Valdris's POV
The tower collapses around us as the massive copper dragon—Morvanna, I recognize her instantly—slams into Lady Catryn's war mages. Brennan slides off her back, somehow alive and apparently insane enough to ride a dragon.
"GO!" he shouts at us. "I'll explain later!"
I don't need to be told twice. I grab Elara and leap through the crumbling wall, transforming mid-air. My dragon form is still weak, but it's enough to glide us away from the chaos. Behind us, Morvanna roars, buying us precious seconds.
We crash-land in the forest a mile away. I shift back to human form, breathing hard. The transformation cost me more energy than it should have. Five hundred years of torture doesn't heal in a day.
Elara scrambles to her feet, eyes wide. "Was that—did Brennan just—"
"Save us with another dragon? Yes." I scan the sky for pursuit. "Morvanna was imprisoned in the Citadel's eastern vault. Someone freed her."
"Brennan?"
"A human guard freeing a dragon?" I laugh harshly. "Impossible. Unless..." Through our bond, I feel Elara's confusion. "Unless he had help from someone with Dragon-Tender magic."
Her face goes pale. "But I didn't—"
"Not consciously. But you've been healing sick children for years, yes? Soothing their pain? Calming their fears?" I grab her shoulders. "That magic leaves traces. Any dragon within range would feel it like a beacon. Morvanna must have sensed you and convinced Brennan to free her in exchange for helping us."
"Dragons can do that? Talk to humans?"
"We used to. Before your people decided we were better as batteries." The bitterness in my voice makes her flinch, but I don't apologize. She needs to understand what her kingdom really is.
A roar echoes in the distance—Catryn's forces regrouping.
"We need to move," I say. "Somewhere defensible. Somewhere I can teach you."
"Teach me what?"
"How to not be useless."
The words come out crueler than I intended, but through the bond, she feels what I really mean: how to survive what's coming.
We end up in a cave system three miles north—ancient dragon nesting grounds that the war mages never found. The moment we enter, I feel the residual magic humming in the stone. This place was loved once. Protected.
Now it's just empty.
Elara collapses against the wall, exhausted. Through our bond, I feel everything: her terror, her guilt about Brennan, her desperate worry for the children. It's overwhelming.
"Stop that," I snap.
"Stop what?"
"Feeling everything so loudly." I pace, trying to block out her emotions. "Your fear is giving me a headache."
"I don't know how to stop feeling scared!"
"Then feel it quietly!"
We glare at each other. Through the bond, something unexpected happens—I feel her sudden burst of anger at me. Not fear. Anger.
"You know what?" she says, standing up. "I'm tired of you acting like my emotions are an inconvenience. I didn't ask for this bond. I didn't ask to be connected to someone who spent five hundred years learning how to hate everyone. So maybe instead of complaining about my feelings, you could try having some of your own!"
The outburst surprises us both. For a moment, I just stare at this girl who was terrified of me an hour ago and is now yelling at a dragon.
Then I laugh. Actually laugh, for the first time in centuries.
"Finally," I say. "I was wondering when you'd grow a spine."
She blinks, confused by my reaction. Through the bond, I let her feel my approval—grudging, but real.
"Lesson one," I say, sitting down across from her. "Your kingdom lied to you about everything, but especially about magic. They told you healing magic is weak. They told you destruction is power. Both lies."
"But destruction magic can kill—"
"And healing magic can break chains that have held for centuries." I hold up my wrists, showing her the scars where the torture chains dug into my scales. "Do you know why those chains worked? Because they were infused with anti-healing magic. They prevented my body from recovering. Kept me in constant pain."
She stares at the scars, and through the bond, I feel her heart breaking for me. It's uncomfortable.
"Your healing magic shattered those chains in seconds," I continue. "Chains that dozens of dragons tried and failed to break for five hundred years. That's not weakness, Elara. That's the most powerful magic that exists."
"I don't understand."
"Because no one taught you." I lean forward. "Destruction is easy. Anyone can break things. But healing? Creating? Restoring what's broken? That takes real power. That takes strength most people don't have."
She's quiet for a moment. Then: "If healing magic is so powerful, why did the war mages kill all the Dragon-Tenders?"
"Because we dragons are strongest when we're healed and whole. When we have someone who cares for us, who tends our wounds, who reminds us why we fight." My voice hardens. "The war mages didn't want strong dragons. They wanted broken ones they could control. So they murdered everyone who could heal us and convinced the world that gentleness was useless."
Through the bond, she feels my rage at this—five hundred years of fury at what was stolen from my kind.
"I'm not strong enough to fight them," she whispers.
