Kier's POV
I punched Riven in the face.
My fist connected with his jaw and he stumbled backward, crashing into my table. The map scattered across the floor. Blood trickled from his lip.
"You did this to me?" I screamed. "When I was six?"
He touched his mouth, staring at the blood on his fingers like he'd forgotten what pain felt like. "Kier, please—"
"Don't!" I grabbed the knife from my belt. My hands shook so hard I could barely hold it. "Don't you dare say my name. You don't get to say my name anymore."
Riven stood slowly, holding up his hands. But his eyes—something moved behind them. Something old and cold that made my skin crawl.
"I saved your life that night," he said quietly. "Your mother had just died. You were starving in an alley. I fed you. Taught you to survive. Kept you alive for eighteen years."
"While poisoning me!" The knife trembled in my grip. "While making sure my soul would break apart so I'd be desperate enough to—to what? Become some kind of dragon container?"
"Vessel," he corrected, and his voice changed. Deeper. Ancient. "The word is vessel. And yes. That's exactly what we need."
The "we" hit me like a slap.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
Riven's smile was sad. "Someone who's been alive far too long. Someone who's played this role in a dozen different bodies. Someone who..." His voice cracked. "Someone who wasn't supposed to actually care about you."
My chest hurt. Not from the black cracks—from something deeper.
"The heist tomorrow," I said. "You want me to touch the dragon. To consume his soul."
"Vash'thar is the key. His soul is powerful enough to stabilize yours temporarily. And once you've adapted to containing dragon essence..." Riven pulled out another paper. "There are six more Ancient Dragons imprisoned throughout the Isles. You'll consume them one by one, growing stronger each time. And when you're finally ready—"
"I become a puppet for some dragon emperor to wear."
"You become immortal." His eyes blazed. "You get to live forever instead of dying in six months. Isn't that what you want?"
I thought about the merchant screaming for his mother. About his children's faces, erased from his mind because I'd been hungry.
"Not like that," I said. "Never like that."
Riven's expression hardened. "You don't have a choice. The ritual is already in motion. Your soul is calibrated specifically for this. If you don't consume dragon souls to stabilize it, you'll be dead by summer."
"Then I'll die as me."
"No." His voice went cold. "You won't."
He moved faster than any human should. One second he stood by the table, the next his hand clamped around my wrist, squeezing until my knife clattered to the floor.
"I've invested eighteen years in you," he hissed. "Eighteen years of keeping you alive, training you, making sure you'd be perfect. You will complete the ritual. You will go to that vault tomorrow. And you will consume Vash'thar, even if I have to drag you there myself."
His grip burned. Not normal heat—something that made my soul scream.
"Let go," I gasped.
"You're already dying, Kier. Your soul is breaking apart as we speak. Touch your chest. Feel those cracks spreading? You have days left, maybe a week. Not months. I lied about that too." His smile was terrible. "The only thing keeping you alive right now is the memory fragments you stole tonight. And those will burn through by dawn."
No. No, he was lying. He had to be—
But I felt it. Felt the truth in my bones. The black cracks pulsed with each heartbeat, spreading like frost across glass. My soul was shattering faster than I'd known.
"So here's what happens," Riven continued. "Tomorrow night, you break into the Sovereign Keep. You touch Vash'thar. You consume his soul. And you live." He leaned close. "Or you refuse, collapse by dawn, and spend your last hours watching your soul tear itself apart piece by piece. It's the most painful death imaginable. Trust me—I've seen it happen."
He released my wrist and I stumbled back, cradling my arm.
"Why?" My voice broke. "If you needed me as a vessel, why make me care about you? Why be my friend?"
Something flickered across his face. Regret, maybe. Or memory of regret from when he used to be fully human.
"Because," he said softly, "after three thousand years of existence, even monsters get lonely."
He walked to my door, then paused. "The guard schedules are on the table. The vault access codes are memorized—you absorbed them when you touched the merchant tonight, just like I planned. Everything you need is already in your head." He looked back at me. "I'll meet you at the east gate tomorrow at midnight. Don't be late."
"I won't go."
"Yes, you will. Because despite everything, you still want to live. And I'm the only one offering you that chance." His smile was sad. "See you tomorrow, Kier. Try to get some rest."
The door closed behind him.
I stood alone in my room, breathing hard. My wrist throbbed where he'd grabbed me. When I looked down, I saw a mark—a symbol burned into my skin. A dragon eating its own tail.
