Serina
The descent into Old Ashfall took an hour.
I climbed down rusted fire escapes and squeezed through gaps in chain-link fences, following a path I'd only heard about in whispers. The kind of whispers people shared after too much cheap gin, when they were desperate enough to believe in ghost stories.
Third level down. Past the collapsed textile mill. Look for the iron door with the dragon symbol.
Yeah. That didn't sound ominous at all.
The Lower City got quieter the deeper I went. Up top, there was always noise…machinery, voices, life. Down here, the silence pressed against my ears like water.
I clicked on the little wind-up torch I'd borrowed (stolen) from the boarding house and kept moving.
My breath fogged in the cold. November in Ashfall meant frost on the windows and frozen pipes, but down here it was worse. The air felt wrong.
Turn back. This is insane.
I told that voice in my head to shut up and kept walking.
The iron door wasn't hard to find—mostly because it was the only intact structure in the entire collapsed district. It stood at the end of a narrow corridor formed by two fallen buildings, its surface covered in so much rust and grime I almost missed the symbol carved into the metal.
A dragon symbol…wings spread. Mouth open in a roar.
My torch flickered.
"Okay," I whispered to myself. "Okay. You came here for a reason. Aden needs medicine. This is… this is the only option."
I reached out and touched the door.
It was warm.
I jerked my hand back, heart hammering. Metal shouldn't be warm. Not down here. It was freezing.
But when I pressed my palm flat against it again, the heat was undeniable. Faint, but real. Like something alive was breathing on the other side.
The door swung open without a sound.
The tunnel beyond was carved from stone. It looked ancient. The walls were smooth, almost glassy, and covered in symbols I didn't recognize. They glowed faintly—silver light that pulsed in rhythm with something I couldn't hear but somehow felt.
My footsteps echoed.
This is different.
The Dragon Shrine everyone talked about was supposedly full of broken altars and Council warning signs. This… this was something else.
The symbols on the walls grew brighter as I walked, illuminating a path that sloped steadily downward. The air warmed. By the time I reached the bottom, I'd stripped off my coat and rolled up my sleeves, sweat beading on my forehead despite the autumn chill above.
The tunnel opened into a chamber.I stopped breathing.
It was massive—cathedral-sized—with a domed ceiling that disappeared into shadow. In the center stood a raised platform carved from a single piece of black stone, and on that platform…
A pillar.
Not like the Luminous Pillars that powered the city. This one was smaller, darker, made of something that looked like obsidian and midnight compressed into solid form. Veins of silver light spider-webbed across its surface, pulsing with that same rhythm I'd felt in the tunnel.
And around the base, carved deep into the stone floor, were words in a language I'd never seen but somehow understood.
My head swam. The air was too thick, too warm, pressing against my skin like hands.
You shouldn't be here.
But my feet moved forward anyway, drawn by something I couldn't name. When I reached the platform, I saw the basin carved into the stone at the pillar's base.
"This is stupid," I said aloud, but my voice sounded distant. "This is the kind of stupid that gets people killed in stories."
I pulled out my knife.
Aden's face flashed in my mind. The way he'd smiled tonight despite the blood on his lips. The way he'd looked at me like I could fix this.
As long as you can.
I pressed the blade to my palm and sliced.
Pain flared, sharp and bright, snapping me back to reality for half a second—but then my blood hit the basin and everything broke.
The chamber exploded with light. Silver fire erupted from the pillar, roaring up to the ceiling in a column of impossible brilliance. I stumbled back, shielding my eyes, as the symbols on the walls blazed so bright they seared into my vision.
The ground shook. Stone cracked.
And then…A voice.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
The words slammed into my skull like hammers. I dropped to my knees, gasping, clutching my temples as the presence behind that voice pressed down on me.
The light shifted and suddenly there was something or someone rather standing on the platform. A man.
He was tall, impossibly so, with shoulders broad enough to fill doorways. Dark hair fell past his shoulders in waves that caught the silver light, and his eyes— His eyes were molten silver, slit-pupiled, glowing with fury.
He wore something like armor, black scales that moved with his breathing, and when he took a step toward me the floor cracked under his weight.
"What," he said, voice like rocks grinding together, "in the name of every forgotten god, made you think bleeding on a soul-contract was a good idea?"
I couldn't answer. Hell I could barely breathe. The power radiating off him was suffocating, and some primal part of my brain was screaming at me to run.
But I couldn't move.
He crossed the distance between us in two strides and crouched down, bringing those burning eyes level with mine. This close, I could see the faint shimmer of scales along his collarbone, the way his pupils contracted when he focused on me.
"You're Nullborn," he said, and it wasn't a question. "No magic signature or pillar connection." His lip curled. "How did you even find this place?"
"I—" My voice cracked. "I don't—"
"Never mind." He grabbed my bleeding hand, his grip hot enough to sting, and stared at the cut. "The contract is already forming. Brilliant. Just brilliant. Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"I needed help," I managed. "My brother is dying and I—"
"So you thought you'd summon a dragon?"
He laughed, the sound bitter and sharp. "Of all the idiotic, desperate, mortal decisions—"
"You're a dragon?"
He released my hand and stood, towering over me. "Four hundred years. Four hundred years sealed in the dark, and I'm woken by a Nullborn girl who doesn't even know what she's binding herself to." He dragged a hand through his hair, and I saw his fingers tremble. "This is a nightmare."
"I didn't mean-"
"The contract doesn't care what you meant." He turned those silver eyes on me again, and this time I saw something other than anger. Fear. "You spilled blood on a soul-binding altar and spoke a plea. That's all it takes. The magic doesn't ask if you understand the price."
My hand throbbed. When I looked down, I saw silver light seeping from the cut, spreading across my palm like roots.
"What's happening to me?"
"The bond is forming." His voice had gone dangerously quiet. "In about thirty seconds, your soul is going to tangle with mine, and then we'll both be trapped in this contract until one of us dies or fulfills whatever idiotic wish you made."
"I wished for my brother to be saved."
He went very still.
"You…" He stared at me. "You asked for someone else to be saved?"
"He's sick. Dying. I tried everything and nothing worked, so I came here because I heard-"
"Who are you?" The question came out unexpectedly.
"Serina. Serina Ashveil."
Something flickered across his face too fast to read. Then the silver light on my palm flared, and I screamed. It felt like lightning in my veins. It was burning. The light raced up my arm, branching across my skin in patterns that looked like scales, and where it touched, my flesh changed. When it stopped, I was gasping on the floor, and my entire left forearm was covered in a glowing silver mark.
A dragon, wings spread, wrapped around my arm.
The man or the dragon stared at it with an expression I couldn't name.
"The bond is sealed," he said quietly.
"Congratulations. You've just tied your soul to the last creature the Council wants awakened." He met my eyes. "My name is Verath. And you, Serina Ashveil, have made the worst mistake of your very short life."