(Lyra's POV)
We moved like ghosts across a dying land.
The merchant caravan slipped between shadows, ducking tax collectors and bounty hunters with the ease of men used to running. They called themselves traders—but their goods were often stolen, enchanted… or alive.
I slept beside crates of glowing roots and weapons laced with curses and learned how to bluff with a straight face and how to bleed where no one would see.
By sixteen, I was sharper than the blades I carried.
No one asked where I came from. I never offered.
On the road, names were currency. And mine was worth killing for.
It was deep winter when we crossed the Bloodfall Fields.
A wasteland of ash and bone. The place where thousands of warriors fell, and the land never forgot. They said the trees grew twisted from drinking the blood in the soil—that the wind whispered the last screams of the dead.
We had no choice but to pass through.
Gold was scarce—time, even scarcer.
Even the caravan kept silent that night. Fires burned low. Voices stayed hushed.
I walked the perimeter, knife in hand, song magic coiled beneath my skin.
That's when I saw him.
Half-buried in frost and soot.
Wings shredded. Scales torn. Blood like molten glass staining the snow.
A dragon.
No.
A boy.
He couldn't have been more than seventeen—older than me, but barely. His body bent at an angle that screamed broken. His fire… gone.
I thought he was dead.
Then he moved.
A slow, shallow breath. A twitch of clawed fingers.