Page 13

For one breathless moment, I am fire incarnate—no questions, no guilt. Just power. Just truth.

Then I take to the sky, talons raking the earth as my body surges upward in a blast of muscle and wind.

The ground falls away beneath me, the forge's glow dimming into a distant ember.

Air tears past my horns, cold and biting, scouring every inch of scale and sinew.

My wings stretch wide, slicing clean through the veil of night, each beat a rhythmic thunder that drowns out thought.

Above the camp, I spiral higher, the world shrinking to shadows and flickers of firelight.

Down below, everything feels too tight—too human.

Up here, in the embrace of sky and wind, I remember what it means to be unbound.

The ache of duality, of skin stitched over flame, falls away until there’s only this: raw power and weightless grace.

My senses sharpen—smoke trails in the dark, heat signatures scattered across the valley, a hawk’s cry spinning off the canyon rim.

I fly not because I must, but because I can.

Because there are truths that only make sense with my wings stretched wide, with fading moonlight glinting off my scales, with the stars wheeling like the old gods above me.

Up here, I am not pretending. I am not hiding. I am dragon—eternal, vigilant, free.

Even now with wind screaming and wings slicing the sky, I feel her. Above the desert, where no one sees, I fly. Liv is wrapped in secrets and danger she doesn’t yet understand. I fly not to escape her, but to be strong enough to protect her when the storm breaks.

I spiral low over the darkened ridges, wings slicing through pre-dawn’s fragile hush before angling into a controlled descent.

My talons strike scorched earth, throwing up a veil of dust as I land beside the forge.

Heat still clings to the stones, whispering the memory of fire even as the chill of morning begins to bite.

With a breath pulled deep into my chest, I will the dragon to retreat.

Flames fold inward, spiraling into my core as the transformation reverses—scales dissolving into skin, wings retracting into nothing, tail disappearing into the blaze that once birthed it.

The fire that cradled my bones recedes in a slow, coiling rhythm, leaving behind the raw imprint of its passage.

My limbs settle into human form, trembling slightly under the weight of gravity and breath.

Sweat beads along my spine, not from pain but from the sudden quiet, the stillness that follows the storm of becoming.

The air feels colder now, heavier, as if the earth itself mourns the loss of flight.

Naked and gasping, I crouch near the forge, fingers digging into the ash-laced dirt.

Every part of me aches—not from pain, but from relinquishing the freedom of the sky.

The earth feels too heavy, too still, after that wild, wind-rushed flight.

I exhale, forcing steadiness back into my breath, and wipe soot from my face with the back of one shaking hand.

I retrieve the folded stack of clothes I left tucked behind a scorched crate.

The fabric smells of smoke and steel, warm from where it rested near the forge.

I dress slowly—pants first, then the soft charcoal t-shirt, boots laced with fingers still tingling from transformation.

When I finally rise, fully clothed, the illusion of control settles over me again.

But beneath the surface, the dragon still stirs, unwilling to sleep for long.

I find her outside just as my boots touch dirt and the last ember glow fades beneath my skin.

The air here smells sharp—antiseptic laced with iron and smoke, a sterile promise layered over the chaos that clings to wildfire zones.

Overhead, a busted floodlamp spits static hum and broken light, slicing her face into jagged slants of gold and shadow.

She doesn’t move as I approach, arms folded tight, posture taut like she’s holding herself back from either hitting me or hurling the questions carved deep behind her eyes.

Chin tilted, mouth set, she watches me with a wariness I haven’t earned back yet—and the weight of what I haven’t told her sits heavy between us, sparking like live wire under bare feet.

“I thought you were avoiding me.”

“Just gathering intel.” I hold out the pendant. “Wear this under your shirt.”

She rolls it between her fingers, eyebrows lifting at the sigil.

The metal feels warm, almost alive, thrumming with an energy she doesn't know how to name.

A faint furrow creases her brow as her thumb brushes over the etched flame, the sigil's lines smooth but oddly resonant—as if they hum against her skin.

She glances up, suspicion flickering behind her eyes.

“Pretty. Little heavy-metal for my taste. Weird too. It almost feels like it has a heartbeat.”

“It’s tempered silver. Helps with radio interference.” Half-truth. I can feel it already, tugging at a place just behind my sternum—a steady pull, deep and undeniable. “Humor me.”

Her gaze narrows, reading secrets in the set of my shoulders. “You’re hiding something.”

“Not hiding. Timing.” I fasten the chain around her neck before she can protest. The metal settles against her collarbones, and the tracking rune hums warm against my senses—alive, tethered.

She shivers. “Feels like it’s buzzing.”

“Just a grounding current. Keeps static off your chest radio.” My fingers linger a breath too long. Want flares bright, but the moment fractures on her suspicion.

“Before this is over, I'll have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” she says with a small smile.

“You will.”

Only a partial lie by omission—because if she knows the truth of my dual nature and that I forged it with dragon fire, the trust we’ve built will scorch along with the rest.

She steps back, mouth pressed into a tight line, and turns away, her boots crunching against loose gravel.

Her shoulders stay stiff, arms locked at her sides, but it’s the sway of her hips that draws my gaze—graceful, stubborn, defiant.

I watch her go, each step pulling a little more warmth from the night.

The distance between us stretches taut, heavy with everything unsaid, grinding like sand in a raw wound I keep pretending doesn’t bleed.

False dawn stretches over the ridge, painting the sky deep violet as slow, muted light seeps between the peaks like ink into gauze.

The air is sharp with the tang of scorched metal and lingering smoke, a grim perfume that clings to the early wind.

I stay low behind the berm, ears tuned to the distant rattle of a utility cart and the faint hiss of wind sliding over tarps.

Every detail—every sound, scent, and shadow—feels sharpened to a blade's edge, pressing in as I double-check the sensor syncs by touch and instinct alone. The pendant’s heartbeat pings steady—north side of camp, Liv’s trailer. Safe. For now.

I clamp down on a snarl, muscle twitching along my jaw.

Shadow-silent until the op—that’s the call.

But instinct howls for release, snarling just beneath the surface, demanding I shatter protocol and drag her clear before the first torch ignites diesel and everything goes to hell.

The need to protect her claws through me, raw and relentless, a heat I can’t bleed off no matter how tightly I grip the edge of restraint.

Behind me, the scorch crescents on the anvil still radiate faint warmth—blistered remnants of fire that refuse to fade.

Heat ghosts off the steel in a whisper of defiance, a warning carved into iron and ash: secrets don’t stay buried when the forge remembers.

The marks throb like phantom heartbeats, pulsing with the weight of choices made in dragon flame.

She’ll learn everything soon—truths I can’t bury forever, not with the forge still whispering them in waves of heat. I just have to keep her breathing long enough for ‘soon’ to arrive with answers instead of ashes and hope to hell it’s not already too late.

A low rumble rolls across the canyon—the first supply truck coming to stage for the drill...Showtime.

Ignis’s convoy headlights spear the gloaming, and my sensor grid lights up with twelve heat-blur signatures that shouldn’t exist—mercs already in position, foam-round rifles aimed toward Liv’s sector.

I flip my radio to the private band she doesn’t know I encoded into her pendant and breathe, “Dragon-girl, the predators are inside the fence.”