The fires didn't die with the dragon's departure.
Kael moved through the smoking ruins like a man walking in a dream. Flames still licked at broken beams, their light flickering against the blackened skeletons of homes. The air was thick enough with ash that every breath scraped his throat raw.
Elara sat where he had left her, cradling the child. She hadn't moved. Her eyes tracked him as he approached, but she didn't speak.
Kael stopped a few paces away. The boy in her arms was sobbing quietly, the kind of sob that came from exhaustion rather than hope. Kael tried to say something — to ask if she was hurt — but the words stuck.
She looked at his hands. At the drying streaks of black-red smeared across his skin. At the claws that had not entirely receded.
Her lips trembled.
"What… are you?"
Kael's stomach tightened. He opened his mouth, closed it again. "Alive," he said finally. It wasn't an answer, and they both knew it.
A shout cut across the square. Survivors were gathering at the well, working with buckets to douse the remaining fires. The water hissed and boiled on contact with the molten patches of ground. Kael saw faces — soot-streaked, bloodied — turning toward him. Their gazes lingered too long.
Whispers followed.
"That's him."
"I saw him leap on its back."
"No man moves like that."
"His eyes…"
Kael turned away. He didn't need to hear the rest.
The abyss stirred inside him, as if amused by the suspicion. Let them wonder. Fear is a sharper blade than steel.
Kael ignored it and began searching the wreckage. His mother's house had stood near the center of the village. What was left of it was nothing more than a half-collapsed frame, the roof caved in. Heat still radiated from the blackened stones of the hearth.
He pulled debris aside, coughing at the smoke. His fingers caught on something soft — cloth. He yanked harder, revealing a charred scrap of a shawl. The color had been burned away, but he knew it. His mother had worn it every winter.
The ground swayed beneath him. His legs folded, and he sank into the ash. The scrap of fabric crumbled in his grip.
For a long moment, he simply sat there, the noise of the village fading to a dull hum. The abyss was silent. It didn't mock him, didn't offer power. It simply waited.
He didn't cry. The heat in his chest had burned too much away for that.
When he rose again, the sun was sinking, bleeding orange light into the smoke-filled sky. The survivors had formed a rough circle in the square. A man Kael recognized — Halric, the blacksmith — was speaking to them in a low, steady voice.
"…roads will be unsafe," Halric was saying. "We'll head to the river crossing by morning. There's a garrison there. They can protect us."
"What about him?" someone asked. Kael didn't need to look to know they meant him.
Halric hesitated. His eyes met Kael's across the distance. "He can come," the blacksmith said finally. "For now."
For now.
Kael turned and left the circle. He didn't care for their permission.
He found what was left of his gear — his bow, cracked but usable; his hunting knife, still slick with dragon blood. His pack had been crushed under a fallen beam, but he salvaged a waterskin and a length of rope. The deer he had hunted was gone, likely burned with the rest.
By nightfall, the fires were nothing more than sullen embers. The survivors slept in clusters, huddled under blankets salvaged from the ruins. Kael sat apart, leaning against the stump of a tree that had been sheared off by the dragon's landing.
The child's crying had faded into silence. Somewhere, an owl called — the first living thing he'd heard since the attack.
The abyss spoke again, its voice curling through his thoughts like smoke through a keyhole.
You feel it, don't you? The hunger.
Kael didn't answer.
That taste will never leave you. Every dragon you kill will feed you more strength, more life. And you will need it, if you wish to kill them all.
Kael's jaw tightened. "And if I stop?"
Then you will wither. The power will rot away, taking your flesh with it. You will die, and they will forget you. The dragons will burn the rest, and no one will stand against them.
The voice was cold, but not untrue. Kael had felt the change in himself when he'd bitten into the dragon's flesh — the raw, unnatural strength. He had moved faster, hit harder. And even now, with the hunger gnawing in his belly, he could feel it waiting, ready to surge at a moment's notice.
He thought of the molten eyes. Of the way they had lingered on him.
"I'll hunt them," he said quietly. "All of them."
The abyss chuckled, low and pleased. Good.
The wind shifted, carrying with it the faint scent of scorched feathers. Kael looked up, scanning the darkened sky. Far off, just at the edge of sight, a shape wheeled against the clouds. Not the dragon from before — smaller, quicker.
Scouting. Watching.
Kael's fingers tightened on the hilt of his knife.
Tomorrow, the survivors would leave for the river crossing. Kael would go with them — for now. But soon, he would leave their company. The road he walked would not be theirs.
His path would be marked in ash and scale.
And the hunger would only grow.
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