceiling, only an endless gulf. Something vast moved in that darkness, its outline too large to comprehend, like mountains shifting under a blanket.
Two eyes opened.
They were not like the dragon's molten gold. These burned like eclipses — black suns rimmed in pale silver light.
You will hunt for me, the thing said, its voice no longer a whisper but a presence, filling Kael's skull. And in return, I will make you more than prey.
Kael tried to speak, but the words crumbled before they left his tongue.
The eyes narrowed. The pact is made. Feed me dragon's flesh, and I will give you the strength to tear the rest apart.
The shadows surged forward, plunging into him. His chest burned with searing cold.
The street snapped back into place. The dragon's fire was still coming — but Kael was already moving.
He didn't think. His body felt lighter, stronger, faster. His legs kicked off the ground with enough force to crack the cobblestones, hurling him sideways. The torrent of flame hit where he had stood a heartbeat before, turning the street into molten glass.
He rolled to his feet. His hands no longer felt like hands — the nails had blackened, lengthened, curving into claw-like tips. Veins of dark light pulsed beneath his skin. His vision sharpened until he could see every line in the dragon's scales, every shimmer of heat rising from its breath.
The dragon's eyes narrowed. It recognized the change.
Kael leapt.
The wings beat once, trying to lift the beast away, but Kael's clawed hands found the ridge of its neck. His momentum slammed him against it, the heat searing his palms — and yet the pain was distant, muffled under the rush of something primal.
His other hand drew the hunting knife from his belt. It looked pitiful against the dragon's bulk, but when he drove it into the soft flesh behind its jaw, it sank deeper than it had any right to. The dragon roared, shaking like a storm-tossed ship.
Kael held on.
The abyss surged in him, whispering not words but hunger. He didn't need to be told what to do. He wrenched the blade free, his hands slick with steaming blood, and sank his teeth into the wound.
The taste was wrong — hot and metallic, with a current of something older than the world. But the moment it touched his tongue, strength flooded his limbs, and the cold fire in his chest flared higher.
The dragon bucked, its tail smashing into the street. Kael was flung into the dirt, the wind knocked from his lungs. He staggered upright in time to see the beast launch itself skyward, wings beating hard enough to scatter burning debris across the rooftops.
It didn't look back.
Kael stood there, chest heaving, the taste of dragon's blood still burning in his mouth.
He looked down at his hands. The claws were receding, the black veins fading — but slowly, reluctantly, as though they had found a home and did not wish to leave.
The voice returned, quiet now, almost satisfied.
Good. You have taken your first step. More will come. More must come.
Kael's knees wavered. He turned toward the sound of crying. Elara was there, kneeling in the dirt, the child clinging to her. She stared at him, eyes wide, not with relief… but with fear.
He realized then that she had seen everything.
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