Kairen wakes to sunlight slanting through the narrow, stained-glass arrow-slit, slicing the chill of his room with a blade of molten gold. For a moment—less than a breath—he is still flying. The sensation grips his chest, hollow-boned and weightless, as if he might simply float out of bed and into the sky above the Voss ancestral estate. Then the world reasserts its weight and texture: the scratch of wool blankets, the cold flagstone biting his heels, the rough mortar scent of the ancient manor settling onto his tongue.
He blinks up at the ceiling, fighting to hold the dream together. Wisps of it swirl and vanish with every heartbeat, but he claws at the memory: tumbling through clouds the color of sunrise, wind roaring in his ears, the world below a patchwork haze. There'd been something else, too—words, clear as a bell, resounding through the golden sky. "Celestial Bond System," the voice said, and though he tries to chase the meaning, the syllables dissolve as soon as he reaches for them.
Kairen rolls onto his side, eyes darting to the wall. It's alive with the same faint blue veins it always has—magical wards inlaid by a careful hand centuries before he was born. Some pulse in time with his heartbeat, others sleep until the world stirs them. He finds them comforting, like a silent audience of ghosts watching over him. He wonders if they saw his dream, if they'll hold onto it better than he can.
A voice—his mother's, not the dream—echoes in his head: "The old blood runs restless in our house, Kai. Mind your aura. Don't let it leak when you're tired." He sits up and checks his arms, as if the scales might have crept out while he slept. Nothing. Just pale skin, bones poking through from last season's illness, the odd scratch from a tumble in the fields.
He dresses in silence, bare feet padding across the stone as he snags his tunic from a hook and hitches up the trousers he's nearly outgrown. His gaze flickers to the far corner, where the only new thing in the room sits atop a lopsided trunk: a grimoire, too heavy for a child but left for him all the same. He hesitates, then lets his hand brush the cover. The leather is still cold, the faintly embossed sigil pressing against his fingertips like a secret handshake.
Down the hall, someone drops a pot or kicks a door. The sound reverberates through the estate's bones, but no one shouts. The staff knows better than to wake the young master unless the house is on fire. And even then, Kairen suspects, they'd probably just douse the flames and let him sleep.
He peers into the hallway, the floor slick with morning light. The portraits—his forebears, glowering in muted oils—line the passage. They all have his nose and none of his smile. He wonders if any of them dreamed of flying, or if they were all too earthbound to bother.
Kairen tiptoes toward the stairwell, then stops at the landing. A chill seeps up through the soles of his feet, and for a moment, he hesitates. He remembers his father's admonition: "Always check the wards before you leave your room. The estate has a long memory." Dutiful, he squints at the thin line of blue magic curling around the archway. It's unbroken. He runs his finger along it, feeling the faintest tingle—a cat's purr, not a warning. Satisfied, he slips into the stairwell, careful not to let his footsteps echo.
At the bottom, the kitchen sprawls in organized chaos: bowls stacked, knives gleaming, the morning's bread perfuming the air. Kairen snags a crust from the cooling rack and shoves half of it in his mouth before the cook can turn and scold him.
She catches him anyway. "Master Voss, that's meant for the table."
He swallows. "You can call me Kairen, you know."
The cook huffs, but her face softens. "Your parents would have my head, Master Kairen. Eat proper, please."
He nods, already reaching for another crust. "Thank you."
She turns back to her work, muttering about the old days when children had discipline, and Kairen shuffles off to the side alcove where he can watch the world from the little round window. He chews slowly, watching the morning unfold in the courtyard: two stablehands wrangling a nervous horse, a gardener sweeping fallen leaves into neat little piles, the estate's guard captain pacing the perimeter with the same bored vigilance as always.
He tries, again, to puzzle out the dream. "Celestial Bond System." The words taste metallic, like the blood in his mouth when he lost his last baby tooth. He's read about systems—guild hierarchies, magic circles, the intricate pecking order of the city's nobility—but nothing like this. Maybe it's a kind of magic, the way his mother always talked about the bloodline. Or maybe it's just a child's fancy, another trick of the mind.
