The wind above the Ember Heights howled like a wounded beast.
Kael clung to the back of Serenya's draconic glider, a scaled beast of warcraft and wing forged by ancient Flamebound. Its leathery wings cut through the air as it soared over scorched valleys and shattered peaks, heading toward the next sanctuary.
They rode in silence, save for the hiss of fire vents and the creak of reinforced wing joints.
Kael watched the world blur below — so much ash, so much ruin. Whole forests blackened into stone. Rivers dried and curled like cracked glass.
He'd seen the fire up close now — the kind that burns everything.
He wanted to be different.
"You're thinking too loud," Serenya said.
Kael glanced over his shoulder. She sat ahead of him, steering with muscle memory and instinct, her silver braid whipping in the wind.
"You alright?" she asked.
Kael hesitated.
"I keep dreaming," he said. "Not of battles. But wings. Flame. Eyes like suns watching me."
"And voices I've never heard… speaking names I somehow know."
Serenya was quiet a moment.
Then she said, "The deeper the flame binds to you, the more it remembers. Aurex's power isn't just fire. It's legacy. It remembers every life it ever touched."
"So the dreams… are his memories?"
"Some. Others might be yours. Just not yet."
The wind shifted. The glider began to descend, banking toward a cleft in the mountains — an ancient roost carved into the cliffs, glowing faintly with orange rune marks.
As they touched down, Kael dismounted, his boots crunching gravel and old bones. The air here was still — sacred.
"What is this place?" he asked.
Serenya exhaled slowly.
"My home."
The Roost of Skarvalas.
A hidden haven of dragonkind — not beasts, but Dragonborn, hybrids who carried the blood of wyrms and walked the line between flame and flesh.
Kael followed Serenya through the outer chambers. Stone pillars lined with winged carvings loomed overhead. There were watchers in the shadows — cloaked figures with ember eyes and clawed gauntlets, gripping spears carved from talonbone.
One stepped forward.
A tall woman with gold-scale tattoos across her throat and shoulders.
"You return, child of Skar," she said to Serenya.
"And you bring him."
Kael bowed slightly, unsure of what to say.
Serenya stood tall.
"He carries Aurex's flame."
The murmurs began instantly. Unreadable words in ancient dialects. Disbelief. Awe. Fear.
Kael felt them judging every breath.
"Let them talk," Serenya said. "You're not here for their approval."
She led him deeper.
That night, they stood in a high chamber carved into the mountain wall, overlooking the whole valley.
Kael rested against the stone, breathing in the cool ash-tinged air.
"Why did you bring me here?"
Serenya didn't answer immediately.
Then, quietly:
"Because you needed to see where I come from."
She turned to him.
"I wasn't born in fire, Kael. I was born in the space between two worlds. Dragon and mortal. Wyrm and woman. And I was raised to be a weapon. To burn for someone else's war."
"But watching you fight, watching you choose… it reminded me of something I thought I'd lost."
Kael's eyes met hers.
"What?"
"Hope."
A long silence stretched between them.
And then, softly — as if afraid of breaking it — Kael reached for her hand.
She didn't pull away.
"You don't have to carry it alone," he said. "This fire. This legacy."
"We can carry it together."
Her voice was a whisper.
"You trust me that much?"
"I want to."
A breath passed.
She stepped closer.
"Then let's make a pact. You and me."
"Wings of fire…"
"…and bonds of blood," Kael finished.
That night, as they stood beneath the stars, Kael's ember flared warm and steady — not in pain, not in rage, but in connection.
And Serenya, the dragon forged in exile, smiled for the first time in years.