It came back to her like smoke rising from old ash. She had been barely more than a girl when the flames came to claim everything.
Not fire from a hearth, nor the kind told in bedtime tales. It was a fire of judgment — of fear disguised as justice. She stood atop the hill beyond the village, clutching her mother's hand, both of them watching as their home was reduced to cinders.
Below, the screaming had stopped. The so-called heretics — those accused of sorcery and black magic — were already burning.
Men in iron-plated armor dragged the rest from their homes — women who healed with herbs, men who dreamed too loudly, old ones who whispered to the wind. They were accused of black magic, of consorting with forgotten gods. Of crimes as vague as breathing the wrong way.
Witch, they called them. Blight-born. Cursed of the root and sky. And behind it all, a man on horseback — young, regal, with the sharp eyes of one born to rule. He wore a thick fur-lined mantle draped over his shoulders, the kind worn by lords of colder realms. His cloak bore the sigil of a mountain stag, its antlers dark against a silver field. He wore no crown, no gold — yet carried himself with the certainty of nobility. His voice — clear, cold, commanding — cut through the chaos like a blade. The knights obeyed him without hesitation.
The girl turned to her mother, shaking, silent.
Her mother knelt beside her. Her hands smelled of rosemary and smoke. There were tears in her eyes, but her voice did not tremble.
"Never forget where you came from," she whispered. "Not the earth, not the wind, not the fire. They'll tell you it's all lies, that the old ways were never real… but the truth knows how to wait. And one day, the world will remember."
The flames below reached higher. The screams returned. The girl did not cry. She only watched — as her aunts, her cousins, her elders were swallowed whole by fire, and the sky filled with ash.
From behind a rock, a soldier spotted them. The mother stood and stepped between him and her daughter. She tore the crimson robe from her own shoulders and wrapped it around the girl, hoping the deep red fabric would help her vanish into the darkness — to become nothing more than a shadow in the night. There was no time for anything else.
"Run," she said. "Run and do not stop."
The girl did. She did not look back.
Back In the present. The halls of Albareen stretched in long, echoing silence, gilded with dust and faint torchlight. The woman in crimson walked without sound, her steps measured but unrelenting. Her robes trailed behind her like dark flame, and eight robed figures followed — silent sentinels, their eyes hidden beneath hoods, their feet in perfect rhythm.
The weight of their presence pressed on the corridor, like the air itself resisted their passage. But still, they moved forward — toward something known only to her.
The floor beneath them trembled faintly, just a ripple, subtle enough to go unnoticed. But she felt it.
She slowed only for a heartbeat, eyes narrowing. Then her lips curled slightly — not in joy, but in recognition, as if the tremor beneath her feet stirred a long-dormant thread deep in her blood. It was not merely sound, not mere movement — but resonance. Something out there awakened something inside her, and for the first time in years, she felt more than memory. She felt presence.
Her voice barely stirred the air, no louder than the rustle of fabric. Beneath her ribs, something ancient stirred — not memory, but something keener. She felt it through the stone, in the way the air tightened. Her gaze fixed ahead.
Once filled with the soft rustle of leaves and the quiet songs of fountains, the garden pavilion was no longer a place of peace.
Ser Kael stood in the middle of it, blood on his cheek, breath heaving in his chest. His sword hung low, slick with red. Around him, the once-beautiful courtyard lay shattered — broken stone, upturned benches, and the fallen bodies of the robed assailants.
The wind stirred the scent of blood and crushed flowers. Kael's eyes darted left and right, his body still braced for attack.
"Elarya…?" he called out. Nothing. No sign of her. No crimson robe. She was gone.
No time to linger. His hand clenched tighter around the hilt of his sword, and he turned sharply, He turned and ran from the ruined garden, his boots pounding against the stone paths slick with blood and fallen petals. There was no time for hesitation — not when Elarya and Sulien were still unaccounted for. He had to find them, wherever they were. He had to.
Beneath the villa, hidden within an old storage vault sealed off from recent renovations, Yasri huddled against a wall, her breath shallow. One arm clutched Sulien to her chest, the other bent awkwardly against her side, broken from the fall. Her back pressed to the cold limestone. Crates towered around her, casting deep shadows.
The baby dragons clung to her shoulders, scales and wings trembling in fear. One of them let out a chirp — soft, high-pitched, terrified.
Yasri shut her eyes. "Please... hush, little one. Just a little longer."
Too late.
Above them, something shifted — soft at first, like the weight of breath against a door. The crates groaned as pressure mounted, and a cloth rustled loose, tugged by unseen hands or fate itself. Then came the crack of daylight, sudden and merciless, spilling down like judgment into the dark.
Three robed men stared down into the hollow, eyes gleaming with cruel intent. One stepped forward, bracing himself on the ledge, then dropped in with a grunt — arms out, ready to seize whatever he could. His hands reached not just for the child, but for the power they believed was hidden in him.
Yasri screamed. "DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!"
She surged upward, punching the nearest man across the face with all the strength she had left. He staggered. Another grabbed her by the braid and threw her down. Her body hit stone. Her grip on Sulien never loosened.
A third man raised a fist and struck her across the face. Her vision sparked.
Sulien saw everything.
The child didn't cry. He couldn't. His body was frozen — not in fear, but in something deeper.
Inside, thoughts flickered.