He glances at the grimoire again. His mother left it for him before she departed for the expedition with his father, promising to return with stories and new spells. "Practice the basics every day," she'd said, "or you'll never get past the wards." He'd nodded, eager and earnest, but now the words feel like a dare.
He finishes his bread and wipes his hands on his trousers, then pads back up the stairs, past the scowling ancestors, and into his room. The grimoire waits, patient and ominous. He opens it to the first page, where her neat script overlays the printed text:
"Remember: Magic is a conversation. Listen before you speak."
He traces the letters, letting the meaning settle. If magic is a conversation, maybe dreams are too. Maybe the world is trying to tell him something, if he can just figure out how to listen.
He settles onto the floor, legs crossed, grimoire open. He closes his eyes and tries to summon the sensation from the dream—the feeling of flight, of possibility, of something vast and golden just beyond reach. He whispers the words, tasting their strangeness.
"Celestial Bond System."
Nothing happens, except a faint tickle behind his eyes. He tries again, shaping the syllables carefully, focusing on the memory of sunlight and cloud.
Still nothing. He opens his eyes, frustrated. The wards on the wall pulse once, then fade.
Kairen sighs and lets his head flop back, staring at the ceiling. "Maybe tomorrow," he says to no one.
He hears the crunch of gravel outside his window, the distant rumble of a wagon returning from market. The world is moving on, as it always does. He wonders what his parents are doing right now, if they remember to think of him in the midst of their adventures.
He hopes so. He wants to make them proud.
But for now, he is just a boy in a stone room, clutching at the last wisps of a dream he cannot quite name.
He closes the grimoire, stands, and stretches. The day is waiting for him. He intends to meet it head-on.
Kairen slips into the library with the finesse of a practiced fugitive. He knows the hours when the head librarian naps—midmorning, just after tea and before the first bell for noon meal—and he leverages that knowledge now. The door opens with a muted creak; he tucks himself between two towering shelves, breathing in the must and magic of old leather, parchment, and ink.
The Voss estate's library is a world unto itself: a stone cavern lined floor to arched ceiling with shelves groaning under the weight of history, magic, and secrets. Glass orbs float at intervals, casting gentle white light that softens the hard edges of the room. The highest shelves are reachable only by a mobile staircase, whose wheels squeak with the fatigue of centuries. Dust motes swirl through the beams, each one a private sun. Kairen imagines himself a mote sometimes, just for the pleasure of it—weightless, burning with secret fire, always just out of reach.
He ducks through the aisles to the table at the back. This is his sanctuary: a broad surface scarred by generations of Vosses, initials and crude spells burned into the wood. He pulls a stack of tomes from the "Dragon Lineage" section, a clump of myth and half-truth bound in cracked hides. He flips them open one by one, searching for the shape of himself between the pages.
First: "On the True Nature of Draconic Inheritance," by D. Merrow. The text is dense and circular, full of words like "supposition" and "theoretical." Kairen's eyes blur by the third page. He slams it shut.
Second: "The Voss Bloodline: A History." The family crest stares at him, glinting silver and blue. He skims the index for "Magic, Unusual Manifestations of." Two entries: "Incidents, 312 S.E." and "Rumors, Unsubstantiated." The "Incidents" are a list of cousins who grew extra teeth or could breathe a candle's flame. The "Rumors" are worse, just old gossip about a Voss scion who transformed into a lizard during a duel and had to be smuggled out of town in a wine barrel.
He snorts. "We're all frauds," he mutters, and flips the book shut.
The last book is thinner and more promising, its spine stitched with gold thread. "The Dragon's Pact: Myths and Realities." He opens it, and a slip of parchment tumbles out. He catches it on reflex, just before it hits the table, and unfolds it. A child's scrawl, unmistakably his mother's hand: "To see the truth, look where others are blind. – L.V."
He grins, heart thumping. His mother always did love her puzzles.
He sets the slip aside and turns to the first page. The book is written as a dialogue—a series of interviews between a skeptical scholar and a "possible draconic-blooded subject." Kairen devours it, hungry for clues. The subject describes dreams of flight, of fire, of power. The scholar is dismissive, but the subject's accounts are eerily familiar.
