Chapter 7 The Hollow Dragon
The city bled light. Blue veins of rune-fire crawled up broken towers, their glow reflecting in the floodwaters below. Kaia waded through the shallows, every breath a hiss between clenched teeth. The water burned faintly where it touched her skin the witch’s magic had tainted it, turned it into something alive.
Mira followed close behind, gun drawn, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow. The night had gone too quiet. Even the thunder had stopped, as if the storm itself was holding its breath.
“Tell me I’m imagining it,” Mira said. “The silence.”
Kaia shook her head. “You’re not. It’s listening.”
“To what?”
Kaia’s voice dropped. “To me.”
The path ahead was a graveyard of machines. Old trains half-submerged, their windows glowing faintly as if something moved inside them. Each flicker of light mirrored Kaia’s pulse the connection between her and the summoning still alive, pulling her closer to its heart.
“According to Eryndor,” Mira muttered, “Aelira’s using your blood to anchor the gate.”
“Which means if I get close enough…” Kaia flexed her fingers, the silver veins beneath her skin pulsing brighter. “I might be able to cut it off.”
“Or make it worse.”
Kaia smirked faintly. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
They climbed the collapsed stairway leading up to the central plaza once the crown of the city, now just a crater of runes and smoke. At its center, the witch Aelira stood surrounded by floating shards of crystal, her silver hair whipped by unseen wind. The half-born dragon crouched behind her a twisted silhouette of scales and bone, its flesh glowing with Kaia’s own power.
Kaia froze at the sight. It wasn’t complete. Not yet. Its face was almost human, its eyes too familiar her own, burning gold in the dark.
Mira swallowed hard. “That thing’s you?”
“Not me,” Kaia whispered. “A mistake wearing my skin.”
Aelira turned toward them. Even at a distance, her voice carried like silk drawn over steel. “Kaia Draen. You came back. I was beginning to think you’d drowned.”
Kaia stepped forward. “You used my blood.”
“Borrowed,” Aelira corrected. “To repair what your mother broke.”
Kaia’s hands crackled with heat. “You’re not repairing anything. You’re building a monster.”
The witch’s smile never wavered. “You misunderstand. This world was never meant to be stable. Mortals tried to cage the old gods, and the dragons paid the price. You, my dear, are the key to restoring balance.”
“Balance?” Mira shouted. “You’re opening a gate to the Aether Sea! You’ll drown half the continent!”
Aelira’s gaze flicked to her, amused. “All art demands sacrifice.”
The half-born dragon stirred its head snapping toward Kaia. The air trembled. Its wings flexed, shedding flakes of light.
Kaia felt the pull immediately. It wasn’t just magic; it was recognition. The thing knew her. Knew her heartbeat. The tether between them thrummed like a live wire.
Mira raised her gun. “Kaia”
“Don’t shoot,” Kaia whispered. “It’s connected to me. If you hurt it, you hurt me.”
Aelira lifted her arms. “You see? The blood calls to itself. You can’t fight what you are.”
Kaia’s temper cracked. “Watch me.”
She launched forward dragonfire erupting from her palms, streaking across the plaza. Aelira moved like smoke, stepping aside as the blast tore through a column. The half-born roared and lunged, its claws slicing through stone. Kaia barely rolled clear.
Mira opened fire, bullets sparking off the creature’s scales. “You sure about that ‘don’t shoot’ part?”
“Just distract it!” Kaia shouted.
She surged upward, fire trailing her like a comet. The air around her shimmered, wings of flame unfurling again. The half-born met her midair, and for a heartbeat, Kaia saw herself reflected in its face every scar, every flicker of doubt.
Then it struck.
She blocked with her forearm, claws meeting claws. Pain flared. Their magic collided, and the world went white.
When the light cleared, Kaia was thrown against a wall, breath knocked from her lungs. The dragon landed hard, its roar shaking the ground. Cracks spidered through the rune circle as the gate above flickered a massive whirlpool of light spiraling open in the sky.
Mira scrambled to Kaia’s side. “You good?”
Kaia coughed blood, eyes glowing faintly silver. “Define good.”
Aelira’s laughter drifted across the ruin. “Every blow you strike only strengthens the connection. Don’t you see? You are the gate.”
Kaia wiped her mouth. “Then I’ll close it from the inside.”
Before Mira could stop her, Kaia sprinted toward the summoning circle. The air grew heavy, humming with impossible pressure. The runes flared in protest, but she didn’t slow. She dove straight into the circle’s core, flames swirling around her.
Inside the light, there was no ground. No sky. Just endless, shifting blue the Aether Sea. Fragments of memories drifted past her like shards of glass: her mother’s voice, Eryndor’s roar, the witch’s whispers.
And then, she saw it.
The other her. The hollow dragon, rising through the sea of light, wings spreading wider than mountains. It looked at her with something like pity.
“You shouldn’t exist,” Kaia said.
It spoke in her voice, layered and wrong. “Neither should you.”
They collided. Flame against flame, will against will. The space around them shattered waves of raw energy tearing through the void. Kaia screamed, forcing her power outward, clawing through the tether that bound them. Every pulse of light seared through her bones.
She felt Eryndor’s voice echo in her skull. “Do not resist the storm. Become it.”
So she did.
Kaia stopped fighting. She let it in. The storm, the fire, the fury. Everything that had always been caged beneath her human skin. The flames turned white, then silver, consuming both her and her reflection.
When the light finally broke, she was falling not through the void, but back into the world.
Mira was screaming her name. The gate above them exploded outward, scattering light like rain. The half-born dragon was gone. So was Aelira. Only Kaia remained lying at the center of the crater, smoke rising from her skin.
Mira dropped beside her. “Kaia, talk to me! Are you”
Kaia’s eyes opened. Silver, but calm now. The runes on her arms had vanished, leaving only faint scars.
“She’s gone,” Kaia whispered.
Mira’s breath hitched. “You mean the witch?”
Kaia shook her head slowly. “The other me.”
She sat up, staring at the storm clouds breaking apart above. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t hear Eryndor’s voice. Only silence clean and sharp as glass.
But the silence didn’t last.
From the far edge of the ruins came a low rumble. A shadow moved tall, human-shaped, walking through the smoke with deliberate ease.
Mira raised her gun again. “Tell me that’s not another one.”
Kaia’s gaze narrowed. “No,” she murmured. “That’s something worse.”
The figure stepped into the light cloaked, faceless, but wearing the sigil of the Sovereign Crown.
“Kaia Draen,” it said. The voice was neither male nor female distorted, distant, like it spoke through a thousand mouths at once. “The Crown thanks you for opening the gate. The harvest begins.”
Kaia felt the blood drain from her face. “The what?”
But the figure was already gone, dissolving into mist.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint echo of chanting hundreds of voices rising from somewhere deep below the city.
Mira’s grip tightened on her gun. “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
Kaia rose, her shadow stretching long behind her. “It’s a cult,” she said quietly. “And it’s been waiting for me.”
Thunder rumbled again, soft and deliberate not the storm this time, but drums. War drums.
Kaia looked toward the horizon, where a new light was forming not blue, but crimson.
“Let’s move,” she said, her voice steady. “This isn’t over. Not even close.”