The Departure
They left Hearthholm under cover of darkness, three riders heading west while the city slept.
Lioran rode in the center, his body wrapped in multiple cloaks to hide the glow that leaked from beneath his skin. Every few minutes, another hairline fracture of light appeared—his chest looked like cracked porcelain barely holding together.
Renn rode to his left, the young man's prematurely aged face grim with determination.
Ice crystals formed in his horse's mane where his hands touched the reins, an unconscious manifestation of the Core he'd absorbed.
And Sage rode ahead, their form seeming to shift in the moonlight—sometimes appearing tall, sometimes short, sometimes barely there at all. Whatever this being was, it wasn't entirely human.
"How far to the Sundered Peaks?" Renn asked, breaking hours of silence.
"Three days' hard ride if we don't stop," Sage replied without turning. "Two days if we kill the horses. Your choice, Dragon Lord—do we have time for mercy to beasts of burden?"
Lioran felt another crack inside, felt fire and ice warring in his chest. "Two days. We push hard."
Behind them, Hearthholm's lights faded into the distance. Lioran wondered if he'd ever see the city again, if he'd ever stand before the Continental Council, if any of this desperate gambit would matter.
Through the Soul Binding—stretched thin across hundreds of miles—he felt Evelina's distant presence. Worry. Fear. But also trust. She believed he could survive this.
He hoped she was right.
...
The First Night
They rode through darkness, stopping only when the horses literally couldn't continue. Sage led them to a ruin that looked ancient even by continental standards—stone pillars carved with symbols in no language Lioran recognized.
"Rest here," Sage commanded. "The horses need two hours. You need more, but you won't get it."
Lioran dismounted, his legs nearly buckling. The constant strain of holding the ember together was exhausting in ways physical exertion never could be. He sat heavily against one of the pillars, feeling its cold stone against his burning back.
Renn built a small fire—regular fire, not magic—and began preparing the meager rations they'd brought. "So," he said to Sage, "are you going to tell us what you actually are? Because human is clearly not the full answer."
Sage smiled, an expression that seemed to involve more teeth than it should.
"Observant. I am... let's say I'm what happens when someone lives too long and sees too much. Human once, yes. But that was many lifetimes ago."
"You said you helped create the Dragon Cores," Lioran said. "How? Why?"
"Ah, the relevant questions." Sage settled cross-legged on the ground with unnatural grace. "The original Dragon Lord—Draven Azharel—he was powerful but mortal. When he challenged the Eternal Dragon King, he knew he couldn't win through strength alone. So he made a deal."
"With who?"
"With entities that exist between worlds. Beings that feed on potential and possibility.
They offered him power—the ability to absorb the essence of defeated dragons, to forge that essence into crystallized Cores that could be wielded by those strong enough to bear them." Sage's eyes reflected firelight oddly. "Five Cores total, each representing a fundamental force. Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, and Void."
"And the cost?" Renn asked quietly.
"The cost is always the same with such deals: your humanity. Each Core absorbed brings more power and less... person. Draven claimed all five Cores eventually.
Became the Dragon Lord of legend, nearly killed the Eternal Dragon King, conquered half the continent." Sage paused. "And then went completely insane from the conflicting forces inside him, burned his own empire to ash, and died alone, hated by everyone who'd once followed him."
Lioran felt cold despite the fire. "So I'm doomed. Is that what you're telling me?"
"Doomed? No. Challenged? Absolutely." Sage leaned forward. "Draven's mistake was thinking he could master all five Cores, could balance them through will alone. He was wrong. But you—" they gestured at Lioran and Renn, "—you're trying something different. Two people, two Cores, connected through your bond. That's never been attempted."
"The Soul Binding with Evelina," Lioran said. "That's three people, three Cores potentially."
"Exactly. If you can create a network—multiple people each bearing one Core, all connected through bonds of trust and shared purpose—you might be able to wield the Cores' power without succumbing to their madness." Sage's smile was sharp. "Or you might explode spectacularly and kill everyone within a mile. The uncertainty is what makes it interesting."
"Comforting," Renn muttered.
Another crack. Larger this time. Lioran gasped, clutching his chest as fire leaked through his fingers. Not metaphorical—actual flames dripping like liquid, burning nothing but showing how unstable he'd become.
Sage moved quickly, pressing cold hands against Lioran's chest. Their touch was ice and void and something else, something that made the ember recoil. "Hold on. We're not there yet. You die before we reach the Peaks, this whole journey is wasted."
"Why do you care?" Lioran gasped. "What's your stake in this?"
