Truthfully?
I thought that was the end of my story—the day I'd be etched into the history books as charcoal No. 472, cremated not in honor, but by proximity to a pissed-off, ancient dragon with identity issues.
The moment those glacier-blue eyes locked on to me, my throat went dry, heart flatlined, and life insurance policy metaphorically screamed in terror. But fate, or perhaps whatever cosmic entity enjoys dangling me over cliffs for fun, spared me.
Because I wasn't the dragon's target.
Its gaze passed over me like I was a discarded thread on the hem of its wrath. Instead, it tilted its head upward—its serpentine neck arching like it was pulling power from the very planet—and roared.
And then it unleashed hell.
A beam of pure white light—no, not fire, not mana, not any element I could name—shot from its open maw and vaporized the ceiling. No resistance. Just incineration.
