The Rift roared like a wound torn wider, belching rivers of molten light and black fire. From its depths, the Hollow Behemoth heaved itself upward, its body forged from broken obsidian plates and molten marrow. Its eyes burned with voidflame, its jaws dripping rivers of ash.
The ground cracked beneath its weight, and the sky turned crimson.
The Red Flame inside me screamed. It wanted to burst free, to burn not just the Behemoth but the Conclave, Damon, my pack—everyone. My veins blazed until it felt like my skin would split.
I staggered, clutching my chest. The whispers surged again:
"Sahr'ven ossai, veyrak drann, cindra khal oss-ruun…"
("Blood unbound, devour all, crown of ash undone…")
It wanted me broken. It wanted me hollow.
But before the fire could drown me, shadows passed overhead.
The Drakhen Conclave stepped forward—not as silent judges, but as warriors of fire and oath. Vast wings spread around me like a fortress of living flame. Claws sank into the cracked earth, fangs bared at the Behemoth.
At their head stood Veyltharion the Elderflame, his scales a molten lattice of crimson and black. Smoke curled from his fanged maw with every breath. His voice thundered across the Rift, a sound older than nations:
"Vel'thraan oss drakhaal, zeyrith vorr'kaan! Dahlia oss-ruun valthyr drakhen!"
("By flame of dragonblood, we stand as shield! Dahlia is no longer alone!")
The words struck like lightning. The Conclave bowed their heads in unison, wings enclosing me in their fiery circle.
The Behemoth roared back, voidflame surging, as if to deny me even this moment of strength. But I was no longer the girl the Rift sought to hollow. I was the Red Daughter, and now I stood with dragons.
---
The storm above split open as if the sky itself bowed. The Conclave descended in a slow spiral, their wings vast shadows against the burning horizon. Scales shimmered in hues of molten gold, obsidian, and blood-red sapphire as they landed, forming a semi-circle around me, their eyes glowing with the same eternal fire now pulsing in my veins.
Ashareth, the High Flame of the Drakhen, lowered his great head until his horns scraped the stone. His voice was an avalanche wrapped in thunder. "The bond is forged. But will you bear it, Moonblood?"
I felt their fire pressing against me—testing, weighing, demanding truth. My heart threatened to burst under its weight, but I did not flinch. Instead, I inhaled the storm, and the Red Flame roared to answer.
One by one, the dragons sank low in reverence, their claws scraping the ground in rhythmic unison. The earth itself cracked as they chanted, their voices layering into a harmony that shook the bones of the world:
"Sareth'kai drakhen'val… shaor'temar vehl drathai…
Feyrith rae'kor, Dahlia Moon—zhaor un'thel, mor'khai ven."
("We bind flame to flame… blood to soul eternal…
The Fire Crown is yours, Dahlia Moon—by oath unbroken, by death undone.")
The chant tightened around me like a crown of fire-wrought chains. I could feel them, all of them—their burning souls latching into mine. Rivers of flame, thousands of years old, poured through my veins until I thought my body would tear apart.
A cry wrenched from my throat, half-scream, half-song, as the Red Flame surged outward, weaving itself into their firestreams. Instead of consuming me, it bent, bowed, and merged, as if it had always been waiting for this moment.
Ashareth's eyes glowed like twin suns. "It is done. The Oath of Fire is bound."
But even as the circle broke into a reverent silence, I felt the tremor within the flame. A whisper not of dragon or of me—but of something older, darker, buried within the Red Flame itself.
"Vel'khara uthrael…"
("The Flame remembers the void…")
And I knew, with ice lacing my fire, that this oath had awakened something that would not rest quietly.
---
The ashlight parted, and through the smoke a vast shape unfurled—Serathion the Ashwing, wings tipped in molten scarlet, eyes burning with an old sorrow that could silence even fire. His presence bent the chamber, his scales shifting between obsidian shadow and ember-red glow. I knew before his voice ever thundered that this was no councilor, no ally alone—this was my judge, my teacher, my torment.