"Let's just say I have unfinished business with the Eternal Dragon King. And you, Dragon Lord, might be my best chance at settling accounts." Sage's hands glowed with pale light. "Now shut up and let me stabilize you long enough to finish this ride."
...
The Second Day
Dawn found them riding again, horses exhausted but driven onward by Sage's inhuman determination.
The landscape changed as they rode west. Cultivated farmland gave way to wild forests, then to rocky badlands, then to something worse—terrain that looked actively hostile to life. Trees grew twisted and black. Water ran the wrong color. The sky itself seemed darker here, as if light struggled to penetrate.
"The Sundered Peaks' influence," Sage explained. "When the Dragon Lord and Dragon King fought here, their battle scarred the land so deeply it never recovered. Reality is... thin here. Fragile."
"Comforting," Renn said, echoing his previous sarcasm.
They passed ruins that predated any human civilization Lioran knew. Massive structures of stone and metal, fused together by heat that no forge could produce.
Dragon bones—real ones, not metaphorical—jutted from the earth like grotesque monuments.
"This is where they fell," Sage said, gesturing at the bones. "Dragons who fought for one side or the other. Their essence was harvested to create the Cores. Their sacrifice became weapons."
"That's horrific," Renn said.
"That's war." Sage didn't sound bothered. "Though I suppose it's also why the Cores are so unstable. They're not just power—they're the crystallized souls of beings that died screaming. That kind of trauma doesn't just disappear."
Lioran felt the ember respond to the landscape, recognizing this place on some deep level. Memory leaked through—not his memory, but Draven's. The original Dragon Lord had walked this ground, had killed here, had claimed power that would eventually destroy him.
Don't make my mistakes, something whispered. Not Sage. Not Evelina through the Soul Binding. Something older, embedded in the land itself. Fire alone is death. But fire with ice, with lightning, with earth, with void—that's transformation.
"Did you hear that?" Lioran asked.
"The whispers?" Sage nodded. "The Sundered Peaks remember. All that death, all that power—it left echoes. The closer we get to the heart of the battlefield, the louder they'll become. Try not to listen too closely. Some of those echoes will tell you lies."
By midday, they reached the edge of what Sage called the Deadzone—a circle perhaps twenty miles across where absolutely nothing lived. No plants, no insects, no bacteria.
Just bare rock, scorched black, radiating a heat that had nothing to do with the sun.
"The epicenter," Sage said. "Where the Dragon King's final attack struck the Dragon Lord. Where Draven should have died but somehow survived long enough to scatter the Cores and seal the King beneath the mountain." They turned to Lioran. "And where you'll either stabilize or detonate. Shall we?"
Lioran looked at Renn. "You don't have to come further. This is my problem."
"We're connected now," Renn said, ice crystallizing around his hands. "Your fire, my ice. If you're going to explode, I'm the only one who might be able to contain it. So stop being noble and let's finish this."
They rode into the Deadzone, three figures approaching the heart of ancient catastrophe.
The horses died within the first mile—not from exhaustion, but from the ambient power that saturated the air. They simply stopped, fell, and didn't move again. Too much concentrated magic, too much residual destruction.
They walked the rest of the way.
...
The Heart of Ruin
At the center of the Deadzone stood what remained of a mountain.
It had been sheared in half by unimaginable force, the top half simply gone, leaving a plateau that looked across miles of devastation. And at the center of that plateau was a crater, perfectly circular, glowing with faint red and black light.
"There," Sage said. "That's where it happened. Where the Dragon King fell. Where the Dragon Lord fractured the Cores from whole beings into portable weapons."
Lioran approached the edge of the crater, feeling the ember scream in recognition and terror. This place was death. This place was transformation. This place was where everything he feared would come true.
Another crack. Larger. His chest split visibly, light pouring out, the ember finally losing its battle to stay contained.
"Now or never," Sage said. "Into the crater. Let the residual power interact with what's breaking inside you. It'll either force stabilization or complete the destruction. Either way, you'll have your answer."
Renn grabbed Lioran's arm, ice meeting fire in sparks of steam. "Together. Whatever happens."
They descended into the crater, into the place where Dragon Lords were born and died.
And at the bottom, something ancient stirred.
Not awake. Not yet.
But aware.
The Eternal Dragon King felt their presence, felt fire and ice descending into its prison.
And deep beneath the shattered mountain, red eyes opened in darkness.
Welcome home, a voice like grinding continents rumbled. Let's finish what we started, little lord.
The ember shattered completely.
And Lioran screamed as transformation began.