He runs his finger down the lines, unconsciously mimicking the dragon subject's described gestures: circles traced in the air, fingers sparking with static, the deliberate deepening of breath to "wake the sleeping fire." Kairen closes his eyes and tries it. He inhales slow and steady, lets the breath fill his chest, then draws a circle with his forefinger in the space above the table.
On the third circle, something happens.
A flicker, like a ripple in the air, and a faint, iridescent glow dances up his arm. Kairen's eyes fly open—he watches, disbelieving, as the light crawls along his forearm in a lattice of tiny overlapping scales. The pattern is there for only a heartbeat, but in that moment it is bright and undeniable. Then it fades, scales vanishing as if they'd never been.
He jerks his hand back, heart slamming. For a moment, he's too stunned to do anything but stare at his own arm, half-expecting the scales to return, or his skin to peel away and reveal something monstrous underneath.
Instead, he's just a boy with a racing pulse and an arm that now tingles with possibility.
He lets out a sharp, involuntary laugh, then clamps his hand over his mouth. He waits, listening for footsteps—none. He's safe. For now.
He touches his forearm again, as if the scales might reappear if he wishes hard enough. Nothing. But the echo of the sensation lingers, a faint warmth beneath the skin.
Kairen gathers the books into a pile, mind spinning. If he can do it once, he can do it again. Maybe more.
He looks at the scrap of parchment. To see the truth, look where others are blind."
He thinks: I'm not blind. Not anymore.
He's halfway through tracing the rune again—willing the scales to come back, searching for the missing link—when the library's stillness detonates. The door bangs open so hard the wood reverberates, and Tali Voss launches herself into the room, all elbows and frenetic energy. She's only eight months his junior but already outpaces him in every race that counts: running, talking, breaking the rules.
"Caught you!" she crows, amber-emerald eyes narrowed in triumph. She's got a leaf in her hair and her sleeves are rolled past her elbows, exposing the constellation of scrapes and ink stains she collects like medals.
Kairen stares, hand frozen mid-gesture. "You're supposed to knock."
She shrugs, unrepentant. "You're supposed to have friends."
He scowls, but she's already circling the table, scanning his reading pile with the predatory focus of a cat eyeing a box of birds. "Dragon lineage again? Please tell me you're not still trying to set yourself on fire."
Kairen bristles. "I'm reading. And you're not supposed to be in here."
Tali ignores him, plops into the seat opposite, and props her chin on her fists. "It's boring outside. Everyone's doing chores or pretending not to see me." She leans in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss: "Let's go see the eastern wing."
Kairen gapes. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because," he says, "Mother said it's off-limits. The wards are active and—" He lowers his voice, glancing toward the hall. "She said some of the wards are… experimental."
Tali's eyes light up. "Exactly! They're hiding something, Kai. Maybe a monster. Or a secret treasure. Or a prisoner! What if it's a dragon egg? What if it's—"
He cuts her off with a raised hand. "You always want to break the rules."
She grins, teeth sharp and white. "Rules are just dares from people who think they're smarter than you."
Kairen groans, but she's already halfway out of her seat, bouncing on the balls of her feet. We'll be careful. I'll even let you go first, in case there are traps. Deal?"
He shakes his head, determined. "No. If something happens, Mother will blame me. Like always."
Tali stops, arms folded, eyes narrowed. "You're not fun anymore. You used to be fun."
"I'm still fun," Kairen protests, but it comes out weak, even to his own ears.
"Prove it."
He glances at the books, then at the door. "I can't. I have to finish this." He means the sentence, the page, the whole impossible puzzle of what he is and what he could become. But Tali, as always, only hears what she wants.
She snorts. "You're scared."
"I'm not scared, I'm—" He struggles for a word that isn't "scared." "Responsible."
Tali's expression shifts, the mischief curdling into something sharper. "You're scared you'll mess up, just like last time."
He flushes, the memory stinging: a spell gone wrong, a broken vase, a week of cold shoulder from their mother. "I'm not scared," he repeats, but it's less convincing the second time.
Tali leans across the table, so close he can see the flecks of green in her eyes. "Come with me, Kai. If we both go, she can't blame just you."
He hesitates. For a moment, he wants to say yes—to leap up, to chase the thrill, to prove to her and himself that he's not just a shadow of his parents. But then he remembers the dream, the scales, the strange words echoing in his mind. He can't risk it. Not today.
