Chapter 1 The Girl who Played With Fire
The fire always spoke before she did.
It whispered through Lyra’s veins, restless and alive, crackling against her skin as if trying to crawl free. She pulled her hood lower, hiding the faint golden glow pulsing at her throat. The market was crowded today—good for vanishing, terrible for keeping secrets.
The scent of roasted meat, oil, and metal filled the undercity. A thousand bodies pressed together beneath the smog-stained arches, haggling, shouting, fighting. Somewhere above, the clean white towers of Auradyn pierced the fog like knives, gleaming with the power of dragonfire that no one was supposed to question.
Lyra questioned everything.
She moved through the crowd like smoke, light on her feet, her hand brushing the leather pouch tied beneath her cloak. Inside it, something warm throbbed faintly—a stolen core crystal, freshly taken from an Inquisition convoy. Worth enough to feed her for weeks. Worth dying for, if she got caught.
“Keep walking,” she muttered under her breath. “Don’t look back.”
A merchant yelled about fresh peaches. A beggar coughed. Somewhere, a bell rang—three short, two long. Patrol shift. The Inquisitors would be changing posts soon.
She slipped between stalls, eyes scanning for her contact. Finn was late again. Typical.
Lyra ducked into the shadow of a tent, heart thudding. A squad of Inquisitors marched by, armor glinting with the same dull silver light she’d come to hate. Their tabards bore the sigil of the Flamebound Sun—symbol of purity, of law, of everything that made her a walking crime.
One of them turned his head slightly, as if catching a whiff of smoke. Lyra froze.
Her blood felt molten. The fire wanted out. It knew the threat.
Not now. Not here.
She gritted her teeth and forced her breath to steady, picturing ice, stone, and silence. The glow under her skin dimmed. The soldier moved on.
Only when the sound of boots faded did she allow herself to breathe again.
A voice drifted from behind her. “You really shouldn’t daydream in the open. Someone might mistake you for bait.”
Lyra spun. Finn Calder leaned against a crate, grin lazy, fingers twirling a knife. He looked every bit the undercity rogue—half charm, half trouble.
“You’re late,” she hissed.
“I’m fashionable.”
“You’re insufferable.”
He placed a hand over his chest, mock wounded. “You wound me.”
“Not yet,” she said, shoving the pouch into his chest. “Tell your buyer it’s genuine. Freshly cut from an Inquisition engine. I want full pay by sundown.”
Finn’s grin widened as he peeked inside. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Lyra. These crystals aren’t scrap. You know what they’re made from, right?”
She stiffened. “I don’t care. They pay. I steal. That’s how this works.”
He looked at her too long, eyes narrowing slightly. “Sometimes I think you do care. You just don’t want to.”
Before she could respond, a tremor shook the ground. Shouts erupted. Smoke curled up from the far side of the market.
Then came the scream a sound like tearing metal and burning air.
The crowd panicked instantly. People scattered, overturned carts, ran for the alleys. Lyra pushed through, heart pounding, the fire inside her rising with each pulse.
Through the haze, she saw it: a massive airship descending in flames, its metal hull marked with the Inquisition’s sigil. It clipped a spire and came crashing down into the lower docks, exploding in a wave of heat that lit the undercity sky blood-orange.
Finn grabbed her arm. “We need to go!”
But Lyra wasn’t looking at the wreckage. She was staring at what had fallen with it.
Something enormous moved in the smoke a shape of wings and bone and fire.
A dragon.
Impossible.
The empire claimed they were extinct.
Lyra’s breath caught. The creature was massive but broken, one wing torn, its scales molten silver and crimson. It let out a sound that wasn’t quite a roar more like a dying breath echoing through a thousand years of silence.
“Lyra!” Finn shouted again, but she was already running toward it.
She reached the edge of the wreckage as fire licked through the debris. The heat should’ve burned her alive, but it didn’t. The flames curled around her like old friends.
The dragon lay sprawled against a collapsed wall, one great golden eye staring at her. In its depths, she saw entire storms of memory—mountains burning, skies filled with wings, temples crumbling beneath lightning.
“Help… me…”
The voice wasn’t in her ears. It was inside her head.
Lyra stumbled backward. “You can talk?”
It didn’t answer. It only stared, its gaze flickering between pain and recognition. Its claws scraped weakly at the ground, and she saw the chains runes glowing, sealing magic. The same sigils the Inquisition used.
They’d captured it. Drained it.
Rage flooded her.
She reached forward before she could think, her fingers brushing the creature’s scales. The heat flared bright white, blinding her.
Suddenly the world fell away.
She was falling through fire, through memory, through time. Voices screamed in her head. Wings beat above her. She saw flashes of an ancient war dragons burning cities, humans wielding stolen fire. And a single figure standing between them: a woman crowned in flame, eyes like Lyra’s.
Then a voice whispered, deep and ancient.
We remember you, Emberborn.
Lyra gasped and tore her hand away. The dragon’s body shuddered once and went still. A soft light drifted from its chest—a spark of pure gold—and sank into her palm.
The fire inside her roared awake.
Her vision swam. Every nerve in her body ignited. Flames erupted from her hands, swirling in violent arcs. The ground cracked beneath her.
She screamed—but the sound that came out wasn’t human.
Finn’s voice reached her faintly through the chaos. “Lyra! Stop what are you doing?!”
She couldn’t stop. The power surged uncontrollably, feeding on her fear. The air itself burned.
Then—hands. Strong, armored. Grabbing her shoulders.
The world snapped back into focus. An Inquisitor stood before her, runed gauntlets glowing as they absorbed her fire. His silver eyes were sharp, merciless.
High Inquisitor Kael Thorne.
Lyra had seen his wanted posters plastered across the city dragon killer, the empire’s perfect weapon.
He studied her like a specimen, expression unreadable. “So it’s true,” he said softly. “One still lives.”
“Let me go!” Lyra spat.
“Do you even know what you are?”
The flames guttered, then flickered out. Exhaustion slammed into her. Her knees buckled. Kael caught her by the collar before she hit the ground.
“Take her alive,” he ordered. Soldiers surrounded them instantly, chains clinking. “The Emperor will want to see this one burn.”
Finn lunged from the smoke, throwing a knife that grazed Kael’s cheek. The Inquisitor didn’t even flinch.
“Run!” Finn shouted.
Kael turned just long enough for Lyra to twist free. She slammed her palm against the ground. Fire exploded outward, blinding everyone. She bolted through the smoke, heart racing, lungs searing.
She didn’t look back until she was deep in the tunnels below the city.
Only then did she realize the glow in her veins wasn’t fading. It was spreading gold and red, pulsing like a heartbeat not her own.
Lyra leaned against the wall, trembling. Her reflection in a puddle wavered eyes blazing molten amber, a faint shimmer of scales at her throat.
And behind her, faint but unmistakable, a second reflection: a dragon’s silhouette watching from the dark.
You carry my flame now, the voice murmured inside her mind.
And the world will burn to remember it.
Lyra sank to her knees, gasping for breath, the sound of distant sirens echoing through the tunnels. Above, the empire’s towers gleamed with stolen fire.
Somewhere in those towers, Kael Thorne would already be hunting her.
She touched the place where the dragon’s light had entered her and whispered,
“Then let them come.”
The ember in her chest flickered once and burned brighter.