The scout burst through the meeting hall doors, his chest heaving, his armor slick with sweat. The elders turned as one, their debate cut short by the terror in his eyes.
"Teras Forest is in chaos!" he gasped. "Something is slaughtering everything—animals, plants—nothing remains alive. The entire northern stretch has been reduced to wasteland since dawn!"
The new head scout, his green cloak torn from desperate running, shoved past the guards. "It's moving south. Fast."
A murmur rippled through the gathered elders. At the center of the ring, Elnur's hands clenched on the ancient oak table, his knuckles white. The tremor in his voice betrayed his calm facade. "Mobilize all warriors. We enter the forest immediately."
Miss Lusca, her silver hair shimmering like moonlit water, stood gracefully. Her blue eyes—usually warm—were sharp with concern. "Elnur," she said softly, "why such urgency?"
"My students are in that forest." The words tasted like ash.
Lusca's breath caught. "The survival trial?"
Elnur's nod was barely perceptible. Around them, the hall erupted into motion—elves rushing to gather weapons, shouting orders, their usual grace replaced by barely contained panic.
As Elnur strapped on his bracers, Lusca caught his arm. "You trained them well," she offered.
He met her gaze, his own haunted. "Not for this."
Outside, the first war horns sounded. The forest's death cries carried on the wind, a chorus of unnatural silence where birdsong should have been. Would they reach Kael and Lena before the forest's heart stopped beating entirely?
Back in the forest
The world burned red in Kael's vision—a haze of fury and bloodlust sharpened into a single point: the Alpha Dragonhunter.
It towered over him, all sinew and serrated bone, its molten eyes aflame with ancient hatred. Spiked limbs churned the earth as it lunged, snarling through a nest of needle-sharp teeth. Its breath was a graveyard stench—putrid, wet, and filled with the copper tang of centuries of slaughter.
Kael roared.
The sound tore itself from the depths of his chest like a dying god's cry—inhuman, soul-shaking. The ground split open beneath him, spiderweb cracks racing outward. A massive oak to his right exploded from the force, its trunk reduced to splinters that whistled like arrows through the air. Lena cried out, flinching as one tore a gash across her arm.
Kael didn't feel pain. He didn't feel anything.
His clawed hand latched onto the Alpha's forearm, fingers digging in until black blood gushed out in hot, pulsing jets. The creature shrieked, flailing—its skin split under Kael's grip like brittle bark, tendons snapping audibly as he ripped downward, carving the limb to the bone.
The Alpha retaliated.
It swiped with its opposite arm—razor claws catching Kael's chest, slicing deep. Blood burst from the wound in thick streams, painting the grass in arcs of crimson. Kael staggered, but instead of retreating, he sank his teeth into the creature's shoulder. Scales split beneath his bite. A chunk of flesh tore free, steaming and writhing like raw meat, and the Alpha screamed.
It wasn't a fight anymore. It was a slaughterhouse brawl.
Every time Kael struck, the air trembled. He whipped his tail—a jagged, spiked thing he hadn't even realized had grown—and it slammed into the Alpha's ribcage with a wet, crunching thud. Bone gave way. The creature coughed up viscous green fluid that hissed as it hit the ground, eating into rock like acid.
But the Alpha wasn't done.
It ducked under Kael's next punch, raking both claws down his sides. Skin split. Blood soaked Kael's pants and legs. Then it lifted him—actually lifted him—by the throat. Kael's feet kicked, flailing. He tried to claw its face, but his vision wavered.
The Alpha's jaws unhinged wider than before. Rows of jagged teeth glistened in the light. A thick strand of saliva and venom dripped onto Kael's cheek, sizzling on contact. It lowered him slowly, savoring it.
The Alpha growled with a grin
Kael's free hand lit with crimson flame.
He slammed it against the Alpha's jaw.
BOOM.
The creature's head snapped sideways with the impact. Its jawbone shattered, half its face liquefying in a burst of molten gore. But even as it stumbled, a second mouth—nested behind the first—lunged forward, fangs clamping down on Kael's shoulder.
CHOMP.
Kael screamed. Flesh tore. Blood cascaded from the wound in fountains. But with one last roar, he twisted, wrenched free—and drove his claw straight into the Alpha's eye.
The creature bucked wildly.
