The sky looked like it was on fire—molten orange, streaks of crimson bleeding into the distant horizon.
I stood at the cliff's edge with Revik beside me, the little girl tucked against his side. Her wide eyes followed the chaos above, where dragons collided in a storm of power and fury.
Raiden. Muir.
And the massive orange dragon whose wings sliced the air like knives.
Tadewi—that was her name, according to Revik.
The wind here was wild—alive. It shifted without warning, unpredictable as lightning. And Tadewi moved through it like it was hers to command. This was her sky, and it obeyed her like a loyal beast.
Raiden and Muir were powerful, but she was something else—seasoned, graceful, terrifying. She didn't fight for dominance. She simply was dominance.
They weren't winning. Not yet.
A sharp ache began to pulse at the base of my skull. I rubbed it absently, eyes never leaving the battle. The air felt heavy, almost alive—like it was watching us.
Then I heard it.
One of the voices again.
"They haven't learned a damn thing."
The voice was deep—ancient. Older than thunder itself.
It didn't echo through the air around me; it vibrated through me—my bones, my veins, my mind.
I froze. "What…?"
Revik turned, brows furrowed. "What?"
I shook my head quickly. "Never mind."
Maybe I was exhausted. Maybe the altitude was getting to me.
But then the voice came again.
"Still they fight. Still they burn. What a waste… all that potential, squandered on such a small, foolish race."
My hands clenched into fists. Okay, first of all—fuck you, I shot back in my head. What do you know of my race?
A low, rumbling laugh rolled through me like distant thunder. It wasn't cruel, but it wasn't kind either. It was a sound that simply was—unbothered by right or wrong. Like the storm itself.
"You amuse me," the voice said. "They tried so hard to shape you, and still, you don't bend. Intriguing."
I swallowed hard, glancing behind me. Nothing. Just wind and shadow—and Revik watching me like I'd grown a second head.
I exhaled sharply. "Right. Because for all the great divine power in the world, none of you can seem to control us 'foolish mortals.' That's gotta sting."
The laugh came again—softer this time. Amused. Almost… fond.
"Perhaps. Or perhaps our powers haven't truly awakened yet. Would you like to see what gods are capable of, little flame?"
Pain.
White-hot, blinding pain erupted at the base of my spine. My knees buckled, slamming against stone. Fire bloomed beneath my skin—crawling, devouring, spreading fast.
Revik lunged toward me, but I screamed for him to stay back.
My voice tore through the wind.
Not again.
My wings burst out violently—ripping free without my command. Light fractured through the air, scales of iridescent white scattering like sparks.
I tried to fight it, to hold myself together, but invisible hands wrapped around my spine and pulled. My body jerked upward, dragged by a force older than will.
"Revik!" I shouted, panic shredding my throat. I reached out to him—but too late.
The wind turned vicious. It tore me from the ground and hurled me into the burning sky. The little girl's face blurred below me, her eyes wide with terror. Revik jumped—reaching, failing.
Air swallowed sound.
Light fractured.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears.
I was airborne—no control, no choice. A pawn moved by unseen hands.
"Let's see what you become," the first voice murmured.
Then another spoke—softer, hesitant.
"Is this really necessary?"
"Stay out of it. This is between me and the little flame."
The voice coiled through my chest, deep and resonant.
It didn't sound amused anymore.
The power surging inside me was unbearable—wild, burning, endless. My vision blurred to white and gold. I could feel something inside me waking—something vast and untamed that wasn't meant to fit inside mortal skin.
It whispered—not in words, but in feeling.
Remember.
And my body answered.
Fire.
It tore through the valley—through stone and sky and storm—howling like a thousand voices speaking as one. The flames bent around me, to me, until I wasn't summoning fire anymore.
I was fire.
The flames exploded outward in a shockwave of light. Clouds shredded apart. The battlefield froze midair. Every dragon—Raiden, Muir, even Tadewi—turned toward the sound that wasn't a scream anymore.
It was a roar.
And it didn't belong to me.
The sky itself trembled.
The wind screamed past my ears—
but it wasn't my wings carrying me.
He was.
My limbs moved like they belonged to someone else. I veered toward Tadewi's blazing orange form as she clashed again with Muir, their talons locked, lightning cracking from Raiden as he circled above, hunting for an opening.
None of them saw me coming.
I wasn't in control.
Not even a little.
"Closer," the voice in my head purred—ancient, cruel, and amused.
"Let's see how close we can get before one of them kills you. Wouldn't that be a lesson worth learning?"
My body twisted sharply midair, narrowly avoiding Tadewi's tail swipe that would've sliced me clean in half. The movement was effortless—fluid.
Perfect.
Not mine.
"Stop," I hissed, trying to seize control, but my body refused me. My wings obeyed someone else's command.
Below, Raiden's gaze caught mine.
Worry. Confusion.
And something deeper—fear.
He knew.
He could feel it—the wrongness in my flight. I wasn't moving like myself. My dodges were too sharp, my turns too precise, like I could read the wind before it shifted.
Because I could.
Because he could.
"You feel it, don't you?" the voice murmured, silk over steel.
"The fire in your bones. The current in your blood. The molten truth of what you are. You were not made for weakness, girl."
"I never was weak," I spat through clenched teeth.
"Then stop pretending to be."
His presence pressed harder, wrapping around me like a storm given form—lightning in my veins, fire in my lungs. My body responded without permission, moving faster, harder. He steered me straight into the center of the chaos—between Tadewi's open jaws and Muir's sweeping claws.
The wind howled.
Lightning flared.
And Raiden dove with a roar that split the sky.
"You're going to get me killed!" I screamed.
"Prove me wrong."
My fury ignited. "You want power? Fine. Take it!"
The voice laughed—a deep, rolling thunder that shook me from the inside out.
"Still so full of rage. I wonder… if I peeled it back, layer by layer—would I find fear?"
A pause, almost tender. "Or would I find me?"
"ENOUGH!"
The word ripped out of me like lightning breaking through bone.
The sky cracked open.
Heat surged from my chest—searing, roaring, alive. It wasn't just fire or lightning or light. It was everything.
A detonation of raw, ancient power that shook the heavens apart.
The air itself screamed as the blast tore outward, painting the sky in violent shades of gold, crimson, and blinding white.
Tadewi recoiled, wings thrown wide.
Muir pulled back mid-dive.
Raiden froze in the air, eyes wide with awe—and fear.
Everything stopped.
Even the wind.
I hovered there—suspended in the aftershock, heart pounding like a war drum. The world glowed around me, flickering with the reflection of what I'd unleashed.
And then—finally—silence.
The voice withdrew.
But just as it slipped from my mind, it whispered one last time, low and echoing through the embers burning inside me:
"That's better, my child."
Then—
nothing.