He saw Yasri strike with what little strength she had, choosing to shield him and the dragons instead of escaping. He saw her body crumble under fists meant to kill. And something inside him surged — not just fury, a pain too sharp.
"She could've left. She should've run. But she didn't. Not for me."
He wasn't just watching. He felt a surge swell inside his tiny frame — not fear, but something primal. Something not born of man, but of dragon. His limbs trembled, his throat burned. It was instinct, raw and furious. A call deep in his blood that screamed to protect, to survive, to burn.
He didn't understand it, couldn't name it. But it moved through him like breath through flame — undeniable and wild.
"Why do you keep fighting?" the thought came, not quite his own. "Why risk your life for something not even meant to be human?"
His fists curled. Heat climbed up his throat.
"And you—" his gaze snapped to the man who struck her, " you think you can just hurt her and take us? Try it. I dare you."
His tail flickering. More heat builds up in his throat.
One of the men moved toward him. "Gods, what is this thing?" he sneered, eyes narrowing at Sulien's form — studded horns, scales shimmering faintly along his arms, and a tail coiled beside him. "That Vyrmyr bitch really bore this freak? What the hell did she let out into the world?" He reached out, greed and revulsion twisting his face.
The second man's eyes widened. "He's glowing." His voice wavered, laced with something he couldn't name — a crawling dread. The air around the child shimmered with rising heat, and an invisible pressure curled into his chest like a warning. His instincts screamed. Every part of him said run. He reached toward his companion as if to pull him back—
—but Sulien's mouth opened first.
And the fire came. And a thread of fire spilled forth.
The flame wasn't large, but it was real. Blue, searing, it caught the man's hood, his robes, his skin — the screams that followed were enough to silence the others.
One of them turned to flee.
But Sulien drew another breath. This time, the fire roared. The baby dragons shrieked with him, wings flaring.
The vault filled with light. Kael burst through the door of Elarya's chambers, calling her name—only to find it empty.
Then came the blast.
A shudder rocked the floor, dust shaking loose from the beams above. Blue light bled through the far window, sudden and bright. Kael rushed to it, yanking the shutters open.
Across the villa, a building swelled with fire — unnatural and blue, smoke coiling high into the sky.
His heart stopped. The vault. Elarya's son. The dragons.
Without hesitation, Kael turned and vaulted over the balcony railing. His boots struck the stone ledge below with a sharp crack — and he kept running, leaping into the courtyard, sword drawn. Toward the fire. Toward them.
The woman in crimson froze mid-step as the explosion rocked the hallway. The tremor struck hard — not just through stone, but through her. She stiffened, eyes darting upward.
She inhaled sharply.
"That power..." she breathed, eyes alight. "It wasn't imagined."
A slow smile crept across her lips — not joy, but something ravenous.
"He's real," she whispered, the words laced with reverence and danger. She turned abruptly, crimson robes snapping like banners in the wind. Her voice sliced the silence.
"We move. Now."
The others obeyed at once, falling in line behind her, swift and silent. But even as they moved, her expression lingered on something unseen ahead — as if already tasting the fire waiting for her.
Elarya sat curled in the farthest corner of the vast, lightless space — Just cold stone beneath her and an aching stillness around. Her knees were drawn tightly to her chest, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold together something splintered. A pale beam of light streamed from above, unwavering, illuminating her fully — revealing the dust clinging to her tattered gown, the salt trails dried on her cheeks, the shadowed weight in her gaze.
There was nothing else. No doors, no sound, no sense of direction — only that unyielding shaft of light and the void pressing in from all sides.
She'd stopped crying hours ago. Or was it minutes? Time had no meaning here. Her voice was hoarse from screaming, her fists raw from pounding at walls that didn't exist.
And then —
A sound. Muffled, distant, but real. An explosion.
The earth beneath her shifted. A tremor, faint but undeniable, passed through her body like a ripple.
Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. That had to be them. That had to be her children. She uncurled herself slowly, legs trembling as she rose. Her body protested, every muscle raw, her lungs tight with exhaustion. But she stood.
She looked up into the unwavering light, eyes brimming again with tears — not of sorrow now, but of hope igniting into resolve.
She stepped into the light, its warmth coating her like armor. For the first time since she'd been dragged into this place, she felt something solid — not just beneath her feet, but within her chest.
Her gaze swept upward, following the beam's path to where it vanished into the heights above. And then she saw it — the wall, not smooth after all, but laid brick by brick, ancient and weathered.
Elarya approached, running her hand over the rough edge of the stone wall. It was old, crumbling in places, with narrow ridges between bricks just wide enough for a desperate handhold. Her fingers trembled, but she grasped the first ledge with a fierce, shaking determination. This would be her way out — it had to be.
"I swore I'd never lose you again," she whispered, voice cracked but burning with fierce, trembling resolve.
She turned her face upward, where the shaft of light poured down like a silent beacon. It struck the floor around her in a pale circle — the only illumination in the vast dark. Her limbs shook as she stepped into it, as if the warmth could burn through her despair. She didn't know if it would lead her out. She only knew she couldn't stay still. Not while her children were out there, not while the world threatened to take them from her again
She reached up. Her fingers caught the first ledge.
And she climbed.
To Sulien. To the dragons. To the flame born of her blood.
And to the ones foolish enough to touch them.