Chapter 8 The Dragon King
Rhea POV
By midday, the wind felt like it had teeth.
We’d been riding for hours, weaving through cracked highways and rusted cars half buried in snow. The world was a graveyard painted white.
Maris rode ahead, scanning the ridgeline through a cracked pair of binoculars. Yurik tinkered with one of his little inventions, a pulse beacon built from dragon tech and a radio coil. He said it could detect magical heat signatures. I said it looked like a toaster mated with a bomb. He’d laughed.
“Two signatures, northwest quadrant,” Yurik said now, his eyes narrowing. “Big ones.”
“How big?” Maris asked.
“Flying, breathing-fire kind of big.”
“Dragons,” I muttered.
Maris lowered her binoculars. “Of course it’s dragons.”
We slowed the horses, moving them behind a ridge of black stone that still bore scorch marks from some old battle. I dismounted, crouching low, the snow biting through my gloves. My senses felt too sharp, every breath of wind, every heartbeat around me. Even the distant thrum in the sky.
“Two in the air,” Maris whispered. “Scouts, maybe. Pattern looks like a patrol.”
Yurik adjusted the dial on his beacon. “If they see us, we’re ash.”
“Then don’t let them see us,” I said, pulling my knives free.
He smirked. “Always a plan.”
We crept up the slope, staying low. Through the haze, I saw them, two dragons circling, their scales glinting bronze and black. Their wings cut the air like thunder. Even from here, I could feel the heat bleeding off them.
“Keep it quiet,” Maris murmured.
We might’ve pulled it off too, if the wind hadn’t shifted.
One of the dragons snapped its head toward us, it's nostrils flaring. Then it roared.
“Shit,” Yurik breathed.
“Scatter!” I yelled.
The first blast of flame slammed into the ridge, exploding rock into shards. I dove, rolled, and came up throwing, two blades, silvered and spinning. One buried itself between the dragon’s scales. The other ricocheted off, useless. The beast screamed, it's wings flaring, smoke rolling out of its mouth.
Maris charged, her dual blades flashing like lightning. She moved fast, faster than any human should’ve, but the dragon’s tail whipped out, catching her leg. She hit the ground hard, rolled, and came up slashing.
Yurik fired a wrist-mounted dart gun, and the projectile exploded mid-air into a cloud of silver dust that burned the dragon’s eyes. “Ha! Take that, lizard!”
“Yurik, left!” I shouted.
He spun just as the second dragon dove. Its claws tore through the snow where he’d been a heartbeat before. He rolled, jammed a blade into a joint at its ankle, and fired a shock pulse. The creature howled.
Then everything went quiet for a heartbeat, way too quiet.
A shadow fell across the snow. Bigger. Heavier.
Then the Dragon King himself descended from the clouds.
He was enormous, his scales like molten obsidian, and his eyes burning gold. His wings blotted out the light, snow swirling in his wake. The two scouts immediately fell back, bowing mid-air before retreating. I stared up, frozen. The sheer pressure of his presence felt like gravity had decided to triple out of spite.
Maris cursed. “That’s not a patrol. That’s royalty.”
Yurik’s voice shook. “We run, right? We definitely run?”
The King landed with a sound like thunder cracking open. His claws dug into the earth, steam hissing where they touched snow. He looked right at me. Not at us....me.
For one insane second, I thought I could take him.
I hurled a blade, sprinted forward, another knife ready. Flame licked across his teeth, but I was already rolling beneath it, heat searing my back. I came up under his chest, slashing at the softer scales there. Sparks flew. He bellowed, his tail lashing out and knocking Yurik off his feet.
“Ghost!” Maris shouted. “Fall back!”
“Working on it!”
The Dragon King turned, he was faster than he should’ve been, his massive claw sweeping sideways. It caught me across the shoulder, opposite the wolf bite, ripping through leather and flesh. Pain exploded white-hot. I hit the ground hard, my knife spinning from my grip. Blood steamed on the snow.
I screamed.
The sound didn’t feel human.
Fire erupted from my hands.
It wasn’t the dragons’ flame, it was mine. Pure, golden, and wild. It tore through the air, a wave of heat so bright it blinded everything for a heartbeat. The King reared back, roaring in shock as the blaze scorched his scales. Maris lunged in, dragging me by the collar, yelling for Yurik.
“Move!” she screamed.
Yurik grabbed my arm, his gadget sparking. “Hold on, Ghost!”
The world blurred. They half carried, half dragged me toward the horses, my boots scraping through the snow. I looked back just long enough to see the Dragon King spreading his wings, smoke curling off his body.
His eyes locked on me, there was rage and something else. Recognition?
Then darkness swallowed the world.
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Dragon King
Korr Eyridul POV
The air still tasted of her fire.
Not mine. Hers. That impossible, golden blaze that had seared through scale and pride alike.
I landed hard in the mountain hollow, snow hissing beneath my feet as I shifted down, my wings fading into skin. Gryn and Dryn crashed beside me, both half-charred, and half-laughing, idiots born without fear or restraint.
“Brother,” Gryn rasped, shaking soot from his hair, “you took the worst of it.”
“I always do,” I said, kneeling between them.
Their bodies shuddered, the great forms shrinking, bones snapping into place as the dragons became men. In this shape they were mirror images, bronze-skinned, gold-eyed, with smoke still leaking from their mouths. One clutched his ribs, the other his pride.
I pressed a hand to Gryn’s chest, and heat pulsed under my palm, steady but weak. “You’ll live.”
Dryn grinned through blood. “That human witch nearly took your head, Korr.”
“She is not a witch,” I murmured. “Not anything we’ve catalogued.”
He barked a laugh. “She bled you.”
“I allowed her close enough to try.” The truth sat heavier than armor. I had seen courage before, foolish, desperate, and doomed...but never that. Not since the old wars when humans still believed they mattered.
Gryn coughed smoke. “She screamed fire.”
“Yes.” I watched the snow where my blood still steamed, the heat refusing to die. “And the flame answered.”
Silence stretched. The twins glanced at each other, then at me, waiting for the verdict. They feared my temper more than death, though they would never admit it.
“Find her trail,” I said finally.
Dryn frowned. “You want vengeance?”
I looked toward the horizon where her light had vanished. The wind carried a scent, ash and lavender, and something wild enough to make my pulse stir. “No. I want understanding.”
Gryn laughed weakly. “You’re smiling, my King. That’s new.”
“Am I?” I touched the corner of my mouth. Strange. It did feel lighter.
The snow began to fall again, soft and slow, hissing against our heat. I turned my gaze north. Humans were supposed to burn and die. That was the order of things.
But this one, this Ghost, had burned and lived.
And somewhere deep beneath my measured calm, the dragon in me was already circling the thought hungrily.