Kier's POV
I chose to follow Ysera.
Three steps into the tunnel, everything went black.
Not unconscious-black. Worse. My mind fractured into pieces—memories that weren't mine, emotions I'd never felt, instincts that wanted to hunt and kill and burn.
I was drowning in Vash'thar's consciousness. Or maybe he was drowning in mine. We couldn't tell anymore.
The last thing I heard was Ysera saying: "The merger is completing. This will hurt."
She wasn't wrong.
I woke to pain.
Every muscle screamed. My bones felt like they'd been broken and healed wrong. My skin was too tight, stretched over a body that didn't quite fit anymore.
I opened my eyes. Darkness. Then shapes emerging—rocky ceiling, scattered bones, the faint glow of mushrooms growing from corpses.
A dragon graveyard. The Cairn Islands. I'd made it.
No, a voice growled in my head. Vash'thar. WE made it. Because you're not alone in that body anymore, thief.
I tried to sit up. My arms moved wrong—too strong, too fast. I punched myself in the face accidentally.
"Ow! What the—"
That was me. I tried to lift our hand. I'm not used to human muscle structure.
"OUR hand?" I looked down.
My arms were covered in black scales. Not fully—patches of human skin showed through. Like my body couldn't decide what it was supposed to be. My fingers ended in claws that retracted when I focused, extended when I didn't.
I crawled to a puddle of water and stared at my reflection.
Golden eyes stared back. Dragon eyes. But my face was still human. Mostly. My teeth were sharper. My ears slightly pointed.
"What did you do to me?" I whispered.
What did YOU do to me? Vash'thar snarled back. I asked you to kill me! To let me finally rest! Instead you trapped me in this weak, fragile, HUMAN body!
"I saved you!"
I DIDN'T WANT TO BE SAVED!
His rage exploded through our shared mind. My body convulsed. Scales erupted across my chest. My spine arched. Claws dug into the ground.
Then, just as suddenly, it stopped. The scales receded. My body went limp.
I'm... sorry, Vash'thar said quietly. I can't control it. The anger just... takes over.
"Welcome to being human," I muttered. "We call those 'emotions.' They suck."
This is worse than torture. His mental voice cracked. At least when they were harvesting my soul, I knew who I was. Now I don't know where you end and I begin. Your thoughts feel like my thoughts. Your memories are bleeding into mine.
He was right. I could feel it happening. His memories surfacing in my mind like they'd always been there:
Flying through a lightning storm, feeling invincible—
A female dragon with silver scales laughing at something I said—Thal'nira, my mother—
The betrayal. My own brother selling me to the humans for a promise of mercy they never intended to keep—
Waking in chains. The first time they pierced my scales with extraction needles—
Screaming for three hundred years until my voice gave out—
And he was seeing mine:
Six years old, stealing bread, getting beaten by the baker—
Riven finding me in an alley, giving me his coat—
The first time I stole a soul fragment. The victim's screams. The guilt that never went away—
My mother's face the day she died, whispering "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you"—
We both recoiled from each other's pain.
"Stop looking at my memories!" I shouted.
I'm not trying to! They just appear! Like I'm living your life and mine simultaneously!
"Well make it STOP!"
I CAN'T!
We were both yelling—him in my head, me out loud—when a voice cut through:
"If you two are finished having a domestic dispute, we have bigger problems."
Ysera.
The white dragon stood at the entrance to the cave. Even crouched, her head nearly touched the ceiling. All six eyes studied me with unsettling intelligence.
"The Empress knows you're here," she continued. "She's mobilizing her entire army. We have maybe six hours before they reach the Cairn Islands."
I struggled to my feet. My legs wobbled. Vash'thar's instincts wanted to move on four legs, not two.
Walk like a human, I thought at him.
I haven't walked like a human in four thousand years!
Well learn fast!
I took three steps and fell on my face.
Ysera made a sound that might have been a laugh. "The merger is incomplete. Your souls are tangled but not unified. You're fighting each other for control of every movement."
"How do we fix it?" I asked.
"You don't. Not quickly." She lowered her massive head closer. "Most mergers take years to stabilize. You have hours. So you need to make a choice: let one soul dominate, or learn to cooperate."
I vote for me dominating, Vash'thar said.
"Absolutely not!" I snapped.
"You're still arguing with him," Ysera observed. "That's your problem. You're treating this as a battle. It's not. It's a marriage. And like any marriage, it only works if you both compromise."
I don't compromise, Vash'thar growled.
"Me neither," I added.
"Then you'll both die when the Empress's army arrives. They have weapons specifically designed to tear merged souls apart." Ysera's six eyes narrowed. "But if you learn to move as one, fight as one, THINK as one—you might have a chance."
She turned to leave.
"Wait!" I called. "You said you've been waiting for Vash'thar to escape. Why? What do you want from us?"
Ysera looked back. "I want the same thing every enslaved dragon wants: freedom. Real freedom, not the lie the Empress sells." Her scales shimmered. "You're a Firstborn—the first successful voluntary merger in three thousand years. If we can understand how you did it, we can free others. Break the cycle of forced possession."