"No," he says, voice flat.
Tali recoils as if slapped. "Fine. Stay here and rot. See if I care."
She storms out, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the shelves. A few loose pages flutter to the floor in her wake.
Kairen sits in the silence, heart thumping. He should feel relief, but all he can taste is the bitter aftershock of disappointment.
He picks up the fallen pages, smooths them, and sets them back in place. For a moment, he watches the door, half-hoping she'll burst back in and demand a rematch.
But she doesn't.
Kairen turns back to his books, determined to solve the riddle of himself before anyone else can.
Evening seeps through the library's windows, transmuting the floating orbs' light into a gossamer hush. The household has wound down to embers—no more clattering in the kitchen, no clomping boots in the hall, only the distant echo of wind against glass and the slow, tick-tock sigh of old stone cooling. Kairen is alone, hunched over the table with his dragon books, a makeshift fortress of tomes and parchment surrounding him.
He's copied down the most promising passages, underlined the bits that feel sharp and true. "Manifestation may be triggered by stress or strong emotion." "Subject reported unusual dreams preceding transformation." "Dangerous if unsupervised." He has a list of questions, but every answer seems to breed more.
His eyelids are heavy, brain clotted with words and the afterimage of those impossible scales. He tries to recapture the sensation, the flicker along his arm, but exhaustion has begun to flatten his thoughts.
He lights a fresh candle, but its flame gutters low. There's a dampness in the air, the promise of spring rain. Shadows creep up the stacks, swallowing the last of the day.
He should go to bed. He knows this. But if he leaves, the magic might slip away again, and he might wake up just a normal, bloodless boy.
He yawns, rubs his eyes, forces himself to read the next page: "In rare cases, individuals with strong magical affinity may develop a bond system, the nature of which remains mysterious. Effects include: increased magical output, altered perception, heightened empathy, and, in advanced cases, partial awakening of ancestral abilities."
Kairen frowns. Bond system. Like the words in his dream.
He leans forward, tracing the phrase with a stub of charcoal, and lets his head drop, just for a moment, onto the open grimoire.
He dreams instantly.
He's falling, but it feels like flying—racing through clouds so bright they burn his eyes, the wind a physical thing that peels away every thought and worry. He looks down and sees the world as a lattice of light, every tree and stone and stream bound together by threads he knows, suddenly, how to follow.
Somewhere ahead, a voice waits. He recognizes it but can't place it—not his mother, not Tali, not any of the estate's old ghosts. It's inside him and outside, woven into the dream. It speaks his name, and then, perfectly clear:
"Celestial Bond System."
The words crash through him, echoing in his bones, his blood, the pulsing blue wards of his memory. For a moment, he's certain he understands—he can see every secret, every possibility, every version of himself stretched out along a thread of stars.
Then the dream shatters, and he is awake, cheek pressed to the table, grimoire damp with drool.
Dawn is already limning the high windows, cold and colorless. His candle has gone out, a curl of smoke marking its end. The library is silent, except for his own breathing, ragged and real.
Kairen sits up, blinking. The dream lingers, sticky and vivid, clinging to his mind with barbed hooks. He rubs at his forearm, half-expecting the scales to be back, but his skin is smooth, if goose-pimpled.
He tries to remember the feeling, the knowledge he held in the dream, but it's slipping away with every second. All that remains is the phrase, bright and unignorable: Celestial Bond System.
He tests the words aloud. They taste right, electric and new.
Kairen stands, stretching the sleep from his shoulders. He gathers up the books and his notes, replaces the chair with care, and makes for the library door. The estate is still asleep, but he moves through it as if followed, as if the dream has left a trail of invisible footsteps behind him.
In his room, the magical wards on the wall pulse a little brighter, as if greeting him. He sits on the bed, facing the window, and watches the sunrise fan out over the fields.
He tells himself the dream is nothing, just a wish for something more. He knows better, but the lie is comforting. He repeats it until it feels almost true.
He gets dressed, runs a hand through his hair, and prepares to meet the day.
He is still just a boy, still Kairen Voss.
But something is different now, and he can feel it thrumming beneath his skin, biding its time.