Lena watched, frozen at the cave entrance. Her mouth was open. Her lungs burned with every breath—but she couldn't stop watching. Not even when she heard bones snapping like dry twigs. Not even when she saw Kael stagger back, a piece of the Alpha's eyeball still stuck in his claws, dripping black ichor like tar.
Kael swayed.
His chest heaved, ragged. Blood leaked from his nose, ears, and eyes. The red glow in his irises flickered—dimming.
The Alpha surged up with a terrible screech. Its claws elongated into jagged blades, curving like scythes. With a roar, it slashed across Kael's ribs, carving deep. The blow lifted him clean off the ground, sending him crashing into the cave wall like a broken doll.
CRACK.
The stone caved in around him. Blood splattered the wall. Lena screamed, her voice shattering the chaos like a struck bell.
Kael's body slumped—limp, torn, unmoving.
But the Alpha didn't stop.
It charged again, a juggernaut of hunger and hate, claws raised to cleave his head from his shoulders.
Lena moved.
Boots slipping on blood-slick moss, she lunged forward with a snarl, yanking Kael's shattered body into her arms. Her back screamed in protest. Her legs buckled.
BOOM.
The cave entrance collapsed—stone and dirt raining down in a deafening avalanche. A boulder slammed down inches from Lena's foot. She dove just in time, dragging Kael with her.
Dust swallowed the world.
Then—silence.
A silence so thick it rang in the ears. Broken only by Lena's ragged breath, the slow trickle of blood, and Kael's barely-there heartbeat against her chest.
Darkness pressed in.
But the worst was still waiting... just outside.
Then—somewhere beyond the rubble—the Alpha screeched, its fury shaking the very earth.
Outside the Cave – Elnur's War Party
The forest had become a graveyard.
Elnur's boots crunched over brittle grass as he led the warriors through the skeletal remains of Teras Forest. The air reeked of spoiled meat and something fouler—dark magic. Beside him, Lusca nocked an arrow, her silver hair glowing faintly in the unnatural twilight.
"By the Ancients…" one warrior whispered, kicking aside the hollowed-out carcass of a stag. Its bones were picked clean, its flesh melted away as if by acid.
Elnur's jaw tightened. They were too late. The beast had already feasted.
Then—a tremor beneath their feet. A roar, distant but unmistakable, shook the trees.
"Move!" Elnur barked. The warriors broke into a sprint, blades drawn, following the sound of destruction.
Inside the Cave
Kael wasn't breathing right.
Each shallow gasp rattled in his chest, blood bubbling at his lips. Lena tore her shirt into strips with shaking hands, the fabric stiff with sweat and grime. She bound his wounds tightly, her fingers slipping on his slick skin.
"Don't die, I can't lose you too" she begged, her voice cracking. A tear fell—
—and where it landed, Kael's skin glowed.
Lena recoiled. The bleeding… stopped. Not healed, but stalled, as if time itself had paused the damage. She stared at her hands. What did I just do?
A few hours went by, no sound at all. It's like the Alpha had left, but then.
A scrape of claws on stone.
Lena's head snapped up.
Deep in the tunnel's shadows, something moved. The Alpha's mangled face emerged, one eye a ruined socket, the other burning with malevolent intelligence. Saliva dripped from its jagged teeth, hissing as it hit the stone.
Lena scrambled back, her spine hitting the cave wall. No weapons. No escape.
The beast lunged—
BOOM!
The entrance exploded inward. Elnur and Lusca burst through the dust, blades gleaming. The Alpha hissed, twisting away as arrows peppered the wall behind it.
"Lena!" Elnur hauled her up, his grip bruising. "Where's—?"
"Kael!" She wrenched free, pointing to his motionless form.
Lusca didn't hesitate. "After that thing! Now!" The warriors charged into the tunnel, but the Alpha was already gone—vanished like smoke.
Elnur dropped to Kael's side, rolling him gently. His tunic was a ruin of blood and torn flesh. "Kael! Look at me!"
Kael's eyelids fluttered. For a heartbeat, his gaze focused—Elnur's face, blurred at the edges; Lena's tear-streaked cheeks; the cave's jagged ceiling. Then darkness swallowed him whole.
Lusca crouched beside them, her fingers pressing to Kael's throat. "His pulse is weak, but steady. How is he alive?"
Elnur's eyes flicked to Lena. She said nothing, clutching her arms, her nails digging into her skin.
Outside, the forest groaned. The beast was still out there.
And it was hunting.