The Ouroboros Mark. Even I knew what that meant.
It was a binding. A tracking spell. No matter where I ran, Riven would find me.
I sank to the floor, back against the wall. The stolen memories from the merchant swirled in my head—his daughter's wedding, his guilty secrets, his children's laughter. All of it mixed with my own memories until I couldn't tell which were real.
Was any of my life real? Or had Riven orchestrated everything?
The knock on my door made me jump.
"Kier?" A different voice this time. Young, scared. "Are you home?"
I knew that voice. Sara, the ten-year-old from downstairs. Her mother worked in the factories.
"Go away," I called.
"Please! My mama's sick and the doctor won't come unless we pay first. Someone said you had money from a job tonight. I just need to borrow—"
"I said go away!"
Silence. Then quiet footsteps retreating down the hall.
I pressed my hands over my face. That money was all I had. It was supposed to buy me medicine, food, rent. If I gave it away, I'd have nothing.
But Sara's mother was dying. Actually dying, not from some magical soul condition but from real sickness that real medicine could fix.
I grabbed the silver marks from under my mattress and yanked open my door.
Sara stood at the top of the stairs, wiping her eyes.
"Here." I shoved the money into her hands. "Take it. All of it."
Her eyes went huge. "I can't—"
"Yes, you can. Get your mother to a real doctor. Not the street ones. A real one." I forced a smile. "And don't tell anyone I gave this to you, understand?"
She nodded, clutching the money like it was made of light. "Thank you. Thank you so much!"
She ran down the stairs, her footsteps echoing.
I closed my door and slid down to the floor again.
No money. No medicine. No hope.
Just a binding mark on my wrist and a dragon waiting in a vault.
I lifted my shirt and looked at the black cracks. They'd spread since Riven left. I could see my ribs through some of them, see the hollow spaces where my soul used to be.
He was right. I was dying. Tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.
The merchant's memories whispered in my head. I could feel his love for his children, even though he'd never remember them now. That love—pure and desperate and human—burned brighter than any magic.
And I'd stolen it. Destroyed it. Because I wanted to survive.
Maybe I was already a monster. Maybe becoming a dragon vessel wasn't that different from what I already was.
My reflection stared back at me from the cracked mirror. Pale skin. Dark circles. Eyes that glowed faintly with stolen light.
"What am I?" I whispered.
The mirror didn't answer. But somewhere in my chest, beneath the black cracks and the dying soul, I felt something stir.
Hunger.
Not for food. Not for money.
For more memories. More souls. More life stolen from others to patch the holes in mine.
Riven had made me this way. But I'd chosen to keep stealing. Chosen to keep surviving at others' expense.
Maybe I deserved what was coming.
I stood on shaking legs and picked up the map from the floor. The path to the dragon vault was clearly marked. Guard schedules, just like Riven said. And when I closed my eyes, I could see the access codes—numbers and words pulled from the merchant's memories.
Everything I needed to break into the most secure building in the world.
Everything I needed to touch a dragon and become something worse than I already was.
Or die trying.
I traced the mark on my wrist. The dragon eating itself. Destruction and rebirth in an endless cycle.
A soft scratching came from my window.
I spun around. A raven perched on the sill, its eyes too intelligent for a normal bird. It dropped something through the gap in the glass—a small envelope sealed with red wax.
Then it flew away into the night.
My hands shook as I picked up the envelope. The seal bore a symbol I'd seen in history books. The dragon crown of the Sovereign Keep.
Inside was a single card with elegant handwriting:
Dear Soul Thief,
We know what Riven is planning. We know what you're dying from. We know about tomorrow night.
Come to the vault as planned. But when you touch the dragon, don't consume him.
Free him instead.
He'll tell you the truth about what you really are. And why Riven is so terrified of you discovering it.
Trust the dragon. Not the friend who broke you.
—A Fellow Prisoner
The card turned to ash in my hands, crumbling to nothing.
I stared at the ashes, my heart hammering.
Free the dragon? The most dangerous creature ever imprisoned?
But whoever sent this knew about Riven's plan. Knew about my condition. Knew everything.
And they said I was something else. Something Riven feared.
Thunder rumbled outside. Rain began to fall.
I looked at my reflection one more time. At the black cracks spreading across my chest. At the Ouroboros Mark burning on my wrist.
"Okay," I whispered to the monster in the mirror. "Let's see what I really am."