Page 39 of Fire’s Resonance (Hearts on Fire #1)
FOURTEEN
SPARK
He enters the council chamber, and my entire body ignites.
Heat floods my veins. My skin prickles with awareness, sending ripples of sensation across the copper-red scales that now permanently shimmer along my arms. I don’t need to see him. I don’t need to hear him. My body knows Raak is here.
Mine. My mate.
The possessive thought rises from somewhere primal and deep, no longer foreign or unwelcome.
This bond has changed me—transformed me into something more assertive, more territorial, more.
.. dragon. A week ago, I’d have fought against these instincts.
Now I embrace them, letting them wash over me in waves of molten certainty.
Dragons circle the central platform, their massive bodies tense with agitation.
The council chamber pulses with tension so thick, I could carve it with a knife.
Blaze stands tall, his golden flames flickering around his clenched fists as he faces his father.
Varen’s skin crawls with visible corruption—black veins pushing against sickly pale flesh, darkness spreading across his once-noble features.
“You bring abomination into our sacred halls,” Varen snarls, his voice carrying to every corner of the massive chamber. “Human corruption spreading like a disease.”
I barely register his words. They slide off me, meaningless compared to the magnetic pull dragging me toward the chamber entrance.
“The defective one arrives to defend his human whore,” Varen sneers, venom dripping from every syllable.
The insult doesn’t penetrate. My attention locks on Raak—his powerful frame silhouetted against the archway, silver-gray scales now shot through with vibrant crimson, his eyes glowing with inner fire that bathes his sharp features in otherworldly light.
Not defective. Never defective. Perfect. Made for me as I was made for him.
Raak reached me, and my body aligns with his without conscious thought—like two pieces of a puzzle finally clicking into place.
My hand finds his, and the instant our skin connects, power explodes between us.
Copper-red flame rushes up my arm, meeting his silver-crimson fire, spiraling around our joined hands in a visible manifestation of what binds us together.
“You made it,” I say, the words unnecessary but grounding, a tether to reality when everything else feels like walking through fire.
“Always,” he responds, silver eyes boring into mine with an intensity that steals my breath.
That single endearment makes my dragon half purr with satisfaction. His claim. His recognition. His acceptance of what we’ve become together.
Power builds between us—hot, insistent, demanding release. Flames spread up our arms in synchronized patterns, encircling our bodies in a protective aura that pulses with each shared heartbeat. His mind slides into mine—not intrusive but complementary.
I offer my own insights in return—the pattern I’ve noticed in how Varen’s corruption spreads when he’s angry, the way his left hand trembles when he’s about to lie. Our minds mesh and enhance each other, neither losing identity but both gaining perspective impossible to achieve alone.
“Together,” Raak growls, the word vibrating in his chest like thunder before a storm.
One syllable that changes everything. Together we’re stronger. Together we’re whole. Together, we can face whatever twisted plans Varen has set in motion.
“Show them,” Raak says, his thoughts merging with mine in seamless communion. “Show them what we discovered. What we’ve become.”
Certainty blooms in my chest. We need more than just evidence—we need irrefutable truth that even the most skeptical elder can’t deny. My eyes lock with his, silent understanding passing between us as my consciousness opens fully to his, our minds functioning as a single entity.
“The Truth Flame,” I whisper, ancient knowledge surfacing from somewhere deep within my altered DNA. Not something learned but something remembered, coded into my very essence, waiting for this exact moment to emerge.
We move in perfect synchronicity, our energies combining to activate an ability neither could access alone.
Blue-white fire spirals from our joined hands, unlike either of our individual flames—not copper-red, not silver-crimson, but something entirely new.
The fire coalesces between our palms, forming a sphere of light that grows with each synchronized breath, fed by our shared purpose and unbreakable bond.
“By ancient right,” Raak’s voice rumbles through the chamber, formal and powerful, “we invoke the Guardian’s Truth. Let all deception fall away,” I continue, ritual words flowing from my lips though I’ve never heard them before. “Let truth stand bare before dragon eyes.”
The sphere of blue-white flame pulses once, twice—then explodes outward in a blinding wave that engulfs the entire chamber. Unlike normal fire, this flame doesn’t consume or destroy. It illuminates. Reveals. Exposes what lies beneath centuries of deception and manipulation.