The elven rescue party was halfway to Vaeloria the elf village when Lusca's sharp cry cut through the night. "He's bleeding again! We're losing him!" Blood seeped through Kael's makeshift bandages, painting Elnur's arms crimson as he carried the unconscious boy.
"Just keep moving!" Elnur growled, his long legs eating up the forest path. Behind him, Lusca struggled under Lena's dead weight, her brown hair whipping as she forced herself to keep pace.
When they burst through the village gates, the hospital stood impossibly far across the moonlit square. "Luna's cottage!" Elnur pivoted toward a familiar oak door, his boots kicking up dew as he ran. "She's closer!"
Inside, Luna slept peacefully until thunderous pounding shook her doorframe. "Luna! Open the damned door!" Elnur's voice cracked with desperation.
She wrenched the door open, sleep-addled protest dying on her lips. The scene before her - Kael's broken body, Lena's ashen face, the blood pooling on her doorstep - turned her veins to ice. "Kitchen table. Now." Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears.
As they laid Kael on the wooden surface, Luna's hands betrayed her. Memories flashed - Kael laughing over stew, his patient smile during herb lessons - making her fingers tremble over his wounds.
"Breathe, little moon." Lusca's calloused hand steadied hers, the childhood nickname breaking through the panic. Luna inhaled deeply, the scent of pine and blood filling her lungs. The shaking stopped.
"Thanks, Mom." The whispered gratitude carried decades of trust. With a sharp nod, Luna cleared the room of all but Elnur and Lusca. "Let's begin."
Seven Hours and Thirty-Two Minutes Later
Dawn light crept through the windows as Luna tied the final stitch. "He'll live." The words should have brought relief. Instead, they curdled in her throat.
Lusca caught the hesitation. "What is it?" she asked, wiping blood from Luna's cheek with her thumb.
Luna's voice dropped to a whisper. "The head trauma... the blood loss..." A tear splashed onto Kael's still chest. "He might never wake up."
"SPIT IT OUT!" Elnur's roar shook the hanging herbs.
"He could be trapped like this forever!" Luna screamed back, her composure shattering. Sobs wracked her body as Lusca pulled her close, her mom's arms forming a shield against the unbearable truth.
Elnur staggered outside, where morning birdsong mocked their grief. He bit his lip until copper filled his mouth, his clenched fists trembling at his sides. Somewhere behind him, Lusca murmured comforts to her daughter, but all Elnur heard was the terrible silence where Kael's voice should be.
Later that day
Lena hesitated at the doorway, her fingers curling around the frame. Kael lay motionless on the bed, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.
"He's still in a coma," Luna said softly, placing a hand on Lena's shoulder. "But some say they can hear us, even like this."
Lena nodded, and Luna slipped out, leaving her alone with the silence.
For a long moment, Lena just stared at him—his bandaged chest, the dark circles under his eyes, the way his fingers twitched ever so slightly, as if trapped in a dream.
"Thank you," she finally murmured, her voice rough. "For saving my life. I guess… we're even now." A weak chuckle escaped her, but it died quickly.
She leaned closer, her breath stirring the hair on his forehead. "But I need you to wake up. Because I have questions. A lot of them." Her fingers brushed his arm, lingering. "That power… it wasn't human. So whatever you are—whoever you are—I want to hear it from you."
Then, before she could second-guess herself, she pressed a kiss to his brow and fled.
Inside Kael's Mind
The world here was fractured, a jagged landscape of obsidian cliffs and swirling crimson mist.
"AGAIN!"
The woman—Althea—loomed above Kael, her wings casting a monstrous shadow. Sweat poured down his face as he swung his spear, muscles screaming.
"Is this seriously the best you can do?" she sneered, arms crossed.
"No, ma'am!" Kael gasped, barely dodging an imaginary strike.
"Pathetic." She flicked her wrist, and the training dummy exploded into black smoke.
Kael collapsed onto the ashen ground, chest heaving. "What's the point?" he groaned. "Time moves faster in here. I could train for years, and out there, it's only been minutes."
Althea's grin was all teeth. "Exactly."
Kael dragged himself upright, glaring. "Who even are you? And how the hell did you get inside my head?"
Althea sighed dramatically. "Althea Goldwing. And as for how—"
In a blink, she was behind him, her clawed fingers digging into his temples.
