Kaelen didn't blink—mostly because, as a shade, blinking wasn't something he did anymore. But if he had eyelids, they'd be twitching with panic.
"An army?" he repeated. "You're barely passing spellcraft. And I can't even touch solid objects."
Adrien pulled on his coat and slung his satchel over one shoulder, eyes still glowing faintly gold. "Then we start small."
He stepped out of the dormitory into the early morning dark. The storm from the vision hadn't reached them yet, but the sky felt wrong—stretched thin, like something was pressing from the other side.
Kaelen phased through the wall beside him. "Start small how, exactly?"
Adrien paused. "There's a name. It came to me in the vision. A place I've never heard before but somehow remember—Virellen Hollow."
Kaelen frowned. "That's not on any modern map."
"Because it was erased," Adrien said. "On purpose."
He drew the Dragonheart Gem from beneath his shirt. It glowed as he spoke the name again, faint pulses beating like a second heart.
"Someone's hiding there. Someone who remembers what we were. What I'm supposed to be."
Far from the Academy, past valleys shrouded in illusion wards and roads long overgrown, the Obsidian Hand was already moving.
In a stone chamber beneath a ruined cathedral—one that had once served as a Draconis shrine—Virelith stood in front of a cracked mirror, where no reflection answered back.
She didn't need one.
Her armor was woven from nightglass and bone. Her eyes gleamed silver-red, like moonlight on fresh blood. Behind her, seven figures in hooded cloaks knelt, the air around them warping from the sheer force of their presence. Vampires. Warlocks. A changeling with eyes like voids.
She turned toward them slowly, a smile curving her lips like a blade.
"The last of Aurenis's line is awakening," she said. "As I knew he would."
One of the kneeling figures spoke, voice raspy and cold. "Shall we strike him down before he gathers strength?"
"No," Virelith purred. "Let him try."
Her nails traced the rim of a bowl filled with black embers. A shape stirred within it—barely formed, but growing. Breathing.
"The dragons of old clung to prophecy like children to bedtime stories. But I have rewritten the ending. Adrien will lead them... right into our hands."
Meanwhile, Adrien and Kaelen stood at the edge of a cliff where the forest broke into wide, yawning air. In the valley below, mist curled unnaturally—alive with flickers of lightning and low, guttural hums.
"Virellen Hollow," Adrien whispered. "It's under the mist."
"Of course it is," Kaelen muttered. "Why is it never a nice library?"
Adrien adjusted the Gem against his chest and took a deep breath.
Then he stepped off the cliff.
He fell not into rock or sky—but into a memory.
For a heartbeat, the world folded.
He stood in the same place—but the sky was clearer, and towers floated in the distance. Ghosts of the past. Dragons wheeled above, transparent and immense.
And in the mist ahead stood a figure.
Not a vision.
Not a dream.
A girl—no older than him, with white-gold hair braided in runes and eyes that shimmered like burning coals.
She held something in her hands—a cracked egg, pulsing with light.
Her voice cut through time like thunder through silence.
"You're late."
Adrien staggered back. "Who are you?"
"I'm the one they locked away," she said. "The one your ancestor died to protect."
She stepped closer. The egg in her hands pulsed again, and Adrien felt his Gem answer it—a surge of heat and history. Recognition.
"I'm not a vision. I'm not a ghost," she said softly.
Then her lips curved into a fierce, knowing smile.
"My name is Serai Vael. I was born of fire, sealed in silence, and I've waited centuries for you to wake up."
Adrien's mouth went dry. "You're the egg."
She nodded once.
"And now that I've hatched," Serai said, eyes narrowing as the wind howled behind her, "we're going to take back what was stolen."
The mists split.
Dragons stirred.
The war for the new Draconis had just begun.