Caelum Ardent Virex had learned to tell the time of day by the pitch of cinderstone.
The stones mounted along the outer rail of the academy terrace hummed in different registers as thermal currents shifted far below. Before sunrise they murmured at the edge of hearing. At midday they grew shrill, crystalline, as if the world were holding its breath. Tonight-long after the sun had sunk behind the volcanic silhouettes of the archipelago—their tone lay somewhere in between, a low resonant chord that tingled faintly at the back of Caelum's teeth.
He braced his hands on the railing and leaned out over the drop. The clouds churning beneath Auravane glowed dimly with reflected magma-light. Every current of wind smelled of sulfur and cold iron. Far to the east, airships drifted between islands like lanterns on shifting tides.
He should have been studying.
He should have been asleep.
Instead he listened.
The hum was wrong.
Not catastrophically wrong—just…misaligned. A quiver in the resonance, like a single discordant breath held inside a chorus. Something in the world was waking, or stirring, or simply remembering itself, and the cinderstone heard it first.
Caelum rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was tired. Too tired to trust the nuances of sound. Yesterday's binding had cost him more than it should have. His veins still shimmered faintly beneath the skin of his forearms, as if threads of molten ore pulsed through him.
He'd covered them with long sleeves before leaving his quarters. No one needed to see that. Not tonight. Not when rumors of awakenings were multiplying across the islands like sparks in dry grass.
Footsteps clicked against glassstone tiles behind him.
"You're out past curfew again."
Caelum didn't turn. Only one person in the academy had footsteps that unapologetically sharp.
"Good evening, Rector Lys."
The rector came to stand beside him, clasping his hands behind his back. He stared into the cloud-sea the way one inspected an old wound: calmly, but with a memory of pain.
"Is the resonance troubling you," Lys asked, "or are you simply brooding?"
Caelum considered lying. He chose not to. "Both."
Lys nodded once, as if that answer was expected, even appropriate. "You burned too much lifeforce yesterday. Your focus fractured in the last seconds of the invocation."
Caelum's throat tightened. "She panicked. I responded."
"Your sympathy and your recklessness continue to war with each other," Lys said mildly. "One of them will win eventually."
Caelum clenched his jaw. Tonight he didn't have the strength to debate philosophy with a man who thought self-sacrifice was merely untidy.
Lys's gaze shifted sideways. "We received a report from the lower archipelago. A new resonance spike. Unstable. Strong."
Caelum went still. "How strong?"
"High enough that the orders will intervene by morning. Unless we intervene first."
Caelum finally turned to face him. "You want me to bind again already?"
Lys's expression did not change. "I want you to make contact. Nothing more."
Nothing more. As if 'contact' with a dormant dragon shard wasn't enough to consume a man's lifespan grain by grain.
Caelum swallowed. "Where?"
"The fissure town of Emberhold."
He frowned. "That's miner territory. They don't welcome academicians."
"They'll welcome you if the alternative is a containment squad." Lys rested a hand on the railing. "The Vessel's name is Seraphaine Vale."
Caelum had never heard the name. But resonance didn't care about reputation.
"When do I leave?" he asked quietly.
"Now."
The word dropped like an anchor.
Caelum exhaled slowly, letting the sound of the cinderstone guide him back into his body. The hum had shifted while they spoke—growing more insistent, more crowded, like distant thunder trapped behind stone.
"It's accelerating," he murmured.
"Yes," Lys said. "Which is why I'm sending a Binder instead of a squad of brutes with net-chains."
A rare sentiment, almost kind. Almost.
Caelum bowed his head in acknowledgment, then turned to go—but the rector's voice stopped him.
"Caelum."
He paused.
"When you find her," Lys said, "remember that a frightened Vessel is twice as dangerous as a trained one. Approach with caution. Approach with respect."
"And if she refuses me?"
"Then you walk away. And hope the shard does not wake without you."
Caelum nodded once. Bound by duty. Bound by choice. Bound by something older than both.
He left the terrace with the hum of cinderstone ringing in his bones.
Emberhold pulsed at night.
From the airship dock, Caelum could see the fissures glowing beneath the town's scaffolding walkways—great slashes of molten light threading through the volcanic stone. Miners moved along suspended bridges with practiced balance, carrying tools that steamed from residual heat.
Caelum descended the gangplank, the metallic tang of ash-thick air settling against his tongue. No one here looked twice at him; travelers were common, scholars less so, but not unheard of.
He produced the address scribbled in Rector Lys's hand.
Seraphaine Vale lived near the largest fissure—predictably, unhelpfully—where resonance grew strongest. He followed spiraling walkways downward until the air shimmered with heat and faint vibrations tickled his ribs.
As he approached the small dwelling carved into basalt, the ground beneath him hummed like a living throat.
He knocked.
Silence.
Then footsteps.
The door cracked open just enough for dark eyes to study him. Sharp eyes. Measuring, not fearful.
"Whatever you're selling," she said coolly, "I'm not buying."
"Caelum Ardent Virex," he said, keeping his voice calm. "Academy certified."
Her gaze narrowed. "Academy." The word tasted like rust on her tongue. "Try again."
He exhaled. "I'm here because your resonance spike was detected. I'd like to explain what that means somewhere you're not half-hidden behind a door."
A pause.
Then the door opened.
She stood with her arms crossed. Taller than he expected. Hair braided back neatly, though streaked with ash. A burn scar traced the line of her jaw like a lightning fork.
"You have one minute," she said.
"The shard inside you," Caelum began, "is waking. Whatever you've been feeling—heat surges, pressure behind the sternum, dreams of fire—"
Her expression flickered at the last one.
"Yes," he said gently. "That. It's the beginning of draconic overlay."
She stepped closer, eyes flashing. "And you think you're here to fix me?"
"No," Caelum said. "I'm here to ask."
She blinked.
"If the shard wakes without guidance," he continued, "it may overtake you. If I bind with you, I can anchor the overlay. But binding is voluntary. Completely."
She studied him, suspicion and something like static tension coiling beneath her skin.
"And what does it cost you?" she asked.
Caelum hesitated. "A portion of lifespan. And pain. And memory."
"So you're asking me to let you burn for me?"
"I'm asking if you want to stay yourself."
A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant rumbling of molten stone.
Finally Seraphaine spoke.
"What if I say no?"
Caelum swallowed. "Then I leave. And I hope the world doesn't lose you."
Her jaw tightened.
"Come back tomorrow morning," she said. "If I haven't thrown myself into a fissure by then, maybe I'll listen."
She closed the door.
Caelum exhaled into the sulfur air, lungs burning.
The cinderstone hum beneath Emberhold shifted again—lower, deeper, like a dragon rolling in its sleep.
He had less than a day.