Chapter 26 Ash in the Veins
Night gathered thick around them, swallowing shapes and sound until the world became only cold breath and snapping branches. Lyra pushed through the underbrush, pulse hammering as the others followed her deeper into the shadows of the forest ridge.
Rhian muttered, “They’re reorganizing down there.”
Mira nodded grimly. “Kael won’t give up the trail. Not after this. He knows too much.”
He knows me, Lyra thought. Too well. Too closely. Too dangerously.
Thalen limped beside her, gripping Rhian’s arm. “We need distance or cover. Preferably both.”
“We need answers,” Rhian replied. “Lyra… what did that scout mean? The Empress wants you erased? Why? What does she know that we don’t?”
Lyra swallowed hard, feeling Aurenyx’s ember glow behind her ribs.
“No more secrets,” she whispered. “Not now. Not after what just happened.”
Rhian slowed slightly, watching her. Mira didn’t turn, but the tension in her shoulders told Lyra what she wanted to say.
Thalen just sighed. “Then go on. Explain.”
Lyra stopped walking.
The forest stood around them like an audience silent, waiting, watchful.
“She doesn’t just fear the dragons,” Lyra said. “She fears the ones who can speak to them. Those with blood that can fuse with a dragon’s soul.”
Rhian frowned. “But that’s ancient lore ”
“It’s not lore,” Lyra whispered. “It’s lineage.”
Mira’s breath caught. “Lyra… who was your mother?”
Lyra opened her mouth
Crack.
A twig broke.
Not from their group.
Rhian snapped her bow up instantly. “Movement. Left.”
A whisper of wind curled around Lyra’s ear.
They come. A dozen… no, more. They carry death with them. And purpose.
Aurenyx’s voice thrummed through her blood.
Lyra stiffened.
“They’ve split the unit,” she whispered. “They’re surrounding us from both sides.”
Thalen hissed, “How do you know?”
But he didn’t need the answer—the glow in Lyra’s eyes told him everything.
Rhian swore. “If we’re caught in a pincer ”
“We won’t be,” Lyra said, turning sharply. “Follow me.”
She led them down a steep incline, boots sliding on loose earth. The trees thickened, branches clawing at their clothes as they plunged into deeper shadow. The forest floor grew damp and uneven. Fog rose around them like drifting ghosts.
Finally, they reached a hollow a circular depression surrounded by moss-covered stones half-buried in the earth.
Rhian examined it warily. “This place is wrong.”
Mira’s eyes widened. “Ancient warding stones… from the old tribes. This is a burial hollow.”
Thalen gulped. “And that helps us how?”
Lyra stepped into the center. The air shivered.
Aurenyx’s ember flared so sharply she stumbled.
This ground remembers power. Old power. Lost power. Dragon-kind walked here once. Their bones may still lie beneath the soil.
“I can use it,” Lyra whispered.
“Use what?” Mira asked.
“The resonance.”
Rhian lowered her bow slightly. “Lyra… what exactly are you trying to do?”
Lyra looked at them, breath trembling.
“Call help.”
Before anyone could argue, the forest exploded with sound.
Boots pounding.
Brush snapping.
Voices shouting commands.
“Lock the perimeter!”
“Spread the ring!”
“Target is near!”
“Do not let her escape!”
Kael’s voice rose over all of them:
“LYRA, STOP RUNNING!”
Rhian flinched. “He’s closer than I thought”
“He’s tracking your magic,” Mira muttered. “You need to mute your aura.”
Lyra shook her head. “I can’t. Not now.”
She knelt in the hollow.
Placed her palm on the moss.
And breathed.
Not air.
Not thought.
But power.
Aurenyx inhaled with her, the dragon’s spirit coiling and expanding through her bones, her blood, her voice.
Let me through. Let me speak. Let me roar.
Not fully, Lyra whispered internally. Only what I choose.
Then choose strength. Choose fury. Choose fire.
Lyra released a breath and the hollow lit faintly, runes awakening under her hand.
The world seemed to tilt.
