Kier's POV
The soul-extraction blast hit me square in the chest.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then three souls screamed at once—mine, Vash'thar's, and my mother's fragment—all refusing to be ripped apart.
The magic backfired.
Riven flew backward, crashing through the warehouse wall. The extraction spell rebounded, exploding outward in a wave of pure energy that shattered every window for three blocks.
And I felt something inside me break.
Not break like shattering. Break like hatching.
"No no no—" I gasped, falling to my knees. "Not now, I can't—"
Yes NOW! Vash'thar roared. The attack triggered a full transformation! I can't stop it!
My spine arched. Bones cracked and reformed. My skin split as black scales erupted across my arms, my chest, my face. Each scale felt like a knife cutting its way out from the inside.
I screamed. The sound started human and ended as a dragon's roar that shook the warehouse foundations.
Let it happen! my mother's voice urged. Fighting makes it worse! You have to accept what you're becoming!
"I don't WANT to become a monster!"
Too late, Vash'thar said, and I felt his satisfaction bleeding into my panic. We're already monsters. Now we just look the part.
My shoulder blades exploded. Wings—massive, membrane-thin, edged with silver—tore through my back in a spray of blood. They spread wide, knocking over support beams. The warehouse groaned.
My hands stretched. Fingers elongated into claws. My jaw cracked and reformed, teeth sharpening into fangs. My eyes burned—human vision replaced by dragon sight that saw heat, souls, magic itself.
I looked down at my transformed body. I was bigger. Stronger. Covered in scales that shifted between black and silver. Neither fully human nor fully dragon.
Both. Always both.
Beautiful, Vash'thar whispered. This is what we were meant to be.
Through the hole Riven had made, I saw him struggling to his feet. Blood ran from his nose. His eyes met mine—still glowing gold, still controlled by the Empress.
"I'm sorry," he mouthed. Then his hand raised again.
This time, I didn't freeze.
My wings pushed down with enough force to launch me through the warehouse roof. Wood and metal exploded around me. The night air hit my face as I soared upward, higher, higher—
More extraction blasts shot past me. The Empress's guards were everywhere, converging on my location. The sky lit up with magic.
Fly faster! Vash'thar commanded. Head for the Cairn Islands—they won't follow us there!
"The dragon graveyards? That's too far! I can't—"
You can! Feel it—my memories of flight. Let me guide your wings!
I stopped fighting his instincts. Stopped trying to stay human. Let the dragon part of me take control.
And suddenly flying wasn't terrifying anymore. It was natural. Easy. Like I'd been doing it my entire life—because Vash'thar had.
I banked left, dodging another blast. Dove low over rooftops. Shot between buildings. My dragon sight showed me magical wards, guard positions, escape routes.
Behind me, Riven was flying too. Not with wings—with magic. The Empress's power propelling him forward like a puppet on strings.
"Kier, please!" he shouted. "Don't make me do this! She's in my head! I can't—"
His hand glowed. Not extraction magic this time. Something worse.
Soul-binding spell, Vash'thar recognized it instantly. If it hits you, the Empress can take control of your body just like she controls him!
The spell shot toward me—chains made of light, reaching—
DIVE!
I tucked my wings and dropped like a stone. The spell passed overhead. I spread my wings again, catching air, shooting forward—
Straight into a magical barrier.
The impact felt like hitting a wall made of lightning. I bounced back, tumbling through the air. My wings tangled. I was falling—
Recover! RECOVER!
I spread my wings desperately. Caught myself ten feet from the ground. My claws scraped rooftops as I fought for altitude.
"The entire city is shielded!" I gasped. "We can't get out!"
Then we go down instead of up. Vash'thar's memories showed me something—tunnels beneath the city. Old dragon lairs from before the empire. The catacombs. They lead outside the barriers.
"Where's the entrance?"
Where do you think? The Hollow Quarters. Where dragons used to come to die with dignity.
Of course. Even in death, dragons had been relegated to the slums.
I dove toward the Hollow Quarters, Riven and a dozen guards chasing me. More extraction blasts. More binding spells. The air was thick with magic designed to capture, control, destroy.
My mother's voice cut through the chaos: Kier, listen! You need to—
An explosion of pain in my left wing. One of the blasts had grazed it. The membrane tore. I spiraled, crashing through a building's wall, tumbling across a floor, smashing through the opposite wall—
I hit the ground in an alley I recognized. The same one where I'd drunk my mother's blood. Where this nightmare began.