She's using you, Vash'thar warned. Just like everyone else.
Maybe, I thought back. But she's also right. We need to learn to work together.
"How?" I asked Ysera. "How do we stop fighting each other?"
"Start by sharing something you both want. A common goal." She smiled, showing teeth the size of daggers. "What do you both want more than anything?"
I thought about it. What did I want?
To save Riven. To stop the Empress. To survive.
And Vash'thar?
Revenge. Freedom. To make them pay for eight hundred years of torture.
"We both want the Empress dead," I said slowly.
Yes, Vash'thar agreed. I want to watch her burn.
"Good," Ysera said. "Focus on that. Let your hatred unite you." She paused. "But there's something else you should know. The Empress isn't coming just to kill you. She's coming to offer you a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"She'll promise to free Riven. Release him from soul-slavery. Let him go unharmed." Ysera's eyes glowed brighter. "In exchange, you surrender voluntarily. Let her study your merger. Help her create more Firstborns under her control."
My heart stopped. "Riven. She'll free Riven?"
It's a lie, Vash'thar said immediately. She'll never let him go. She needs him.
"Maybe. Or maybe she's desperate enough to sacrifice one pawn to capture a queen." Ysera's tail swished. "That's the real test, Firstborn. When she offers you everything you want in exchange for your freedom—what will you choose?"
Before I could answer, the ground shook. A distant roar echoed across the islands.
"They're here," Ysera said. "Earlier than expected." She spread her wings. "I'm going to hold them off as long as I can. You need to decide: hide and wait for a chance to escape, or face the Empress now while you're still weak."
Run, Vash'thar urged. We're not ready to fight.
But running meant abandoning Riven. Leaving him enslaved.
"How long can you hold them?" I asked Ysera.
"Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen." She looked at me seriously. "Not long enough for you to master your merger. But maybe long enough to make peace with dying together."
She launched into the air, disappearing into the grey sky.
I was alone. Except I wasn't alone. Would never be alone again.
Kier, Vash'thar said quietly. I need to tell you something. About your mother.
"Now? Really?"
Especially now. His mental voice grew gentle. The reason Thal'nira put a piece of her soul inside you before you were born—it wasn't just to make you strong. It was to prepare you. She knew you'd merge with a dragon someday. She designed you for it.
My breath caught. "What are you saying?"
Your mother didn't fall in love with your human father by accident. She chose him specifically. Bred with him deliberately. He paused. She was creating the first Firstborn. You were an experiment. A weapon. A hope for the future.
"That's not true. She loved me. She—"
She did love you. But she also used you. His voice was sad. Everyone has used you, Kier. Riven. The Empress. Ysera. Even me. Your entire life has been people shaping you into a tool for their purposes.
Tears burned my golden eyes. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
Choose yourself. For once in your life, make a decision that isn't about saving someone else or fulfilling someone else's plan. Vash'thar's presence wrapped around my consciousness like a shield. I spent four thousand years being what others wanted. A god. A weapon. A prisoner. A lesson. I never got to choose who I was.
"And now?"
Now we choose together. We decide what this merger means. Not them.
Another roar. Closer. The ground shook harder.
Outside the cave, I heard Ysera fighting. Her roars mixed with screams. Magic exploding. Dragons dying.
I had maybe five minutes before the Empress's forces found me.
Five minutes to decide: surrender and save Riven, or fight and doom him.
Or, Vash'thar said, there's a third option.
"What?"
We go straight for the Empress. Right now. While her forces are distracted fighting Ysera. We strike at the head of the snake.
"We can barely walk! How are we supposed to fight a five-thousand-year-old dragon who's consumed hundreds of souls?"
We cheat. His mental presence grinned. I know her weakness. Something she's hidden for millennia. If we exploit it, we can kill her. Actually kill her. Permanently.
"What weakness?"
He showed me a memory—not his, taken from the Emperor's absorbed knowledge:
The Empress transferring her soul into a new body. But there's a moment—just a split-second during the transfer—when her consciousness is split between bodies. Vulnerable. Mortal.
She's about to transfer again, Vash'thar said. Her current body is failing. That's why she's desperate to study your merger—she's looking for a better way. But she'll do the old way soon. Within days.
"How do you know?"
Because I can smell it. Death. Her body is rotting from the inside. She's dying.
Outside, Ysera screamed. The sound cut off abruptly.
Then a voice echoed across the graveyard—the Empress, amplified by magic:
"Kier Morrow. Daughter of Thal'nira. I'm here to make you an offer you can't refuse."
I stood on shaking legs. Forced my body—our body—to walk to the cave entrance.
The Empress stood in the center of a circle of dead dragons. Ysera's white form lay crumpled at her feet, bleeding but alive. Barely.
Behind the Empress, Riven knelt with chains around his wrists. His eyes were brown. Human. Himself.
He looked at me and mouthed: "Don't."
The Empress smiled. "Choose now, Firstborn. His freedom for yours. A fair trade, don't you think?"