Chapter 30: The Thread Of Flame
The sky hadn’t fully recovered from the crack. Even after the golden fissure sealed shut, a faint shimmer lingered high above the ridgeline like heat rising off stone, bending the light in unnatural ways.
Arin couldn’t stop staring at it.
He kept feeling the pull.
Not a voice, not a sensation, not even a thought just a thread, thin as spider silk, tying his chest to something impossibly distant. A connection older than his breath, steady as a heartbeat.
Lysandra marched beside him as they returned to the temporary forward camp. Her hand brushed his arm every few minutes, barely noticeable, but Arin realized what it meant.
She was checking he was still here.
Still himself.
Still not being drawn toward that tear in the sky.
As they reached the perimeter stones, two sentries straightened, gripping rifles.
“Commander Lysandra,” one said, “your squad reported”
“Status report later,” she cut in. “Clear the tent. I need privacy.”
They obeyed immediately. Being commander had its advantages especially tonight.
Inside, the tent’s lanterns cast a warm glow against the canvas walls, but the air felt taut, listening, as if the mountain itself expected something to happen.
Lysandra faced him squarely.
“Arin. Tell me everything you’re feeling right now.”
He hesitated. “Everything?”
“Everything.”
He inhaled.
“I feel the wind. My heartbeat. The cold. Your hand shaking.”
She stiffened. “My hand isn’t”
“It is.” He offered a small smile. “Just a little.”
Her jaw clenched, but she didn’t deny it.
“And besides that?” she pressed.
Arin swallowed, placing a hand on his sternum. “The thread. Calling me. Pulling me.”
“How strong?”
He frowned. “Like… like being tugged gently forward. Not painful. Not insistent. Just… constant.”
Lysandra paced the narrow tent.
“It’s trying to anchor itself,” she muttered. “Dragons rarely seek direct contact unless they want something. And this one clearly”
She stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes snapped toward him.
“You’re burning.”
Arin looked down.
Light soft and golden throbbed beneath his skin in delicate patterns across his arms and collar. Like molten veins. Like the residue of the dragon’s presence still hummed inside him.
“It’s not hurting,” he said quickly. “Just warm.”
Lysandra stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from him. “This shouldn’t be happening. Not so soon after a Riftstorm echo. The bond is accelerating.”
He tensed. “Accelerating toward what?”
Her silence was answer enough.
“Lysandra?”
She exhaled. “Toward a summoning.”
Arin’s stomach dropped. “It wants me to come to it.”
“No.” Her eyes sharpened. “It’s preparing to come to you.”
He nearly choked. “Impossible dragons cannot cross physical planes without”
“Without exactly what just happened above the ridge,” she finished.
A chill whipped through him despite the glow under his skin.
“Then what do we do?” he whispered.
Lysandra steadied her breath, then reached behind her cloak, pulling out a small obsidian box carved with ancient sigils runes Arin recognized but could not read.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A Binding Compass,” she said. “Forbidden for anyone outside the First Council to use.”
“And you have one.”
Her eyes flicked up. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re implying.”
Arin raised a brow.
“…Fine, I stole it,” she muttered. “But for a good reason.”
She opened the box carefully.
Inside, a crystal sphere floated literally floated suspended above its carved base. Inside the sphere flickered a tiny flame, bright and sharp.
A dragon flame.
“Lysandra,” Arin breathed, “this is illegal to even possess”
“I’m aware.”
“You could be executed”
“Yes, Arin,” she snapped, “I know the consequences, and I’ll face them later. Right now, this is the only way to track the bond without letting it consume you.”
He swallowed as she lifted the sphere.
The flame inside flared violently the moment it neared him.
Lysandra cursed. “It’s reacting.”
The flame spiraled, twisting toward Arin’s chest as though drawn by a magnet.
“It’s resonating with your spark,” she murmured. “Stronger than I’ve ever seen.”
Arin felt the thread tighten inside him.
The dragon sensed this too.
The flame inside the sphere burst into a swirling cyclone of gold so bright Lysandra had to shield her eyes.
Then
The tiny dragonfire shot a tendril straight through the glass.
A thin beam.
A single line of light connecting the sphere to Arin’s chest.
Arin gasped, clutching his sternum as the light sank beneath his skin.
Lysandra lunged forward. “Arin!”
He doubled over, teeth gritted as warmth flooded through him not painful, but overwhelming. Like every cell ignited at once.
The glow along his collarbones expanded, racing up his neck, down his arms, spreading like branching rivers of molten gold.
His pulse thundered.
His skin glowed brighter.
The flame-thread inside him thrummed like a living thing.
Then
It stopped.
Everything froze.
The light faded to a faint simmer beneath the skin, and Arin straightened shakily.
Lysandra grabbed his face, searching his eyes. “Arin. Are you with me?”
“I’m here,” he whispered. “But… I felt something.”
“What?”
He drew a slow, trembling breath.
“Direction.”
The compass sphere dimmed, now calm again.
Lysandra’s expression hardened. “Where?”
Arin pointed east.
Not toward Stormveil.
Not toward any place he recognized.
“Its call is moving,” he murmured.
Lysandra’s brows knit. “Moving?”
“Yes. Like it’s circling something. Searching.”
She crossed her arms tightly. “Dragons don’t search. They hone.”
“But this one doesn’t know where I am,” Arin realized aloud. “It only knows the bond awakened. And now it’s trying to pinpoint me.”
Lysandra stepped closer, voice low. “Then we move before it finds you unprepared.”
Arin nodded, but the thread tugged again sharper this time and he stumbled.
Lysandra caught him.
“Easy,” she murmured. “Breathe.”
He did.
But the pull didn’t fade.
If anything, it sharpened honing like a hunter scenting prey. The dragon wasn’t aimless anymore.
It was narrowing its focus.
Closing the distance.
“Lysandra,” he whispered, fear rippling through him, “I think it’s coming closer.”
Her face turned grim. “Then we leave tonight.”
He blinked. “To where?”
She didn’t hesitate.
“To the Stormveil Range. To the heart of the leyline. To whatever truth the dragon buried there.”
Arin swallowed.
He had always imagined dragons as myths. As distant legends. As creatures of flame and sky majestic, untouchable, unreachable.
But now one was reaching for him.
Not metaphorically.
Not spiritually.
Literally.
He tightened his fists as another faint tremor passed through the bond.
Soft.
But growing.
Closer.
“Lysandra,” he said, voice tight, “if we face it if I stand in front of a dragon what do you think will happen?”
Her cool hand lifted to his cheek.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But whatever happens
I’ll be standing beside you.”
The tent lantern flickered as if stirred by unseen breath.
Outside, the wind shifted sharply.
And far beyond the mountains, the air rumbled
A deep, ancient resonance only Arin could feel.
The dragon was on the move.
The bond had awakened fully.
And time whatever little remained before their encounter was running out.