Serina's POV
I chose to run.
"Through the back!" I grabbed Finn's hand and yanked him toward the warehouse's rear exit. "Kael, buy us time!"
"Gladly." His smile was all teeth and danger.
The front door exploded inward just as we burst through the back. I didn't look behind us, but I heard it—the roar of dragon fire, screams of guards, Uncle Castor's voice shrieking orders. Then Kael was beside us, moving so fast he was almost a blur.
"Keep running," he commanded. "Don't stop for anything."
We ran.
Through alleys. Over fences. Down streets I'd known my whole life but now felt like mazes designed to trap us. Behind us, boots pounded. Magic crackled. Voices shouted, getting closer.
"There! The girl and the boy!"
My lungs burned. Finn stumbled, and I caught him. He was healed but still weak, and this chase was draining him fast.
"I can't—" he gasped. "Rina, I can't keep—"
Kael scooped him up without slowing down. "Save your breath. Both of you."
We burst into the slum market just as dawn broke.
Big mistake.
The market was packed with early morning shoppers—people who barely had enough money for bread, desperately searching for deals. And now we'd led Magic Council guards straight to them.
"Clear out!" a guard's voice boomed. "By order of the Council, everyone leave immediately!"
Panic erupted. People screamed and scattered. Stalls overturned, spilling vegetables and fish across the muddy ground. Children cried. Old folks fell trying to escape.
Guilt twisted in my stomach. These were my people. My neighbors. And I'd brought danger right to them.
"Split up," Kael said quietly, setting Finn down. "They're looking for all three of us together. Separately, we're harder to track."
"No!" Finn grabbed my arm. "I'm not leaving you!"
"You have to." I hugged him quickly, fiercely. "Find Mrs. Chen's house. The blue door with the broken step. Hide there until I come for you."
"But—"
"GO!" I pushed him toward a side street.
He ran, disappearing into the chaos. Good. At least he'd be safe.
Kael started to move in another direction, but I caught his sleeve. "Don't kill anyone," I said. "Please. They're just following orders."
Those red eyes studied me. "Your mercy will get you killed."
"Maybe. But I won't become a murderer to survive."
Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe? Respect? It vanished too quickly to tell. "Fine. Non-lethal it is." He paused. "Try not to die while I'm being merciful."
Then he was gone, melting into the crowd like smoke.
I pulled my hood up and tried to blend in with the fleeing shoppers. Just another scared girl running from guards. Nothing special. Nothing worth—
"THERE!" A woman's voice cut through the noise like a knife. "The one in the brown cloak! She has the mark!"
My blood turned to ice.
I spun and saw her—a guard in white and gold, pointing directly at me. Where my hood had slipped, the dragon mark on my collarbone was visible. Glowing. Impossible to miss.
Stupid, stupid, STUPID!
I ran.
"Stop! By order of the Magic Council!"
Yeah, right. Because that's ever worked on someone running for their life.
I dodged through the market, jumping over overturned carts and sliding under tables. Behind me, boots thundered. Magic blasted past my head—not fire, thank the gods, but stunning spells that made the air shimmer and crack.
One hit the ground beside me. The cobblestones exploded into dust, and I felt the shockwave through my bones.
They weren't trying to stun me. They were trying to kill me.
Terror gave me speed I didn't know I had. I vaulted over a fence, squeezed through a gap between buildings so narrow I scraped both shoulders, and came out in an alley I'd used a hundred times for escapes.
Dead end.
No. No, no, NO!
I spun around. Five guards blocked the alley entrance, moving toward me with weapons drawn and magic glowing in their hands.
"Nowhere to run now, girl," one said. He was older, with a scar across his jaw and eyes like chips of ice. "Make this easy. Come quietly, and maybe the Council will be merciful."
"Liar," I spat. "You just tried to blow my head off!"
"Resisting arrest justifies lethal force." He smiled, and it was the cruelest thing I'd ever seen. "So really, you killed yourself."
Magic gathered in his palm—a sphere of white light that hummed with deadly power. The other guards readied their own spells. Five against one. No escape route. No Kael.
Just me and the dragon mark burning on my chest like it was trying to claw its way out.
The guard pulled his arm back to throw the killing spell.
And something inside me broke.
Not my spirit. Not my will. Something deeper. Some wall I'd built between myself and the dragon power, keeping it locked away because I was afraid of what it might do.
That wall shattered.
Red fire exploded from my body.
Not a wave this time. A storm. Flames erupted everywhere—from my hands, my chest, the mark itself. They roared up the alley walls, turning the narrow space into a tunnel of living fire.
The guards screamed and threw up shields. Their defensive magic held, barely. But the intensity of the heat drove them backward, step by step.
"She's awakening!" one shouted. "Call for backup! Call for—"
I didn't let him finish.
I ran forward—actually into the flames—and they parted for me like water. They didn't burn. They welcomed me, wrapping around my body like a second skin. For the first time since this nightmare started, I felt the dragon power not as something foreign, but as mine.
The guards' eyes widened in terror.
Good.
I burst through their line in an explosion of crimson light. They tried to grab me, but touching my fire-covered body sent them flying backward. I didn't stop. Didn't slow. Just ran with everything I had.
The flames died as quickly as they'd come, leaving me gasping and dizzy. But I'd made it out of the alley. Now I just had to—
A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.
