Chapter 28: THE DRAGON’S VEIN
The wind over the high ridge screamed like a living thing.
Kaelin pressed a hand against the jagged stone as she climbed, her fingers numb from cold despite the heat threading under her skin. The higher they ascended, the more the air crackled thin, sharp, and charged with something ancient. Her emberfire burned low and restless, like a caged creature trembling against its bars.
Behind her, Taren cursed under his breath as loose shale skidded down the slope. “Tell me again why the entrance to an ancient dragon temple can’t be somewhere reasonable,” he muttered.
“Dragons don’t do reasonable,” Veyra said from ahead, her voice steady despite the brutal climb. “And neither do the gods.”
A flash of heat pulsed through Kaelin’s ribs. Since touching the Heartstone, the connection had been growing stronger, deeper, more insistent. Sometimes she felt as if something vast and patient watched the world through her eyes something old as mountains and fierce as the sun.
The Echo stirred now, whispering soundless warnings along her bones.
Kaelin swallowed. “Something’s close.”
Veyra didn’t pause. “I know.”
But Taren stiffened. “Crown soldiers?”
“No,” Kaelin said.
Whatever approached wasn’t human.
They scaled the last steep rise, pulling themselves over a ridge that overlooked a jagged hollow carved into the mountain. A crater-like bowl of black volcanic stone lay below, split through the center by a glowing fissure the Dragon’s Vein, a legendary faultline where dragonfire once erupted from beneath the world.
Heat shimmered above it like a mirage.
And something stood at the fissure’s edge.
Tall. Cloaked. Motionless.
Kaelin’s heart stuttered. “Oh no…”
Taren’s hand went to his blade. “Who the hell?”
The figure lifted its head.
Pale silver hair streamed from beneath the hood, catching the faint sunlight like strands of molten metal. Even across the distance, Kaelin felt the air tighten, the same way it had in the capital when she’d glimpsed him once from afar.
Prince Aerhon.
The Crown’s right hand. The king’s weapon. The most gifted frost-wielder in centuries.
And the man rumored to be utterly loyal until her capture became his obsession.
Taren exhaled a curse. “He followed us.”
“No,” Veyra said quietly. “He arrived before us.”
The prince raised a hand.
Ice crackled outward from where he stood, racing over the black stone like white lightning. Frost coated the Dragon’s Vein, steam bursting as fire met ice in violent protest.
Kaelin felt her emberfire recoil in fury.
Aerhon’s voice, clear and calm despite the howling wind, carried across the hollow.
“Kaelin Dravyr. Step forward.”
Every instinct screamed no.
But power thrummed under her skin, pushing her toward him, recognizing him not the man, but something else clinging to him. He was wrong. Tainted. Touched by an ancient force that didn’t belong in human flesh.
She stepped forward anyway.
Taren grabbed her arm. “Kaelin don’t.”
“I have to.” Her voice shook. “He came for me, not you.”
She knew it the way she knew how to breathe.
Veyra’s gaze narrowed. “Be careful, Emberborn.”
Kaelin descended the slope toward Aerhon. Steam hissed between them where frost met heat. When she reached the edge of the cracked basin, she stopped, heartbeat thundering.
“Aerhon,” she said, keeping her tone steady. “Why are you here?”
“To bring you home.” His eyes icy blue, too sharp, too bright locked onto hers. “The kingdom is falling apart without you.”
She almost laughed. “I’m not your kingdom’s anything.”
His expression didn’t change. “You are its last hope.”
“Funny,” she said coldly, “that the king’s prized heir suddenly cares about hope.”
But Aerhon didn’t flinch.
“Do you know what lies beneath the Dragon’s Vein?” he asked.
Kaelin hesitated. “An ancient dragon temple.”
“A prison,” he corrected calmly. “One sealed by your ancestors. A place only the Emberborn can open.”
Her blood iced.
He took a slow step forward, boots crunching over frost. “You can feel it, can’t you? The heartbeat below. Calling you.”
The Echo surged inside her, hot and panicked.
Not this. Not him. Not now.
She fought the rising pressure and kept her face blank. “Why would you want it opened?”
At last, a flicker of emotion crossed Aerhon’s features something that bordered on desperation.
“Because the king wants what sleeps beneath freed,” he said. “And if I fail to bring you back… he will tear the continent apart trying.”
A cold, hard truth settled into Kaelin’s bones.
The king wasn’t chasing her for her power.
He was chasing her for what her power could unleash.
Kaelin stepped back. “I’m not helping him.”
A faint sigh left Aerhon. “I didn’t expect you would.”
Before she could react, a shockwave of icy magic blasted outward.
Kaelin dove sideways as the ground snapped into frozen shards. Taren and Veyra charged down the slope, yelling her name, but Aerhon lifted a hand and the wind screamed as icestorm blades spiraled toward them.
Kaelin flung her palm out. Emberfire erupted in a blazing arc, melting the frost and shattering the attack. Heat roared from her, brighter than ever, fiercer than she’d felt in her entire life.
Aerhon actually staggered a step.
“So the Heartstone awakened you,” he murmured. “Good.”
Kaelin’s veins blazed white-hot. “You won’t touch them.”
“Your companions don’t matter,” he said softly. “Only you do.”
He raised his arms.
Kaelin braced then everything exploded.
Frost and flame collided midair, sending shockwaves tearing across the mountain. The force knocked Taren tumbling back; Veyra barely ducked behind a ridge as shards of molten ice cut the air.
Kaelin didn’t fall.
She blazed.
Her emberfire wrapped around her, flowing like liquid gold. The Echo rose within her fully awake now, ancient and furious.
Aerhon’s icy aura surged in answer.
The mountain groaned.
Cracks split the ground beneath them as opposing forces consumed the hollow. The Dragon’s Vein glowed brighter, fissures widening as fire erupted in violent bursts.
Aerhon’s voice carried through the chaos. “Kaelin, stop! You’ll break the seal”
“You’re the one attacking!” she shouted, hurling another arc of fire.
He pushed through it, frost armor forming along his skin.
“I’m trying to save you!”
“By dragging me to a king who wants to use me?”
“No,” Aerhon said, and for the first time his voice cracked.
“To protect you from what’s beneath.”
The fissure erupted fire spiraling skyward like a beacon.
A roar not human, not alive shook the mountain.
Taren screamed her name.
Veyra shouted a warning.
Aerhon lunged.
But before Kaelin could react, the ground vanished beneath her feet. A scorching pulse of energy tore upward like a spear, swallowing her whole.
She fell through fire, through
darkness, through something older than the world.
The last thing she heard was Aerhon’s voice echoing after her, raw and desperate:
“Kaelin!”
Then everything went black.