My transformation was reversing. The scales receding. Wings shrinking back into my body with agonizing slowness. I was becoming human again—vulnerable, weak, half-dead from the crash.
Riven landed in front of me. Guards surrounded us. Nowhere to run.
"Please," Riven begged, tears streaming down his face even as his body moved closer. "Forgive me. For everything. For lying. For grooming you. For loving you while destroying you."
"I forgive you," I whispered. Meant it. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault."
"Yes it is." His hand pressed against my forehead. The soul-binding spell began. "I should have fought harder. Should have protected you. Should have died rather than—"
His voice cut off. His eyes went wide.
The golden glow flickered. Faded. For one moment, they were just brown. Human. Riven's real eyes.
"She's distracted," he gasped. "Something's happening at the Keep. I felt her attention shift. I have maybe thirty seconds before she—"
He grabbed my arm and yanked me toward a building. "The catacombs. Third basement. There's a hidden door behind the furnace. Get in. Get out of the city. Find the other hybrids your mother mentioned."
"Come with me!"
"I can't. She'll track me. She owns me." He shoved me toward the door. "GO!"
"Riven—"
"I've spent three thousand years as a slave. But knowing you was the only time I felt free." His smile was broken and genuine. "Thank you for that. Now RUN."
The golden glow returned to his eyes. His face went blank.
"Target acquired," he said in a voice that wasn't his. The Empress speaking through him. "Guards, contain the hybrid. Use lethal force if—"
I didn't hear the rest. I was already running into the building, down stairs, past the second basement, the third—
There. The furnace. Still burning despite the building being abandoned.
Behind it, Vash'thar urged. Quickly!
I squeezed behind the massive furnace. Felt along the wall. Found a stone that was slightly different—
It pushed inward. A door opened, showing darkness and stairs descending into nothing.
I heard footsteps above. Riven's voice giving orders.
My mother's voice whispered: Once you enter the catacombs, the real test begins. Dragons who die there leave echoes—soul fragments that attack anyone living. You'll have to fight your way through ghosts.
"Great," I muttered. "Just great."
I stepped through. The door sealed behind me.
Instant darkness. The kind so complete I couldn't see my own hands.
Then lights appeared. Thousands of them. Floating souls—dragon souls—hovering in the darkness like angry stars.
Intruder, they whispered. Living thing. Hybrid abomination. THIEF.
They rushed toward me.
Vash'thar's presence flared: I know these dragons. Some were my friends. My family.
"Can you reason with them?"
They're just echoes. Ghosts. They don't reason. They just attack anything that reminds them of being alive.
The first ghost hit me. It felt like being stabbed with frozen needles. I screamed. Swung my claws—still half-transformed—and the ghost dispersed.
But there were thousands more.
Run! Vash'thar shouted. The exit is two miles straight down! Don't stop!
I ran into the darkness, ghost dragons swarming around me, each touch agony, each attack tearing pieces from my already damaged soul.
My mother's voice was fading: Kier... I can't... stay awake much longer... but remember... you're not alone... find the others... save them... save—
Her presence went quiet. Back to sleep.
I was alone with Vash'thar and a thousand angry ghosts.
We ran deeper into the dark.
And ahead, impossibly far away, I saw light. The exit. Freedom.
But between me and that light, a shape emerged. Massive. Ancient. Not a ghost.
A living dragon.
One who shouldn't exist. One who should have been killed centuries ago.
No, Vash'thar breathed. It can't be. She's supposed to be dead. We watched her die.
The dragon's eyes opened—six of them, arranged in two rows. Her scales were pure white, like snow or bone.
"Hello, Vash'thar," she said in a voice that echoed in my skull. "I've been waiting three hundred years for you to escape. I knew you'd come here eventually."
She focused all six eyes on me.
"And you must be Thal'nira's daughter. The Firstborn. The one prophesied to either save our kind or destroy them utterly." Her mouth opened in something like a smile. "I am Ysera the Pale. And we need to talk before the Empress finds you."
"I don't trust anyone anymore," I said.
"Good. Trust is what enslaved us all." She lowered her massive head to my level. "But I'm not asking for trust. I'm offering you a choice: stay in the city and be captured within the hour, or follow me to the last free dragon sanctuary and learn what you really are."
It could be a trap, Vash'thar warned.
Everything's a trap, I thought back.
Ysera waited. Behind me, I heard guards entering the catacombs. Ahead, an ancient dragon offered salvation or death.
I had three seconds to choose.