Memory Flood:
The cave. The Alpha's roar. The crushing impact as Kael was hurled into the wall—
—and the glint of red. A shard of something unnatural, molten and alive, burrowing into his skull like a parasite.
Back to Now:
Kael staggered, gasping. "You were in that rock?"
Althea's wings flexed. "Sealed away. Until you."
"Why?"
"No more questions." She tossed his spear at his feet. "Train. Or die when you wake up. Your choice."
Kael clenched his jaw—and obeyed.
Back in reality
The elders' voices clashed like steel in the sacred meeting hall. Scrolls of past battles lay unfurled across the obsidian table, their edges singed from hasty handling.
"We must hunt it down before it strikes again!" Elder Zong slammed his fist, making the ceremonial cups rattle. His amber eyes burned with the recklessness of youth.
Lusca's silver braids whipped as she stood. "None of you saw it. That thing wasn't just a beast—it calculated. It played with them." Her knuckles whitened around her dagger's hilt. "Send warriors blindly, and we'll be stacking corpses by dawn."
A murmur rippled through the council. Elder Qwint rose, his bone-carved staff tapping for attention. "The Dragonhunter we slew last winter was—"
"That was a whelp compared to this," Lusca snapped. "This one left Teras Forest a graveyard in hours."
Silence.
Elnur, who had been tracing the scar on his palm—a relic of his own Dragonhunter battle—finally lifted his gaze. The torches cast shadows deep enough to hide the dread in his eyes. "We act on knowledge, not fear. Scout teams at first light. Dismissed until four bells."
As the others filed out, Lusca caught the way Elnur's shoulders sagged, the tremor in his breath. She crossed to him, cupping his face with hands still smelling of blood and birch salve. Their lips met—not the chaste peck of council colleagues, but the desperate kiss of two people who'd kept their love secret for too long.
"We'll protect them," she whispered against his mouth.
Elnur pressed his forehead to hers. "When this is over... we tell Luna. No more hiding."
Lusca's thumb brushed the tear he'd never let the others see. "No more hiding."
Luna's hands trembled as she peeled back Kael's sweat-damp shirt. Her breath caught.
This wasn't possible.
Where there had once been the lean frame of a boy, now lay the sculpted torso of a warrior—corded muscle, the sharp cut of abs, shoulders broad enough to bear weight. His skin burned fever-hot beneath her fingers.
"He's… changing," she whispered. Coma patients wasted away. They didn't transform.
A drop of water splashed onto Kael's chest. Luna hadn't realized she was crying.
Inside Kael's Mind – Two Years of Hell
Chestnut hair whipped across Kael's face as he drove his spear through the last shadow-beast. The illusion dissolved into smoke, but before he could rest, agony detonated in his ribs.
He collapsed, clawing at his chest as Althea watched, unblinking.
Then—rupture.
Raven-black wings burst from his back in a spray of phantom blood. Scales slithered up his arms like living armor. His hair darkened strand by strand, as if dipped in ink, until even his roots gleamed obsidian. When his eyes snapped open, they burned red.
The pain was endless.
Luna's Cottage
Kael's physical form convulsed on the bed, blood seeping from his eyes, his mouth, the pores of his skin. Luna threw herself across him, screaming for help.
"Don't you dare die!" Her voice cracked. Nurses pinned his thrashing limbs as Luna fought to stem the bleeding.
Outside the window, Lena muffled a sob with her palm.
The world split apart. Cracks raced through the ground, swallowing cliffs into void. Althea staggered as the sky peeled away like rotten canvas.
"Fight it!" she roared, but Kael was already lost.
Visions twisted into nightmare.
His parents' broken bodies sprawled across crimson snow, their empty eyes staring up at him as a voice like grinding bones echoed: "KILL."
Sylvie stumbling through the dark, her braid coming undone as she screamed his name—then his own clawed hands reaching, tearing, her blood hot on his scales as the voice thundered: "KILL."
A cracked family portrait at his feet, his younger self smiling beside people who no longer breathed. The glass splintered under his grip as the voice became a roar: "KILL THEM ALL."
Then—
Light.
Luna's voice, sharp as shattered ice, cutting through the madness:
"FIGHT!"
With a scream, Kael rammed his spear through his own chest.
The world healed.
Althea caught him as he fell, her hands glowing with stolen mana. "Idiot," she hissed, pouring energy into the wound.
Dawn
Luna slumped in her chair, exhaustion weighing her bones. Then she saw it—the water in Kael's washing basin swirled with chestnut dye.
