I never chose to be a weapon.
But I think something inside me did.
The cold was gone. Not warmth—just absence.
A stillness so unnatural it felt like the universe had paused, holding its breath as judgment descended.
Around me, the frost-wood had stilled. The twisted boughs bowed toward the figures in chrome, their mirrored masks blank and inhuman. They didn't walk. They glided, as if earth itself was too impure to be tread upon.
And I—bleeding, fractured, half-formed—stood with nothing but memory shards in my chest and a girl with glowing braids at my side.
Lyra didn't speak.
Neither did they.
Until one stepped forward. Taller. Robed in flowing metal-thread and frostlight. A sigil pulsed in his chest—like a star that had been sealed, chained, and buried in his ribcage.
"Subject Aetherion. You are classified: Riftborn. Category—Forbidden. Execution protocol: immediate."
My body moved before my mind did.
A twist of the fingers. A breath that curled backward.
A pulse of something tore up my spine and snapped my shoulder straight.
The hunters surged. Blades drawn—blades of crystal and coded light.
Lyra was already moving, rune-light trailing behind her in streaks of living fire.
She screamed something, but I didn't hear it.
Because in that moment—
The dragon woke.
It started as a whisper in my right arm. A pulse. A coil. A memory not my own—made of shape, not thought.
Golden light erupted from beneath my skin, curling up my wrist like scales forged from suns. My fingers bent, not of my will but of something older. Something bound to me.
The chrome knight lunged, blade aimed for my throat.
I raised my arm—and it blocked the strike.
Not with flesh.
With light.
A shape burst outward—like wings made of fractured constellations. Not solid, not illusion.
Living energy.
And then came the roar.
It didn't come from the beast.
It came from me.
"What—what is that?" one of them gasped.
"He's not supposed to be capable—"
"It's forming!"
The dragon wasn't external. It was me.
Or rather—what they sealed inside me.
My vision went gold, then black, then everywhere at once.
I saw time crack. I saw stars blink out. I saw Lyra fall once in a place that hadn't happened yet.
And I screamed—not in fear.
In fury.
My arm swung wide.
The golden arc of dragonlight tore the first hunter apart mid-stride. His mask shattered. I didn't see a face—only a hole, empty and wrong, where a soul should be.
The second swung low, catching my leg. Pain lanced up my side, but it fed the light. The dragon curled around me, growing larger with each drop of blood spilled.
They hesitated.
That was their mistake.
"What… what are you becoming?" one whispered.
And the answer slipped from my mouth, unbidden:
"Aetherion."
The name struck the space like a bell made of memory.
The frost cracked.
The sky flickered.
The spire behind us breathed.
And Lyra—
She turned toward me like she was seeing me again for the first time.
But not as an ally.
As something terrible.
"You're not healed," she said. "You're awakening."
I couldn't respond.
I didn't have control.
The light curled around me, full shape now—a celestial dragon, coiled in my ribcage, bursting through bone, made not of fire but rejection.
Rejection of order.
Of chains.
Of silence.
"You were the key," Lyra whispered. "Even then… You always were."
The last Rift Hunter raised his hands. Chanted. Symbols swirled around him—sigils older than language.
They burned in the air like scars on time.
The light around me trembled.
The dragon roared again, but this time… its head turned inward.
Toward me.
Toward the part of me that still didn't remember why I was so feared.
The Rift opened behind my eyes.
I saw a child on a throne made of ribs.
A world collapsing inward.
My hand… holding the blade that did it.
My knees buckled.
"No," I said. "That wasn't me."
But the memory bled in like ink through skin.
Lyra grabbed my shoulder.
"Don't give in."
"I destroyed something—"
"You were something. But you are not only that."
The last Rift Hunter stepped forward, blade extended.
"Finish it," he said. "Before the cycle repeats."
I staggered upright.
The dragon's light flickered, unstable.
I felt the pull of too much power, not enough control.
I looked to Lyra. Her eyes didn't plead. They waited.
"Choose."
The word wasn't hers.
It was from the Rift.
It came from everything.
I took a breath.
And for the first time—I pulled it inward.
The light collapsed into my chest.
The dragon's head turned into my heart, and the glow vanished.
The frost cracked beneath my feet.
The final hunter lunged.
Too slow.
Too obvious.
I didn't raise a blade.
I raised my hand.
"Sleep," I whispered.
And reality obeyed.
He froze in mid-strike. Suspended like a statue of glass. His body split apart not violently—but cleanly, fading into starlight.
Silence returned.
Lyra stared at me like she'd never seen me before.
"You're still awakening."
"What happens when I finish?"
She didn't answer.
The dragonlight pulsed faintly beneath my skin, now quiet.
But not gone.
Never gone.
Far above us, the Rift blinked once… then began to open again.