His gaze seared me in place. "Breathe, child of fractured blood." The command was not spoken but driven through marrow, rattling in the cage of my ribs. "The Red Flame is not a weapon—it is a covenant. You do not hold it. You become it."
I tried to speak, but only sparks tore from my lips. The fire coiled wild in my chest, clawing for freedom, eager to tear skin and bone apart. I dropped to one knee, choking on smoke, and the dragons around us lowered their heads as if to bear witness to my breaking.
Serathion's claws etched symbols into the ashstone floor, each glowing as if blood itself burned through them. His voice cracked the chamber again, this time in words of the old tongue:
"Evrathien ka'shul, drathien vohr—ahnar'kai serath, dohrmuth naahr."
(Bind breath to fire, bind fire to soul—let the red oath burn, but let it not consume.)
I tried to repeat it, tongue stumbling over the guttural syllables, throat raw from flame. But as the words left me, the Red Flame quivered, softened, as though hearing its true name for the first time. The chaos that raged within shifted—not gone, never gone—but tethered to my will like a beast forced to bow.
"Again," Serathion growled, circling me, every footstep trembling the stone. His tail slashed sparks into the air. "Discipline in chaos. Breath inside fire. Will inside storm. Say it until your blood listens."
My lungs heaved, fire cracking against bone, but I whispered through the heat:
"Evrathien ka'shul, drathien vohr—ahnar'kai serath, dohrmuth naahr."
The chamber resonated, the flame inside me pushing, writhing, and yet I felt a lock click into place. Not victory—never victory—but the first breath stolen back from the inferno.
From beyond the cavern, the ground trembled. The Herald's shadow crept nearer, echoing like a drumbeat from hell. The Conclave shifted uneasily, fire trickling from their nostrils. But Serathion did not flinch. His gaze never left me.
"Again," he commanded. "Or you will burn before you ever meet him."
---
The Rift convulsed as the Herald tore another breach wider, and from its jagged mouth poured creatures of smoke and talons—half-born fiends, tethered to the Hollow Behemoth's will. The Conclave roared, their wings beating like drums of war.
Zorathion was the first to strike, his scales lit with stormfire. He flung himself at the towering Behemoth, thunder blazing from his maw. "Vael'thrun Korrath, SHARA'NUL!" His cry cracked the heavens, a lightning spear ripping across the Behemoth's ribbed carapace. The monster shrieked, a sound like broken steel dragged through marrow.
Dahlia staggered under the echo of it, the Red Flame inside her surging, begging to be loosed. Her knees trembled, but before her collapse, a shimmer of translucent wards wrapped around her chest. Myrrath descended like shadowed moonlight, glyphs burning in her claws. "Inthraval, Seresh'tai, Ahron-drelth!" Veilshard wards spiraled into existence, their crystal lattice holding the Rift-creatures back long enough for Dahlia to breathe.
But the tide was endless. The Hollow Order's spawn shrieked and clawed, their whispers a cacophony gnawing at her mind— "Asha'krel, mora'thei, zharun veyr…"—a forbidden lullaby of unmaking. Dahlia pressed her palms to her temples, her soul seared by their chorus.
Kaelthys answered with fury. He swept down low, his wings carving the air, and from his throat came a torrent of searing fire. "Thyrrion-kesh! Vaelor'uth drakhaal!" The blaze cleaved the Rift open like a wound, consuming dozens of shrieking horrors in molten collapse. Still, more emerged, their limbs twisting, their forms wrong, each one pulled from the hollow echo of something that should never have lived.
Then Serathion's voice tore across the battlefield, sharper than steel. "Dahlia—focus. Hear me. You are not their prey. You are fire's edge. You are the scar itself."
