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Chapter 13 –
Draven's POV
The room reeked of old magic.
Not the kind that danced on runes or flickered under moonlight. This was deeper. Older. Like the scent of locked doors and buried gods. Like something sealed so long ago, the world forgot it should fear it.
Scarlet lay motionless on the stone slab.
Her chest rose and fell — barely. But her body wasn't still. It twitched. Jerked. Flinched like it was at war with something we couldn't see.
"She's burning up," Damian muttered, his voice tight. "This isn't a fever."
We all knew that.
The healer — Elira — stood by her side, fingers twitching over the rim of a shallow bowl filled with crushed wolfsbane and rune ash. She hadn't said a word since we brought Scarlet in.
Not one.
Dexter's eyes narrowed.
"Say it," he said.
Elira didn't look at him.
Dexter took a step closer. "You sense it. I know you do. Her magic—"
"Isn't mine to explain," Elira replied softly.
That was the wrong answer.
"I will rip it from your head if I have to," Dexter growled.
"No," Damian cut in, pacing again. "Not now. Not with her like this—"
"She doesn't have time, Damian," Dexter snapped. "You saw it. Her body is rejecting something. It's trying to burn it out. And the seal is fighting back."
"Seal?" I said quietly.
Dexter didn't look away from Elira. "Her powers. They're not dormant. They're bound."
Another pulse surged from Scarlet's body — the air shimmered, runes flickered against the slab beneath her. The glass dome above us creaked, as if the magic inside was pressing up against it.
"She'll combust," Elira finally said, barely above a whisper. "Or worse."
Dexter moved fast — too fast. He gripped her mind with a flare of crimson energy, and Elira gasped, stumbling backward, clutching her head like it was being split open.
"Enough!" Damian shouted, grabbing Dexter's arm. "She's not the enemy—"
"She's hiding something that could kill her," Dexter hissed, refusing to release his grip.
"Elira," I said quietly. "Tell us."
She looked up — pain flickering in her ancient eyes.
"It's not witchcraft," she said. "Not wolfblood. Not any magic I've studied in centuries."
"Then what is it?" Damian asked.
She looked at Scarlet.
And whispered, "Dragonfire."
The silence that followed wasn't just quiet.
It weighed.
"You're lying," Damian said. "That doesn't exist anymore."
"Not here. But it exists," she replied. "The magic inside her is sealed with fire that doesn't burn the body — it burns the soul. It freezes it. It buries it in silence."
I felt it then — the frost in me recoiling like it had met its ancient rival.
"She's fighting it," Elira continued. "Her body is trying to break free. But if no one finds the source, she'll burn from the inside out."
Damian turned to me.
"No," I said before he even opened his mouth.
"You're the only one who can do this."
"I'm not a key."
"But your frostbind can survive her fire — long enough to find the seal."
"If I get trapped in there—"
"I'll tether you," Dexter said. "You won't be alone."
I looked at Scarlet again.
Her hands were still. But her soul…
It was screaming.
I sighed and stepped forward, letting the cold rise around me. Frost spiraled up my arms, responding to the power I rarely unleashed in full.
The moment my fingers touched her temple—
Everything disappeared.
—
Darkness.
But not empty.
Scarlet's inner world was not chaos. It was order forged through torment.
Flashes of red and silver. The scent of scorched stone. The echo of chains — and then silence, deep as death.
I moved through the ash-choked shadows, drawn by instinct. By a pull I didn't understand.
That's when I saw it.
A throne, jagged and cruel, carved from bone and lit by flames that didn't flicker — they breathed. And on it sat a figure shrouded in heat and shadow, crowned by fire.
As I stepped closer, the illusion unraveled.
It wasn't a stranger.
It was her.
Scarlet.
But not like I'd ever seen her.
Her skin shimmered with molten undertones. Her hair fell in waves of ash-streaked flame. Her claws — yes, claws — were like a wolf's, but sharper, older.
And her eyes—
Not wolf.
Not witch.
Not mortal.
Just… burning.
She stood from the throne. Walked toward me with a calm that made the fire part around her like it knew better than to touch her.
"You came inside," she said — but her voice echoed like a thousand voices speaking through her. "You shouldn't have."
Behind me, the world shifted.
I turned slowly.
And froze.
Five dragons.
Massive. Eternal. Their scales glimmered in the spectrum of myth — obsidian black, dawn-gold, molten red, silver streaked with lightning, and one made of wind itself, invisible save for the shimmer in the air where it moved.
Their eyes were fixed not on me.
But on her.
I turned back. My frost cracked along my spine.
"What are you?" I whispered.
Scarlet's face stilled.
Then she raised her chin, fire crowning her brow. She stepped forward and let the magic in her speak in a language older than the sky.
> "Nyke Scarlet Stormborn."
"Dāria hen perzys."
"Tōma hen vēzos."
"Qrimbrar hen iderennon."
"Daor rōvēgion hen āeksion."
"Se doru perzys."
"Tegon hen sōvion."
"Se zokla hen jelmio se vorti dārion."
"Ēlie hen Valyria lenton."
"Perzys daor rūk."
"Tōma daor gevives."
Then — in a whisper that split the seal's illusion — she spoke again, in English:
> "I am Scarlet Stormborn.
Daughter of flame.
Blood of skies,Breaker of silence.
Unmarked by runes.
Crowned by fire.
Commander of the winged and the fanged
Last of the Valyrian line.
My flame unbent and Storm unbound."
The dragons behind her roared — not in challenge, but in salute.
And I?
I stood frozen in front of a throne not built for any kingdom we knew.
And a girl who was never just a girl.
She wasn't the weapon.
She was the war.
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