Kael hit the ground hard.
Stone tore at his back as he rolled, the breath punched from his lungs in a sharp, helpless gasp. He lay still for a heartbeat, staring up into darkness split by drifting sparks. Dust clung to his lashes and smeared across his face, settling into the sweat-dark roots of his jet-black hair, which fell in tangled strands over his brow.
When he finally sucked air back into his chest, pain followed hot and insistent.
You live, the dragon spoke.
"I figured," he rasped.
The fire that had carried him faded, leaving only a deep warmth beneath his skin, as if embers had been banked in his bones. He pushed himself upright, wincing. The maintenance tunnel stretched ahead low-ceilinged, narrow, its walls carved with old runes dulled by age and neglect.
A cracked strip of rune-glass lay embedded in the wall. As he passed, it caught his reflection.
A lean face, still boyish but sharpened by hardship. A narrow jaw clenched tight, lips pressed thin with restraint learned early. His skin was smudged with ash and streaked by a thin line of blood from a split just above his eyebrow.
And his eyes
He froze.
They were blue, unmistakably so clear, bright, and intense against the grime on his face. But for a flicker of a moment, an ember-gold light swirled deep within them, like fire trapped beneath ice.
Then it vanished.
He swallowed.
"That's… not normal."
It is new, the dragon replied. Change rarely asks permission.
Footsteps echoed ahead.
He spun, shoulders tightening.
A woman emerged from the shadows, limping slightly, one hand pressed to her side. She was young perhaps a few years older than him with copper-brown skin and a tightly braided hair pulled back from a strong, expressive face.
Her features were sharp: a straight nose, high cheekbones, and a thin scar cutting through her left eyebrow that gave her a permanently skeptical look. Her pale gray eyes were alert, calculating, even as pain tightened her jaw.
She raised a compact magitech pistol.
"Don't," she said. Her voice was steady, though her lips had gone pale. "If you were going to kill me, you'd have done it already."
Kael studied her face instinctively and now something about the bond urging him to see people more clearly. Sweat beaded at her temples. Fear flickered in her eyes, quickly buried beneath resolve.
"I don't even know who you are," he said.
She exhaled sharply. "Good. That means you haven't sold me out yet."
A crooked smile tugged at her mouth despite herself. "Name's Seris. Aether League courier, formerly."
His eyes narrowed. "Formerly?"
Her smile soured. "Turns out my employers forgot to mention that the asset could talk to dragons."
Behind him, vast and unseen, the dragon's awareness sharpened.
She is unbound, it observed. But she is sharp. Like glass.
Seris stepped closer, her gaze flicking to his face and lingering. Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she sensed something wrong.
"Your eyes," she said quietly. "They did that thing again."
His hand twitched. "What thing?"
"They look like they don't belong to someone who just fell out of a reactor."
He didn't answer.
Far above, distant alarms echoed through the city's bones.
"They'll seal this sector soon," Seris said. "Inquisitors from above. Concord hunters from below. If you stay, you die."
"And you?" he asked.
She shrugged, though it clearly hurt. "I run. I'm very good at it."
Kale hesitated.
The dragon's presence pressed against him not commanding, not overwhelming.
Choose, it said.
He looked at Seris again at the stubborn set of her jaw, the tension around her eyes, the defiance written plainly across her face.
Then he glanced down the tunnel, into the unknown depths of the undercity.
"Alright," he said. "Lead."
Relief flashed across her expression before she masked it. She turned and moved down the tunnel, boots splashing through shallow runoff.
As he followed, clutching the warm shard of broken chain beneath his jacket, he felt it again far away, but unmistakable.
Other minds.
Other presences.
And reflected faintly in the dull metal of the wall, his blue eyes glimmered once more no longer entirely human.