The Behemoth's black crown split wider, tendrils writhing, eyes like shattered suns locking onto her. Dahlia's breath faltered as heat boiled up her throat. The Red Flame surged so violently her bones felt ready to fracture.
Serathion's command echoed again, iron in every syllable. "Do not wait—strike, girl! Your flame is the only mark that will wound it."
The Conclave turned, their war-cries weaving into the storm, but Dahlia knew—this moment was hers. Her hands shook as she whispered to herself, voice trembling in the ancient tongue Serathion had carved into her memory:
"Ignarion Thal'vurek… Fyreth dorelth… Sha'kor ven'athar…"
The Red Flame flared in her lungs, ready to be unleashed.
And still, the Behemoth came closer.
---
Serathion's shadowy wings arched behind me, blotting out the collapsing Rift sky. His voice struck like molten iron, every syllable branding my soul with its weight.
"You are not a torch, Dahlia. You are a weapon. Breathe, command, master."
But my chest burned with unspent fire. The Red Flame surged inside, clawing at my ribs, shrieking for release. It wanted to consume, to scorch, to unmake everything around me—including myself. My fingers trembled, sparks slipping between them like serpents of molten blood.
The Hollow Behemoth roared, its cry echoing like thunder poured through broken glass. The sound was so vast, so crushing, that my knees buckled. Black smoke curled from its maw, whispering with voices not its own.
"Kha'vorrin… Nae'thul… Veyrathuun's breath returns…"
My pulse raced. Their whispers bled into my skull, tempting me to let the fire loose, to burn until nothing stood. I clenched my jaw, sweat beading down my temples.
Serathion's gaze bored into me, merciless as obsidian flame. His command split the storm:
"Zeythar'kai! Breathe it—shape it—do not let it rule!"
He forced me into rhythm, into combat meditation. My breaths were jagged at first, ragged gasps in a drowning sea. Then, under his relentless drilling, they steadied. Inhale. Fire flooded me. Exhale. Chains of will wrapped around it. Again. Again.
The Behemoth reared higher, eyes glistening void-black, wings blotting out the fractured sky. Its voice tore across the battlefield:
"Thar'kuth ven'rel—ash to ash, flame to hollow!"
The words rattled my bones, shattering focus. My vision blurred, fire spilling wildly from my palms in bursts I couldn't control.
"No," I hissed between clenched teeth, forcing the flames back into my chest. "I will not break."
Serathion's tone was sharp enough to cut steel:
"Say it. Bind it. Call its leash."
My lips parted, blood on my tongue as I whispered the incantation he had drilled into me—words older than moonlight, words forbidden by human tongue:
"Zethra mal'koris… Enthryl va'ros… Kythera vel'ashar!"
The Red Flame surged, no longer writhing like a wild beast but coiling, twisting, listening. My veins burned, my heart felt like molten iron, but for the first time—I was holding it.
The Behemoth bellowed again, the ground trembling. My teeth rattled. My body screamed to let the fire erupt, to drown the battlefield in red ruin.
But Serathion's whisper slid through the chaos, cold and ruthless:
"If you burn uncontrolled, you die. If you command it, you become the scourge of gods."
And so, I stood in the storm, fire clenched tight in my blood, trembling not from weakness—but from the weight of mastery.
---
The Behemoth loomed, its thousand maws hissing in unison, a symphony of rot and hunger. Rift-spawn poured from its flanks like rivers of living shadow, but they faltered against Kaelthys' burning scythe of fire and Myrrath's lattice of Veilshard wards. Still, the ground cracked beneath each pulse of its roar, and its eyes, black voids rimmed in bone-flame, fastened upon me.
Serathion's voice coiled in my veins, hard as iron, merciless as the oath itself. Not rage, child. Command. The flame must serve you, not devour you.
The Red Fire inside me thrashed like a chained beast. My every nerve burned to erupt, to tear the world into cinders. I clenched my hands until blood kissed my palms. The Behemoth staggered closer, its breath a storm of ash and carrion.
