Chapter 12 The Sky That Hunts
Night had teeth.
It chewed at the edges of the ruined skyline, biting chunks out of rooftops and bridges as the firestorm crawled across Lyris. Mira clung to my arm as we crossed the cracked skywalk, the wind howling with a voice that didn’t belong to the weather. It was the cry of something older. Something waking.
Eryndor’s beating fragment pulsed inside my ribs like a second heart. Every few steps it throbbed, and the city shuddered in answer.
But it wasn’t the only thing rising.
The Guild’s skyships had arrived.
Three of them glided through the smoke sleek obsidian hulls shaped like predators. Their undersides glowed with spellfire, lighting the skywalk in violent bursts of blue and gold. Enforcer silhouettes paced along the rails, cloaks snapping like wings.
“They’re hunting us,” Mira said, her voice barely a breath.
“They’re hunting everything,” I muttered. “Us. The fragment. Eryndor’s blaze. All of it.”
A distant roar rolled across the broken streets.
The dragon whatever form Eryndor had taken in his half-born state was somewhere out there, tearing through steel and stone. The Guild wasn’t here to save the city. They were here to contain the mess.
And by “contain,” they meant erase.
The skywalk trembled under our feet. I yanked Mira behind a collapsed pillar as a crack of spellfire lanced past, sizzling through the air. Stone exploded inches from my head.
“Kaia, keep moving!” Mira hissed.
“Working on it.”
Another shot slammed into the walkway, making the whole bridge roar. I grabbed Mira’s hand and ran, boots skidding on fractured concrete.
Above us, a Guild loudspeaker blared:
“Kaia Thorn. You are ordered to surrender the artifact and submit for extraction. Failure to comply will result in lethal measures.”
Mira shot me a look. “They really want you.”
“No,” I said, breath rough. “They want what’s inside me.”
“That fragment is not inside you,” she snapped.
A burning pulse rolled through my chest.
I winced. “Could’ve fooled me.”
We darted into the skeleton of an old skytram station. Dust, shattered glass, and twisted metal filled the place. A rusting tram car hung off the rails, suspended over a three-story drop like a corpse refusing to fall.
I shoved Mira toward the shadows. “We cut through here. Down the stairs. Then we disappear into the lower sector tunnels.”
“That thing is crawling with Guild sensors.”
“Then we move fast.”
I crouched, listening.
The skyships hummed closer low leviathan sounds vibrating through the girders. A soft whine built in the air.
Spell cannons charging.
“Mira down!”
We dove behind the remains of a ticket booth. A blast tore through the skywalk outside, white-hot, shredding steel. Heat slapped my back, throwing both of us forward. The whole station shook.
Mira coughed, waving smoke away. “They’ll collapse the whole damn block just to get to you.”
“That’s flattering,” I muttered. “Remind me to be offended later.”
Another tremor rolled through the building but not from the skyships.
No. This was deeper. Hungrier.
A bellow rattled the beams overhead, shaking grit loose from the ceiling. The skyships drifted sideways, adjusting formation.
The dragon had arrived.
Fire flickered in the reflection of broken glass. Mira swallowed hard.
“Kaia,” she said softly. “Do not panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
“You’re gripping your knife so hard it’s bending.”
I forced my fingers to unclench. “Okay. Maybe I’m panicking a little.”
A shadow swept over the station roof immense, serpentine, and wrong. Not the full form of a dragon, but something caught between shapes. A creature molded by fury and half-formed memory. Flame leaked from its ribs, lighting the station in orange pulses.
The Guild opened fire.
Skyships roared past overhead, unleashing volleys of spears made of pure spell-energy. They pierced the dragon’s hide, sending shockwaves of heat through the station.
The beast shrieked, rearing back, wings half-melted and beating unevenly. But it didn’t fall.
It turned… toward us.
Its pupils narrowed as it scanned the crumbling building, searching.
Searching for me.
Mira grabbed my sleeve. “Kaia… we need to run.”
But I couldn’t move.
The fragment inside my chest burned in perfect sync with the dragon’s pulse. It felt like being tethered to a storm.
The beast swung its head lower. Fire licked out as its jaw opened, illuminating the entire station in a wash of molten light.
“Kaia!” Mira screamed.
That snapped me out of it.
“Go!” I shoved Mira toward the stairs. “I’ll follow!”
“You BETTER!”
She sprinted.
I backed away slowly, carefully as the dragon’s burning eyes fixed on me. It lowered its head until its snout brushed the shattered platform. Smoke curled around it.
A deep rumble vibrated the air.
“Finder.”
The word didn’t come from its mouth.
It came from inside my skull.
I clutched my head, staggering. “No no, get out.”
“Finder… you carry my fire.”
“Not by choice.”
“Return it.”
The station was collapsing around us Guild spellfire, dragon heat, metal shrieking under pressure. But the creature’s gaze held me trapped.
“Return what is mine.”
I swallowed. Hard.
“Then stop trying to kill me to get it.”
Its giant head tilted, smoke drifting from the cracks in its scales.
“You fear the flame.”
“No,” I said. “I fear what it’s turning me into.”
Its breath rolled across me ashes and burning roses. The heat hit my skin like a living thing, curling around my throat.
“What you call fear,” the dragon whispered inside my mind, “is simply the beginning of power.”
The ceiling blew open.
A skyship cannon pierced the roof, blasting debris into a million shards. I threw up my arms as the dragon recoiled, roaring. The beam carved a trench across the station floor.
The Guild wasn’t aiming at the dragon anymore.
They were aiming at me.
Mira’s voice echoed from below. “KAIA! MOVE!”
I ran. Hard.
The dragon lunged, smashing its head through the platform as the skyships tightened their formation. Light flared. Another volley.
I leapt down the stairwell, landing hard on the cracked steps. Mira grabbed me, pulling me toward the lower exit as the entire upper floor buckled. Fire poured down the stairwell behind us.
“Kaia!” Mira gasped. “We can’t go to the tunnels. They’ll seal everything!”
“Then we head to the industrial docks,” I said, breath ragged. “It’s the only place big enough to hide something the size of a dragon.”
“And us,” Mira muttered. “Barely.”
We burst into the lower corridor a long passage filled with machinery and broken lights. Sirens wailed above us. The city groaned like a living creature in pain.
Then a metallic clank echoed behind us.
We spun.
Guild enforcers stepped out of the shadows six of them helmets gleaming, staves humming with containment runes.
The leader raised a hand.
“Kaia Thorn,” she said. “Stand down. Now.”
Mira tightened her grip on her staff. “Great. More friends.”
I took a breath, feeling the fragment pulse hot and bright.
The dragon roared overhead.
The Guild advanced.
And somewhere deep in my ribs, Eryndor’s fire answered.
It wanted out.
“Kaia,” Mira whispered. “Whatever you’re thinking don't.”
“Too late.”
The corridor trembled as a wave of heat surged through me. The enforcers braced themselves, shouting orders.
I looked at Mira, heart pounding.
“Run when I say.”
She shook her head. “No way. I’m not”
“Mira. Run.”
She swallowed, eyes wet but fierce. “Fine. But if you die, I’m bringing you back and killing you myself.”
The fire inside me rose
bright as dawn, violent as birth.
The enforcers lunged.
I let it go.
And everything exploded into light.