The sky burned Crimson the night the dragons returned.
Ashes fell like snow upon the ruined spires of Valenhold, and the wind carried the distant roar of wings that had nor darkened the heavens for a thousand years. Amid the chaos a lone figure stood upon the blackened battlements her armor cracked, her sword wreathed in dying fire.
Ardent of the Crimson Order.
The Dragon Knight.
The Slayer who once swore to destroy all that bore scales.
Yet even now, as the inferno raged below, her gaze was fixed no on the monsters above... but on the woman standing before her.
Lyra's cloak whipped in the storm, pale blue against the red sky. Frost spiraled from her fingertips, melting into steam the instant it touched the ground. Her sliver eyes shimmered not with hatred, but with sorrow.
"You were supposed to protect them, not become the fire that consumed them" Lyra whispered.
Ardent's grip tightened around her blade, the sigil carved into her gauntlet pulsed the mark of her bond with the dragons, searing her flesh with every heartbeat.
"I tried but the fire doesn't ask who it burns" she said, her voice breaking beneath the weight of her own power.
The ground trembled. A shadow swept across the ruins as a colossal dragon descended, its scales glowing like molten glass. Its eyes, glowed ember red mirrored Ardent's own eyes.
The mark on her arm flared. Lyra stepped back in horror as the knight's armor cracked open, revealing veins of light, fire crawling beneath her skin alive and furious.
"Ardent!!"
"Run, before the flames take me too" she said, her voice trembling with something between a plea and a command but Lyra didn't run she stepped closer, her hands finding the edge of Ardent's armor, frost meeting flame, pain meeting warmth.
"If we burn" she whispered "then we burn together and when their hands met, the world erupted ice and fire colliding, the first spark of a bond that would defy gods, kingdoms, and fate itself.