Serathion's whisper pressed deeper: Speak it. Shape it. Bend it to your will.
The Bloodsong Choir howled across the Rift in cruel defiance, their voices clawing at my mind:
"Nythrel'vas. Korrath-isth. Rend the child, bleed her flame!"
Their chorus struck like knives in my skull, but I shoved them back with words that rose unbidden from the marrow of my soul. My voice trembled, then steadied, carrying the syllables of fire's oldest tongue:
"Kael'voryn. Drath'ezul. Entherra-sol, Aethryn Veyl!"
The air warped. A crimson glyph unfurled at my feet, sigils burning into the earth like molten brands.
Myrrath's wards surged outward, folding over me like translucent wings. His counter-chant struck against the Choir's blasphemy:
"Velastri mor-thaen, kel'varion, serathyn-ael!"
A shield of shimmering black-violet locked into place, holding back the tide of hollow voices.
I drew breath—then let it go. The Red Flame surged through me, no longer a storm tearing me apart, but a river obeying my command. My arm carved the air and the glyph exploded outward, a torrent of scarlet fire lancing into the Behemoth's chest.
The world convulsed. The strike seared through its hide of bone and void, carving a gaping wound that bled shadow and ichor. The Behemoth screamed, a sound that shattered clouds and cracked the Rift's horizon.
But it did not fall.
Instead, it staggered back, howling, its wound glowing with the ember of my flame—the proof that it could be hurt. That my fire was real. That I was no longer prey.
Serathion's voice thundered approval through my blood: So it begins, Red Daughter. You have struck the unstrikable.
And still, the Choir's chant rippled in the distance, low and venomous, promising more.
---
The Behemoth howled, a guttural quake that rattled the marrow inside my bones. Where my Red Flame had torn its hide, the wound seethed with black ichor that hissed against the earth, burning fissures into the soil. For a heartbeat I thought it would collapse. But then its many eyes flared open, igniting with an abyssal glow, and the ground split beneath its talons.
The monster surged forward, sundering wards, tearing through the battlefield like the earth itself was paper. Myrrath roared a counterspell, voice weaving the ancient tongue into burning runes above us—
"Zath'korah! Ilythien! Baruth'el kor vey!"
The wards flared crimson, halting a strike that would have shattered me into dust. Still, the force threw me backward into Damon's arms. His grip steadied me, but his eyes—hungry, dark, dangerous—warned me not to falter again.
Serathion thundered across the sky, wings scorching the horizon. His voice cracked like judgment itself. "Ylthra'shen! Korathian mor vey'ra!" The dragon's call was a command—my flame had to rise again, or we would all be drowned in shadow.
I forced the heat within me to respond, whispering the words he had drilled into my soul:
"Ash'tar vel myrrh, doran'thiel… red flame awaken."
The fire clawed at me, eager to consume me whole. My skin seared from the inside, and for a moment I feared I would vanish into nothing but burning ash.
Then the Behemoth's maw split open. A storm of voidfire gathered between its fangs—black lightning arcing in spirals of ruin. The Bloodsong Choir began to chant, their voices carrying from the Rift itself, dripping like poison into my veins.
"Velth'aran… Koryth… Zeyra'nor… Ahn-dar veylor…"
Their chorus twisted the Rift wider. Shadows poured through in writhing streams. For every strike we made, their song rewove the Behemoth's flesh, reforging it from abyssal hunger.
And then—Veyltharion's voice echoed from beyond the Rift. No whisper, no threat—his decree was absolute.
"I am the first shadow, the unbroken herald. Do not rejoice, mortals. This is but the opening breath."
The Rift roared, lightning bleeding across its edges. Something else stirred beyond, wings greater than any mountain, eyes older than the stars.
I staggered forward, chest aflame, lips cracked with blood, and whispered the truth I could no longer deny:
The Rift shuddered again, and I realized—this was not the battle, but the beginning of the war.
---