As the Truth Flame washes over me, unexpected visions flood my consciousness—not memories of my own but something deeper, older. Blood memory.
A female dragon with copper-red scales cradles a tiny infant, her amber eyes—my eyes—filled with anguish as she wraps the child in fireproof silk. “She’ll never be safe here,” she whispers to a human man with my stubborn chin, my artistic hands. “Not after the Purification Edict.”
The man’s face is streaked with tears. “They’ll hunt her if they know she exists. A half-dragon child...”
“The human world will hide her and her descendants,” the dragon woman says, pressing her scaled palm to the infant’s chest, imprinting something invisible but permanent. “The dragon nature will remain dormant until the time is right. Until fate calls to the destined heir.”
The vision shifts—documents forged, arrangements made with a human family, a tragic “accident” staged to explain the dragon mother’s disappearance from clan records.
The truth hits with physical force. My existence, as well as my mother’s, her mother’s, and her mother’s before her, was deliberately concealed from a clan that would have eliminated us for the crime of mixed blood.
The vision clears, leaving me gasping as present reality reasserts itself. Raak’s hand tightens around mine, his consciousness sharing what I’ve just witnessed.
“You know what this means,” he projects, voice resonating in my mind.
I do. The realization crystallizes with perfect clarity. “I’m not just any half-dragon,” I whisper. “I’m exactly what Varen fears most—proof that dragon-human bonds can succeed.”
Every dragon freezes as Varen’s true condition stands exposed beneath our combined power.
His seemingly intact exterior crumbles like a mask dissolving in acid, revealing the horror beneath.
Skin ravaged by corruption—not merely ashen but decaying, cracked with throbbing black veins that pulse with unnatural energy.
Eyes once amber like my own now reveal pools of darkness rimmed with sickly yellow.
The stench of rot and wrongness pours from him in waves so powerful that several nearby dragons gag.
“Abomination!” someone cries, horror evident in their voice. “What’s happened to Elder Varen?”
The evidence materializes in glowing images around us—the Truth Flame showing Varen’s systematic sabotage of clan systems. His secret meetings with figures from the Purity Force. His hands plunging into sacred flame chambers, drawing power that should sustain the clan into his own corrupted body.
“He’s been feeding on the clan’s collective energy since The Sundering,” Raak announces, voice carrying to every corner of the massive space. “Stealing what sustains us, weakening our defenses, preparing for the final betrayal.”
Varen’s face contorts with rage, corruption spreading visibly across his features as his control slips. “You understand NOTHING!” he roars, spittle flying from cracked lips. “I did what was necessary! What none of you had the courage to do!”
“You betrayed your kind,” I counter, my voice steadier than expected, power lending it resonance it never possessed before. “You allied with those who would exterminate dragonkind. For what? Revenge? Power?”
“For evolution!” Varen’s voice distorts, multiple tones layering over each other as the corruption speaks through him. “For freedom from ancient limitations! The Purity Forces understand what you don’t—power requires sacrifice. The weak must fall for the strong to rise!”
Warriors move in coordinated patterns, surrounding Varen with flame weapons extended. Blaze steps forward, golden fire wreathing his hands as he approaches his father, pain and determination warring in his expression.
“By authority of clan leadership,” Blaze announces formally, “you are detained for treason against dragonkind.”
Varen’s laughter scrapes against my ears like broken glass, the sound twisted and wrong, corrupted as thoroughly as his body. “You think you can hold me? You think ancient protocols and outdated laws can contain what I’ve become?”
His body begins to shift—not into dragon form as expected, but into something else entirely.
Flesh liquefies, bones dissolve, corruption consuming him completely until he resembles a moving shadow more than a solid being.
Our combined magic illuminates the transformation with merciless clarity, revealing the extent of his self-corruption.
“The Protocol has awakened,” Varen hisses, voice no longer his own but a chorus of discordant tones. “You’ve doomed us all.”
The shadow-form moves with impossible speed, slipping between the warriors like water through fingers. Flame weapons pass harmlessly through the corrupted essence. Warriors lunge to intercept, claws extended, but grasp nothing but air.
“Stop him!” Blaze commands, but the words are futile.