Rhian staggered. “Lyra something’s happening”
Mira grabbed Thalen as he swayed. “She’s stirring ancient magic. Magic tied to dragons.”
Thalen whispered, terrified, “We’re dead.”
The wind rose suddenly, swirling in a funnel around the hollow. Leaves lifted into the air. Light sparked faintly along the stones.
The Inquisition burst into the clearing six soldiers on one side, four on the other. Armor glinted. Crossbows lifted. Spellcasters raised glowing sigils.
Kael stepped forward through them, eyes locked on Lyra. His expression was fury and disbelief and something deeper a mix of betrayal and recognition.
“Lyra,” he said, voice strained. “Stop this. Please.”
She didn’t lift her hand.
Didn’t break the connection.
Didn’t look away.
Kael stepped closer, ignoring Rhian’s bow aimed at his throat.
“You’re not making this easy,” Rhian muttered.
Kael didn’t even glance her way. “Lyra, listen to me.”
She finally spoke. “You came after me.”
“You fled.”
“You hunted me.”
“You’re dangerous.”
Her eyes glowed brighter.
“You’re afraid.”
He flinched.
But only for a heartbeat.
Then he stepped closer bold, reckless, almost desperate.
“Lyra Vance,” he said softly, “if you draw whatever you’re calling… you won’t be the only one who pays the price.”
Lyra’s heart pounded.
Still, she pressed her palm deeper into the earth.
Kael’s jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
But the hollow brightened.
The runes glowed.
The wind surged
And Aurenyx’s voice roared inside her skull:
YES. THE GROUND REMEMBERS. LET THEM HEAR YOUR BLOOD.
The moss burst into flame white flame.
The burial stones pulsed with heat.
The soldiers panicked.
“What is she doing?”
“Fall back fall back”
“That’s forbidden magic”
“She’s summoning”
Kael shouted, “STAND YOUR GROUND!”
Rhian screamed, “LYRA, WHAT ARE YOU CALLING?!”
Lyra finally looked up
Her pupils slitted with dragonfire.
“Help.”
The forest answered.
A tremor rippled through the earth.
A deep, ancient rumble shook the hollow as though the roots of the world were waking.
Mira gasped, stepping back. “Lyra you didn’t ”
Thalen whispered, horrified, “She’s calling a dragon.”
Rhian turned pale. “No. Not Aurenyx. Something else.”
Kael’s face drained of color.
He shouted, “RETREAT! RETREAT NOW!”
But it was too late.
The ground cracked.
Fissures split across the hollow like lightning scars. Light spilled upward through the cracks bright, molten, impossible.
A roar rose from beneath the forest floor, so deep it rattled Lyra’s teeth, so old it echoed memories from Aurenyx that weren’t hers.
Rhian screamed, “LYRA STOP YOU’LL BRING THE WHOLE MOUNTAIN DOWN!”
Lyra rose slowly, the ground shaking under her feet.
“I can’t stop it,” she whispered. “It heard me.”
A massive shadow shifted beneath the soil.
The soldiers panicked, scrambling back.
Kael couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
He stared at her with a mix of awe and horror.
“Lyra,” he choked out, “you’re not calling a dragon ”
The earth exploded.
Roots snapped. Stones shattered. A geyser of dirt and golden light blasted into the sky.
A massive claw burst upward charred black, etched with molten veins.
Mira screamed.
Thalen fell to his knees.
Rhian whispered, “By the gods…”
Kael staggered back.
The ground split wide as something enormous forced its way upward a creature older than the empire’s founding, older than the last great flight of dragons.
A dragon corpse.
Reanimated by her summon.
No
Not a corpse.
A dracolich.
Eyes burning with undead fire.
Jaw creaking open in a skeletal roar that shattered branches and sent the Inquisition tumbling.
Lyra stumbled back, hand flying to her mouth.
“Ididn’t”
Aurenyx’s voice shivered in terror:
You called a forgotten one. A dragon whose death was denied. A creature that does not obey life or soul.
The dracolich fixed its burning eyes on Lyra.
And bowed.
Kael whispered, horror strangling his voice:
“Lyra Vance… what have you done?”