"Not yet. That's why I'm teaching you." I stand. "Get up. We have thirty hours before your children burn, and you need to learn fast."
She stands, trembling. "What do I do?"
"First, you need to understand what you're actually doing when you heal." I draw my claw across my palm, letting blood well up. "Heal this."
She places her hand over mine, and her magic flows out—warm and gentle. The wound closes, but slowly. Inefficiently.
"You're apologizing to the injury," I say.
"What?"
"Through the bond, I can feel your magic. You're asking the wound nicely if it would please consider healing. You're treating your own power like it's a burden."
"But I don't want to hurt anyone—"
"Healing isn't hurting!" My patience snaps. "Stop thinking like a victim and start thinking like a Dragon-Tender. You're not asking. You're commanding. You're not suggesting healing—you're demanding it. Your magic is reality telling itself to be whole again. Act like it."
She stares at me, shocked. Then, through the bond, I feel something shift in her. Determination replacing doubt.
"Again," she says.
I cut my palm deeper. She places her hand over it, and this time, her magic doesn't ask. It insists. The wound snaps shut instantly, completely healed.
"Better," I say. "Again."
We spend the next hour like this. I injure myself in increasingly complex ways, and she heals them. Each time, her magic grows stronger. More confident. Each time, she looks less like a scared thief and more like what she was born to be.
A Dragon-Tender. A chain-breaker. Someone powerful.
Through our bond, I feel her growing exhaustion, but I push her anyway. We don't have time for gentle training.
"Why are you really helping me?" she asks during a break. "You said you need me alive to stay free, but you're spending a lot of energy teaching me. Energy you don't have to spare."
Dangerous question. Through the bond, she'll feel if I lie.
"Because," I say carefully, "you freed forty dragons when you broke my chains. The amplification circle's collapse released them all. They're confused, weak, and hunted. If you can't defend yourself, you can't help them. And if they die, I'll be the only dragon left in a kingdom that tortured us for sport."
It's truth, but not the whole truth. I don't mention the other reason: that her determination reminds me of someone I loved five hundred years ago. Someone who betrayed me, yes, but someone who also believed in peace between dragons and humans.
Maybe I'm a fool for hoping again. But this gentle thief accidentally freed me, and now I'm bound to her fate. Might as well make her strong enough to survive it.
"Rest," I tell her. "Five minutes. Then we practice combat applications."
"Combat?" She looks alarmed. "I thought healing magic couldn't hurt people."
"It can't. But it can hurt other magic." I smile grimly. "Time to learn how to break bindings, Elara. Real ones. The kind keeping dragons enslaved."
She nods, determined.
That's when the cave entrance explodes inward.
Commander Ravik stands in the opening, and he's not alone. Behind him are twenty elite war mages—and they're dragging something in chains.
Not something. Someone.
Little Miko.
The six-year-old child is barely conscious, covered in bruises. A glowing collar around his neck pulses with dark magic.
"Elara Veylin," Ravik's voice is flat. Emotionless. "You're under arrest for treason, theft, and unlawfully binding a war asset. Surrender now, or the child dies."
Through our bond, I feel Elara's heart shatter. She takes a step forward, ready to give herself up to save one child.
I grab her arm. "Wait."
"They'll kill him!"
"They'll kill him anyway." I stare at Ravik, and through five hundred years of reading human faces, I see something that doesn't match his words. "That collar on the boy's neck—it's not set to kill. It's set to track."
Ravik's eye twitches. Confirmation.
"This is a trap," I tell Elara. "They want both of us, and they're using your compassion against you. The moment you surrender, they kill the child anyway just to hurt you."
"You don't know that—"
"I've seen it a thousand times." My voice is hard. "Your kingdom doesn't value mercy, Elara. They punish it."
She looks at me, then at Miko, then back at me. Through our bond, I feel her making an impossible choice: sacrifice herself to maybe save one child, or trust a dragon she's known for hours and risk letting that child die.
"Ten seconds," Ravik says. "Then I activate the collar."
Elara's hand tightens on mine. Through the bond, I feel her decision forming—
And then little Miko opens his eyes. They're not brown anymore.
They're black. Completely black.
And when he speaks, it's not a child's voice: "Hello, little brother. Did you miss me?"
My blood turns to ice.
That voice. I know that voice.
"Impossible," I whisper. "You're sealed. You're trapped in the Void."
Miko—or rather, the thing wearing Miko's body—smiles with too many teeth.
"Not anymore. Thanks for opening the rift when you broke free, Valdris. The Cage of Chains wasn't just holding you. It was holding me too."
Kthanos. The Soul Eater. My ancient enemy, sealed away five hundred years ago for crimes that made even dragons scream.
And he's possessing Elara's child.