Elara's POV
The silver mark on my chest burns like ice and fire all at once.
I press my hand against it, feeling the dragon-shaped scar pulse beneath my fingers. Around me, Catryn's guards spread out in a circle, their weapons glowing with death magic. The impossible black-silver flames still dance between us, keeping them back—but for how long?
"What kind of trick is this?" Catryn hisses, her beautiful face twisted with rage. "No healer should have power like that!"
I have no answer because I don't understand it either. One moment I was about to die. The next, the ground split open and these strange flames appeared. And this mark—this dragon claw burning over my heart—it wasn't here before.
The flames flicker. They're dying.
"The magic is fading," one of the guards calls out. "We can take her in thirty seconds."
My mind races. If they capture me now, the children are doomed. No one will help them. No one will even try. I'll die in a cell, and three days from now, Miko and Sara and all the others will burn in the city square while people cheer.
The flames sink lower. Twenty seconds.
I look at the Scorched Wastes glowing red in the distance. The Cage of Chains is out there somewhere, three days' journey through a nightmare of fire and poison. They say the Calamity Dragon lives there. They say he grants wishes if you're desperate enough to offer yourself.
But how can I reach him if I'm captured? How can I save anyone if I'm dead?
The flames are almost gone. Ten seconds.
"Ready weapons!" Catryn shouts.
I make my choice.
I run.
Not toward the wasteland—that's what they expect. Instead, I sprint toward the narrow alley between two crumbling buildings. It's a path I know well from years of thieving. The guards are bigger, stronger, but I'm faster in tight spaces.
"After her!" Catryn screams.
I hear their boots pounding behind me as I twist through the maze of the Husklands. Left at the broken fountain. Right past the old baker's shop. Through the gap in the fence that's just wide enough for someone my size. My lungs burn. My legs ache. But I don't stop.
The dragon mark pulses again, and suddenly I feel something—a pull, like an invisible rope tugging at my heart. It's pointing me toward the Scorched Wastes. Toward the dragon.
He knows I'm coming, I think again. But how?
I burst out onto the main street and crash straight into someone.
We both go down hard. I roll to my feet, ready to run again—then I see who I hit.
Master Aldric. The kingdom's most powerful healer. He's old, maybe seventy, with kind eyes and gentle hands. He's also the only person who ever said my magic wasn't useless.
"Elara?" He looks confused. "Why are you—"
"Please!" I grab his arm. "The children are going to die! Red Fever is killing them, and Theron ordered all the orphans executed, and I need help—"
"Mercy Thief!" A guard's shout echoes down the street. "We see you!"
Master Aldric's expression changes as he understands. He pulls me into the doorway of his shop, pressing us both against the wall. When the guards thunder past, he doesn't give me away.
"Inside," he whispers. "Quickly."
His shop smells like herbs and hope. I've stolen from here before—always leaving payment when I could, always taking only what I needed. He knows. He's always known. But he never stopped me.
"Tell me everything," he says, locking the door.
So I do. The execution order. Miko's fever. My desperate plan to find the Calamity Dragon. Even the strange mark on my chest that appeared when I thought about the Cage of Chains.
Master Aldric listens to it all. When I finish, his face is grave.
"I have medicine for Red Fever," he says. "Enough for all your children."
My heart leaps. "Really? I can pay, I just need time—"
"No payment needed." He walks to his storage room. "But Elara, there's something you must understand about healing magic."
He returns carrying a wooden box filled with small glass bottles. Each one contains golden liquid that glows softly in the dim light. This medicine costs fifty silver marks per bottle. He's giving me thirty-two bottles. That's sixteen hundred silver marks—more money than I've seen in my entire life.
"Why?" I whisper. "Why would you help me like this?"
"Because you're the last Dragon-Tender bloodline," he says simply. "And because I'm dying."
The world tilts.
"What?"
Master Aldric touches his chest, and I see it—death magic, eating him from the inside out. Someone poisoned him. Someone powerful.
"Lady Catryn discovered I was helping you," he explains. "She gave me three days to live. The same three days your children have." His smile is sad. "I can't save myself, but I can save them. Take the medicine. Save your orphans."
I stare at the box in my hands. This is everything I needed. I can cure Miko. I can cure all of them. The Red Fever won't take any more children from me.
But the execution is still happening. In three days, thirty-two healthy children will burn instead of sick ones. I'll have saved them from disease only to watch them die by fire.
"The execution order stands," I say hollowly. "Medicine won't stop that."