His hair, once sun-kissed, now shone black as a starless night.
She scrubbed at a lock with a wet cloth. The color held fast.
"Oh, Kael…" Her thumb brushed his scaled knuckles. "What's happening to you?"
Beyond the glass, Lena pressed her forehead to the window, her reflection overlapping Kael's monstrous form—a silent witness to the boy who was disappearing before their eyes.
The torchlight in the meeting hall barely flickered as Lena materialized from the darkness, her sudden presence causing several elders to startle. She stood framed in the doorway, her usual predatory grace replaced by something brittle.
"Elnur." Her voice cracked like thin ice.
Elnur looked up from his maps, his quill freezing mid-stroke when he saw her bloodshot eyes - the telltale crimson of someone who'd been weeping for hours.
Before he could speak, Lusca was already moving, her silver braids swinging as she crossed the room in three swift strides. She caught Lena's trembling hands between her own. "Child, what's happened?"
Lena's breath hitched. The words came out in a whisper that somehow carried through the silent hall: "Kael... he's getting worse."
The map crumpled in Elnur's fist as he stood so quickly his chair toppled backward. No further explanation was needed. In the space of a heartbeat, all three were moving, their footsteps echoing through the stone corridors as they raced toward the cottage where their world was unraveling.
The cottage door burst open as Elnur and Lusca rushed inside, their breath ragged from running. "Luna! We heard—" Elnur's words died in his throat.
Before them, Luna knelt at Kael's bedside, her hands trembling as she wiped dark blood from his ears, his nostrils, the corners of his sealed eyelids. The water in her basin had turned the color of rust.
Lena peeked from behind Lusca's back, her small fingers clutching her mentor's sleeve. "I... I saw everything," she whispered.
Elnur approached the bed like a man walking to his own execution. His calloused fingers hovered over Kael's transformed features—the raven-black hair that hadn't been there yesterday, the patches of obsidian scales breaking through his fevered skin like shards of night.
"Gods preserve us," Elnur breathed, his voice cracking. "The Dragonhunter's corruption is forcing his transformation before the Bloodbinding." His knees hit the floorboards with a thud.
Lusca's silver braids swayed as she crouched beside him. "The ritual isn't for another season. What does this mean?"
A tear splashed onto Kael's scaled hand. "You remember the old texts," Elnur whispered. "A dragon's first change must be tempered by an Elder's mana during the Bloodmoon Ceremony. That sacred energy..." His fingers traced the black veins spreading up Kael's arm, "...it slowly rewrites their mortal heart into something that can withstand the transformation."
The cottage air turned to ice as understanding dawned. Without the Elder's mana, the change would be like pouring molten steel into a clay vessel.
Luna's damp cloth froze mid-motion. "But the Elder still lives," she said. "Can't he—"
"He's bound by the Blood Pact," Elnur cut in, his voice hollow. "After the Dragonhunters slaughtered his kin, he swore never to interfere with another dragon's transformation. Not even to save one."
Lena's small voice pierced the silence. "The heartstone, then. The Elders left their mana crystallized in the mountain shrines before the war."
Elnur's breath caught. "The Heart of Vaeldryn." His fingers tightened around Kael's wrist, where black veins now pulsed like poisoned roots. "But the last shard was hidden in the Cursed Peaks. Even if we reached it…" His eyes flicked to Kael's seizing form. A scale near his heart split with a sickening crack, oozing black-tinged blood. "The journey takes weeks. He has days."
Lusca's hand flew to her mouth. "Then we go to the Elder. Pact or no pact, he won't let a child die."
"You think people haven't tried?" Elnur's roar shook the rafters. "They begged him on their knees! But the curse is unbreakable—any Elder who breaks the Pact loses their mana entirely. He'd be mortal." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And Kael would still die."
The cottage walls seemed to close in around them.
Then—
A sound like shattering glass. Kael's body jerked, his spine bowing off the bed as another scale ruptured. The scent of burnt copper filled the air.
Luna and Lusca spoke as one: "How do we stop this?"
Elnur's sword belt hit the floor with a clatter. "We cheat." His tear-streaked face hardened. "Lena, fetch the star charts. Lusca, ready the fastest horses. If we can't take mana from the Elder…" He met Luna's gaze, and the unspoken truth passed between them—the same truth that had once cost Luna her parents.
We steal it.