Chapter 20: THE WOUND OF NIGHT

The next morning broke like a bruise purple clouds, a thin light bleeding weakly over the frostfields. The air was sharp enough to sting Kaelin’s lungs as she breathed it in. She pulled her cloak tighter and looked toward the north, where the horizon rose like a jagged blade.

The Wound of Night.

A black scar carved across the earth, wide enough to swallow a city, deep enough that no sunlight ever reached the bottom. Legend said it was where the dragons made their final stand during the Fall where their fire split the land open like shattered bone.

Seeing it now made every story feel too small.

Taren and Veyra joined her at the ridge, their horses saddled, the rebels already preparing to break camp behind them.

“We reach the outer rim by midmorning,” Veyra said. “After that, the terrain gets worse.”

Kaelin didn’t respond.

Because something inside her chest was already awake.

The second heartbeat.

Steady.

Low.

Calling her forward like a beacon in the dark.

Taren followed her gaze. “You feel him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Kaelin whispered. “And he feels us.”

She didn’t know how she knew that yet she was certain.

Veyra adjusted her gauntlets. “Let’s move before the King’s scouts catch our trail.”

They rode fast across the frostfields, hooves kicking up white plumes of frozen dust. The wind howled across the open land, tugging at cloaks, snapping at exposed skin. Kaelin’s senses were stretched thin—ears sharp, eyes scanning, emberfire simmering just beneath her skin.

As they approached the cliffs, the temperature dropped further. The frost shifted into black ice, cracked and jagged like broken mirrors.

The rebels slowed.

Taren’s voice was hushed. “Saints…”

The land simply ended.

The Wound of Night stretched before them an abyss lined with obsidian stone, enormous pillars of shattered rock protruding from the depths like the ribs of a dead giant. A cold mist rose from below, swallowing sound.

Kaelin dismounted and stepped forward until her boots reached the edge. She peered down.

Darkness.

Not empty, not still.

Breathing.

The air moved in strange patterns, warmer than it should be, like an exhale rising from the earth.

Taren touched her arm. “Careful.”

She nodded but didn’t step back.

Because the moment she reached the edge, the second heartbeat surged.

Stronger.

Clearer.

Close.

The world blurred for a moment dark wings slicing through stormclouds. Stone cracking under claws. A roar that shook Kaelin’s bones even though it came from memory, not reality.

She gasped, gripping the edge for balance.

Taren steadied her. “Kaelin!”

“I’m fine,” she breathed. “He’s… beneath us. Deep.”

Veyra exhaled. “Then we need to get down.”

One of the rebel scouts approached cautiously. “Commander, the descent path collapsed years ago. There’s no safe way down the rim.”

“There has to be,” Veyra muttered.

Kaelin closed her eyes, letting the emberfire rise—not outward, but inward. She listened. She reached. She let the second heartbeat guide her like a whisper carried by wind.

There.

Her eyes snapped open.

“There’s a way,” she said. “Northwest. A slope. Buried under ice but still stable.”

Veyra and Taren exchanged a look.

“How do you know that?” Veyra asked.

Kaelin swallowed. “He showed me.”

Veyra didn’t question further. She nodded to the rebels. “Move.”

They followed Kaelin’s lead until they reached the slope. It looked like nothing just a large patch of snow clinging stubbornly to the cliffside but when Veyra brushed aside the top layer, a steep path of stone was revealed beneath.

“The Emberborn has good instincts,” Veyra said quietly.

Kaelin wasn’t sure it was instinct at all.

The path was narrow, carved by ancient force rather than hands. They moved down slowly, one by one, gripping stone and rope. The cliffside was frigid and slick, but Kaelin felt oddly calm like something in the abyss welcomed her presence.

Halfway down, a tremor shook the cliff. Pebbles rained down. A section of the path crumbled behind them, falling into the darkness.

One rebel cursed. “This place wants to kill us!”

Kaelin spoke before she meant to. “No. It wants us to reach the bottom.”

Taren stared at her, worry flickering behind his eyes. But he didn’t argue.

The descent took nearly an hour. By the time their boots hit solid ground, the world above had vanished into a thick veil of mist. They stood in a valley of jagged stone, glowing cracks spidering across the ground like molten lightning frozen in place.

Kaelin touched one of the glowing fissures. It radiated faint warmth.

Taren knelt beside her. “Dragonfire left this. Centuries old but still alive.”

Veyra surveyed the dark expanse. “Stay close. No one drifts too far.”

But Kaelin didn’t need the warning.

Because the second heartbeat pulsed again slow, thunderous, echoing through her bones.

Her breath caught.

“Kaelin?” Taren whispered.

“He’s near,” she murmured. “So close.”

They followed her through the mist, past towering stalagmites that looked like fossilized flames, past ancient bones of creatures she couldn’t name.

The heartbeat grew louder.

They reached a cavern mouth carved into the cliffside—an arch made not by erosion but by something with claws the size of swords. The entrance hummed with warmth. With energy.

Kaelin stepped inside.

The cavern opened into a vast chamber its ceiling lost in shadows, its walls glowing faintly with gold-tinted fire veins.

And then she saw it.

Lying curled at the center of the chamber, half-buried in stone and shattered crystal.

A dragon.

Enormous. Ancient. Scales black as obsidian with streaks of gold. Wings folded tight, cracked but powerful. His eyes were closed, but Kaelin felt his awareness like a storm pressing against her skin.

Her knees nearly buckled.

Taren inhaled sharply. “Saints preserve us…”

Veyra whispered, “That’s impossible.”

Kaelin walked forward, drawn like metal to a magnet. Her heartbeat matched his not in rhythm but in resonance. A bond older than her life. Older than the empire. Older than everything she understood.

The dragon’s chest rose.

Once.

Twice.

Then his eyes opened.

Pure molten gold.

The chamber vibrated with the force of his awakening.

Kaelin pressed a hand to her heart, breath trembling out of her.

“Drakonis,” she whispered.

The dragon’s gaze locked onto hers.

And for the

first time, the voice that had whispered in her dreams spoke with power

“Emberborn…

I have waited for you.”

The world trembled.

And Kaelin’s destiny broke open like fire.