"No," Master Aldric agrees. "Only the dragon can stop that. If the legends are true."
"You believe the legends?"
"I believe desperate times call for impossible choices." He places his wrinkled hand over the mark on my chest. His healing magic—so much stronger than mine—pulses gently. "This is real dragon magic, Elara. He marked you. That means he's already decided something about you."
"But what? Why would a monster care about me?"
"Perhaps he's not the monster we were told he is." Master Aldric pulls out a map and spreads it on his table. "The Scorched Wastes are three days' journey on foot. You'll need supplies, a route that avoids the worst dangers, and something to protect you from the toxic air."
He's helping me go to the dragon. He's helping me choose almost certain death over the small victory of curing a fever.
"I don't understand," I whisper. "If you give me the medicine, the children live for three more days. If I go to the dragon, I might die trying, and they all burn anyway."
"Yes," Master Aldric says. "That's why this is impossible. But answer me this—what happens three days from now if you stay? The children burn. You burn with them for trying to help. Catryn wins. Theron wins. And nothing changes."
He traces a path on the map with his finger.
"But if you go to the dragon—if you somehow convince him to help—then maybe, just maybe, everything changes. Not just for your children. For everyone Theron has hurt. For every person with 'useless' magic who's been thrown away."
"That's crazy," I say. But my hand moves to the dragon mark, feeling it pulse.
"Yes," Master Aldric agrees. "But you're marked by a dragon, child. Nothing about your life is going to make sense anymore."
Someone pounds on the door.
"Aldric! Open up! We're searching for the Mercy Thief!"
Guards.
Master Aldric shoves the medicine box into a bag along with travel supplies. "Back door. There's a horse—not a good one, but fast enough. Head west into the wastes. Trust the mark. It will guide you."
"But you'll be arrested for helping me—"
"I'm dead anyway." He smiles. "Let me die doing something that matters."
The pounding gets louder. They're about to break down the door.
I hug him quickly, this kind old man who believed in me when no one else did. Then I run for the back door.
As I burst outside, I hear Catryn's voice behind me: "Where is she, old man?"
Master Aldric's reply is lost as I vault onto the horse—a scrappy brown mare who looks as tired as I feel. But when I touch her neck, my healing magic flows instinctively. Her exhaustion vanishes. She rears up, suddenly full of fire.
"Run," I tell her. "Run toward the dragon."
We gallop through the Husklands as the sun rises. Behind me, I hear shouts and screams. In my bag, the medicine rattles—I can save them from fever, but not from fire.
The Scorched Wastes loom ahead, red and terrible in the dawn light.
The mark on my chest pulls harder with each step the horse takes. Leading me. Calling me.
Then I hear it—a sound that makes my blood freeze.
Wings. Massive wings beating the air.
I look up and see Catryn hovering above me on a platform of dark magic, ten guards floating beside her.
"Did you really think you could escape?" She laughs. "You're not going anywhere, little healer. Especially not to that dragon."
Magic chains shoot from her hands, wrapping around me and the horse. We crash to the ground. The medicine bottles shatter, golden liquid soaking into the dirt. All that hope, wasted.
Catryn lands beside me, her smile cruel. "Theron wants you alive. He has questions about that mark. But after he's done..." She leans close. "I'm going to make you watch those orphans burn. Every. Single. One."
Rage fills me—pure, burning rage like I've never felt before. The dragon mark explodes with silver light. The chains holding me begin to crack.
"Impossible!" Catryn stumbles backward.
The mark isn't just burning now—it's speaking. Words fill my mind in a voice like thunder and velvet:
"You called for help, little thief. I heard you. Now survive long enough to reach me, and I'll show you what real power looks like."
The chains shatter completely.
But before I can move, Catryn screams something in an ancient language. The ground beneath me turns black. Shadowy hands erupt from the earth, grabbing my arms, my legs, pulling me down into darkness.
"No!" I scream. "The children! I have to—"
The shadows swallow me whole.
Everything goes black.
When I open my eyes, I'm not in the Husklands anymore. I'm somewhere else. Somewhere impossible.
I'm standing inside a cage made of chains. But these chains are different—they're humming with ancient magic, and they're glowing silver-black.
And in front of me, suspended by thousands of burning chains, is the dragon.
Valdris. The Calamity Dragon. The monster from every nightmare.
His eyes open. They burn like molten gold. When he speaks, his voice shakes the entire world:
"Hello, little Dragon-Tender. I've been waiting five hundred years for someone like you to stumble into my cage."