After the night the world almost cracked open, Kael thought the whispers would fade.
They didn't.
They sharpened.
They slid under his skin like thorns made of fire.
The wind howled across the old forest path as Kael and Lira walked between ancient, twisted trees. Morning light flickered through the branches, painting shifting silver across Kael's face. He didn't like how the light moved — as if it was reacting to him, not the other way around.
A low vibration shivered up his spine.
Again…?
Not here. Not now.
"Kael?" Lira's voice broke through the ringing in his skull. "You're doing it again."
His hands were glowing. Soft at first — then brighter, like metal heated in a forge. Silver veins crawled up his arms, pulsing dangerously.
Kael clenched his fists. "I can't control it."
"You can," she insisted. Her tone wasn't frightened this time. She stepped in front of him, planting her feet like she was grounding the earth itself. "Look at me."
He tried.
The dragon inside him did not.
A scorching wave tore through his vision — fire, wings, ruins, a sky splitting apart — but then it shifted. This time the vision wasn't random. It was a memory.
A dragon's memory.
A battlefield made of broken stone. A colossal figure of silver flame roaring into an army of shadowed warriors. A world burning not from hatred…but from an impossible grief.
Kael gasped and dropped to one knee, clutching his head.
Lira didn't panic. She didn't scream. She grabbed his shoulders and held him steady, her fingers glowing faintly with the moonlit magic that lived in her veins.
"Stay with me," she commanded.
The ground trembled—
Then stopped.
Only stopped… because Lira forced it to.
Her magic wrapped around Kael like cool night air, slowing the storm inside him. The silver light dimmed, retreating into his skin.
Kael raised his head, breath shaking. "Thanks."
"You don't need to thank me," she replied firmly. "You're not alone in this."
Kael tried to smile but another echo from the vision lingered:
A roar.
A name spoken in ancient dragon tongue.
A promise of destruction.
"Something's changing," he whispered. "The dragon inside me — it's not quiet anymore. It's… remembering."
"Good," Lira said. "If it remembers, then we can understand it. And if we understand it, we can stop it from consuming you."
He blinked at her. The Lira from Book I would've been terrified.
This Lira was steel.
She helped him stand, but as she did, something flickered at the far edge of the forest — a ripple of shadow moving between the trees.
Kael stiffened. "There's something watching us."
Lira didn't turn. She didn't freeze.
Instead she slid her hand behind her back and summoned a blade of glowing lunar light.
"Good," she muttered. "Let it watch. We're not running anymore."
The shadow figure paused.
Then retreated into the deeper woods.
Lira slowly lowered her blade but didn't dismiss it. "This forest has been wrong since dawn. Something followed us from the ruins."
Kael nodded, his chest still burning with remnants of dragon-fire. "The Man of Riddles said nothing travels without meaning."
Lira scoffed. "He also said clouds taste like old poetry."
"Okay, fair," Kael admitted.
But the humor faded quickly. The path ahead was darker, narrower, and the air hummed with more than danger — it hummed with intent.
A storm was gathering inside him and outside him.
Lira stepped closer, brushing her shoulder against his.
"You think you're the only one changing?" she murmured. "Something inside me is waking up too."
Kael looked at her — really looked — and saw it.
Her irises shimmered with faint rings of silver and moonlight.
Not human.
Not normal.
Something celestial.
"Lira…" he breathed.
She held his gaze without flinching. "Whatever's coming, we face it together."
He nodded.
But as they took the next step into the forest, the silver flame deep in Kael's veins whispered a chilling truth:
Together… until the flame decides otherwise.
And far above, hidden by clouds, the moon pulsed once — slow, steady, ominous. Almost like it was watching them.