I spun, fire gathering in my palm, ready to—
"Easy!" Kael's voice cut through my panic. "It's me."
I sagged with relief so intense my knees almost buckled. "You're okay. Thank the gods, you're—"
"We need to move. Now." His face was grim. "This isn't just local guards anymore. I felt it—a high-level mage just arrived. Someone powerful."
"How powerful?"
"Powerful enough to recognize what you are." He pulled me into a side street, moving fast. "And powerful enough to try taking you for themselves."
We ran through the slums, taking routes I didn't even know existed. Kael moved with perfect certainty, like he'd mapped the entire district in the few hours we'd been here. Which, knowing him, he probably had.
We finally stopped in an abandoned building—not a warehouse this time, but an old temple that had been boarded up for years. Kael muttered something in that ancient language, and the boards sealing the door simply fell away.
Inside, it was dark and smelled like dust and forgotten prayers. But it felt safe. Hidden.
Finn was already there, sitting on a broken pew. He jumped up when he saw us. "You're alive!"
"Barely," I muttered, hugging him.
Kael moved to the temple's cracked windows, watching the streets below. His shoulders were tight with tension.
"They'll search every building eventually," he said. "We bought ourselves hours at most. Maybe less."
"So what do we do?" I asked. "Keep running forever?"
"No." He turned to face me, and his expression was deadly serious. "Running won't work anymore. They know what you are. They know where you live. And they know you're bonded to me."
"I don't understand. Why do they care so much?" My hands clenched into fists. "I'm just a slum girl! I'm nobody!"
"You were nobody." Kael crossed the temple in three strides and grabbed my hand, pressing it against his chest. I felt his heartbeat—steady, slow, ancient. "Now you're bonded to the most dangerous being in this kingdom. You carry dragon power in human form. Do you know how rare that is? How valuable?"
"Valuable?" Finn squeaked. "Like... money valuable?"
"Worse." Kael's eyes burned in the darkness. "Power valuable. Whoever controls Serina controls me. Whoever controls me controls enough destructive force to level cities, topple kingdoms, reshape the world."
The weight of those words crushed down on me. "I don't want to reshape anything. I just wanted to save Finn."
"I know." Kael's voice gentled slightly. "But what you want doesn't matter to them. The Magic Council—the nobles—the people who rule this kingdom through fear and force—they'll never let you be free. Not anymore."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying from this moment on, we're both being hunted." He released my hand. "Every bounty hunter, every ambitious mage, every noble who wants power will come for you. They'll use your brother as leverage. They'll burn the slums to find you. They'll turn this entire kingdom upside down until they have you in chains."
Horror crawled up my spine. "That's insane."
"That's humans." His smile was bitter. "They always destroy what they can't control."
Finn moved closer to me, trembling. "So what do we do? How do we fight them all?"
"We don't," I said quietly, an idea forming. "We can't fight the whole kingdom. But maybe... maybe we don't have to."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "Explain."
"You said they want to control me because I'm bonded to you, right? Because I have power they can use?" My mind raced. "So what if we take away that advantage? What if I learn to control the dragon power so completely that nobody can use me as a weapon?"
"That takes years. You have months at best."
"Then we do it faster." I looked him straight in those burning eyes. "You said dragon magic responds to emotion. Well, I'm angry enough to burn down the world right now. Let's use that."
For a long moment, Kael just stared at me. Then, slowly, he smiled. Really smiled—not the cold, cruel expression from before, but something genuine.
"You're insane," he said. "Completely, magnificently insane."
"I'll take that as a yes."
"It's a terrible plan. The training will probably kill you. And even if you survive, we'll still have every mage in the kingdom hunting us."
"So basically," I said dryly, "no change from now."
He laughed—actually laughed, a sound like distant thunder. "No change indeed."
Finn tugged on my sleeve. "Rina? I'm scared."
I pulled him close. "Me too, dummy. Me too."
Outside, we heard voices. Boots on stone. Magic crackling as the search parties swept through the slums, getting closer to our hiding place.
Kael's smile faded. "They're coming faster than I expected."
"How long do we have?"
"Minutes. Maybe an hour if we're lucky."
I looked down at my hands. The same hands that had wielded dragon fire just minutes ago. The same hands that had been empty and powerless my entire life.
Not anymore.
"Then let's not waste time," I said. "Start teaching me. Right now."
"Right now?" Kael looked incredulous. "There are guards literally surrounding this building, and you want to practice magic?"
"I want to learn how to fight." I met his eyes. "Because next time they find us, I'm not running. I'm not hiding. And I'm not letting them take anyone I love."
The dragon mark on my chest pulsed with heat.
Kael studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded. "Very well. But understand this, Serina—once we start, there's no going back. You'll learn to wield power that can destroy armies. And the kingdom will fear you for it."
"Good," I said, and meant it. "Let them fear. I'm done being afraid."
Finn gasped suddenly, pointing at the temple door.
It was glowing. Red light traced along the edges—magical wards activating.
"They found us," Kael said softly.
And then the door exploded inward.
But instead of guards, a single figure stood in the entrance. A woman in elegant robes the color of ice, her white hair pulled back in a severe bun. Power radiated from her like winter wind.
When she smiled, it was colder than any expression Kael had ever worn.
"Hello, little dragon vessel," she purred. "I've been looking everywhere for you."