"Tessa, do you copy?" Kaelen's voice cracked as he scrambled back from the pedestal, the shadows still burning behind his eyes. "I found… something. It's alive."
"Alive?" Her tone sharpened. "Kael, talk to me. What do you mean alive?"
He glanced back at the sphere, still pulsing faintly like a dying heart. His throat tightened. "I mean—breathing. Watching. It—chose me."
Static answered, followed by her strained voice: "You're not making sense. Get topside, now."
But his legs wouldn't move. The air in the chamber was charged, thick with heat that wasn't heat, light that wasn't light. Every instinct told him he had crossed into something forbidden. Yet beneath the fear, something else thrummed—a resonance, a pull deep in his bones.
The sphere quivered. Shadows spilled across the floor, stretching toward him like tendrils. He raised his rifle, trembling.
"Stay back," he warned, though part of him knew it wasn't a threat the rifle could stop.
The shadows paused, then curled upward, forming the outline of a head—elongated, draconic. Its mouth opened, and though no sound filled the air, Kaelen heard a voice inside him.
You hear me.
His heart stuttered. "Gods above…"
You carry flame. Forgotten flame.
Kaelen staggered back. "I'm no carrier. The war burned everything I had."
The dragon's eyes—twin pools of shadow-fire—narrowed. Not burned. Buried. You are the ember.
The sphere pulsed again, and heat flared in Kaelen's chest. He gasped, clutching at his sternum as a searing glow spread beneath his skin. For a terrifying instant, he thought he was dying. But then the fire steadied, sinking into him like it had always been there, waiting.
"Kael!" Tessa's voice cracked over comms, panicked. "Your vitals just spiked off the charts—what's happening?"
He forced breath into his lungs. "It's… inside me. Gods, Tess, I think it's the dragon."
There was a long pause. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper: "…Get out. Now. Before the Empire senses it."
At that, dread stabbed through him. She was right. If the Empire caught even a whisper of this, they would come with fleets, with purges, with firestorms that would make the last war look merciful.
The glyphs around the chamber flickered, responding to the dragon's awakening. The walls groaned as if the ruin itself were remembering its purpose. Kaelen stumbled toward the exit, his veins still burning with stolen fire.
As he climbed the rubble, the dragon's whisper followed him: You are chosen. Bound. Flightless, but not for long.
---
By the time Kaelen emerged into the night air, Tessa's ship was already descending through the ash clouds. The sleek black hull of the Starling gleamed under the fractured moons, engines whining as she set it down in the plaza.
The cockpit hatch hissed open, and Tessa leapt out, her red scarf whipping in the wind. She was smaller than him, wiry but quick, with eyes like stormlight—bright, sharp, impossible to ignore. The sight of her steadied him, though she wore that look he hated: half fury, half fear.
"Kaelen Veyra," she snapped, storming toward him. "Do you ever listen when I tell you to wait?"
He tried to grin, but it faltered. "Would you believe me if I said this time was worth it?"
Her gaze flicked to the scorch marks on his chest armor, then to the faint glow still pulsing under his skin. Her expression froze. "Oh no. Tell me you didn't."
"I didn't try to," he said quickly. "It found me."
She grabbed his wrist, fingers pressing hard against his pulse. Her touch was grounding, electric. "Kael… do you have any idea what you've done? If the Empire detects that energy signature—"
"They'll come," he finished, his throat dry. "I know."
For a moment, they stood in silence, the ruined city looming around them. The wind howled through broken towers, carrying with it the distant echo of war that had never truly ended.
Then Tessa muttered something sharp under her breath and shoved him toward the Starling. "Fine. We're leaving. Now. Before your new friend gets us both killed."
---
Inside the cockpit, Kaelen collapsed into the co-pilot's seat, his pulse still hammering. The Starling's controls hummed under Tessa's hands as she angled them toward the stars.
"Where do we even go?" he asked.
"Off-world," she replied curtly. "Somewhere shielded. I know a few places."
Kaelen leaned back, staring at the stars as the ship lifted. He wanted to believe distance would keep them safe, but the dragon's voice curled in his thoughts like smoke.
No shield holds against flame. No chain binds shadow. They will come.
He clenched his fists. "Then we fight."
Tessa shot him a sharp look. "Fight? Against the Empire? Don't be stupid. We can barely scrape together fuel and food as it is—"
"This isn't just about us, Tess." His voice shook. "If the dragon is real, if it's chosen me—then maybe the stories were true. Maybe it can burn them down."
Her eyes softened for a flicker of a second, then hardened again. "Or maybe it'll burn you first. Did you think of that?"
He had. Gods, he had. But the fire in his chest told him it was already too late.
He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of her hand steadying the ship, the warmth of her presence beside him. Whatever came next—empire fleets, dragon fire, or both—he knew one thing: he didn't want to face it without her.
And perhaps, though he wouldn't say it aloud, the dragon didn't either.
---
Far above, beyond the planet's broken rings, an Imperial sensor array blinked awake. A surge of ancient energy had flared from the ruins below—brief, but undeniable.
Within minutes, a message streaked across the void to the capital:
SUBJECT: SHADOW DRAGON. SIGNAL CONFIRMED.
And in the silence of space, the hunters began to move.