The first pulse came just before dawn.
Elira bolted upright in bed, breath shallow, eyes wide in the dark. At first, she thought it had been a dream—the whisper, the fire. But then the pain returned. Slow at first. Then sharp, sudden, like a blade drawn across her skin from the inside out.
She gasped, fingers clutching her chest where the mark lay hidden beneath thin silk. It was no longer a faint glow. It shone—a living sigil etched in fire, flaring in time with her heartbeat.
The Skyspire's air, cool and silent just moments ago, had thickened. Every breath she took felt heavy. Tasted of ash.
She staggered from the bed, one hand bracing against the carved stone wall. Her legs trembled as heat surged through her veins—liquid fire awakening in places that had once been human.
The mark pulsed again. Harder. Faster.
This time, she screamed.
Not out of fear—but something else. A primal cry torn from her soul, unfamiliar and wild. It echoed through the chamber, rebounding off the high vaulted ceiling, waking something old in the stone.
Flames flickered to life in the sconces, unbidden.
She collapsed to her knees as the room swam, and the world around her folded in. Shadows peeled away from the walls. Stone cracked. The scent of smoke and ancient earth flooded her senses.
She wasn't in the Skyspire anymore.
She was somewhere beneath it.
---
The chamber was vast—cavernous, lit by veins of molten crystal that pulsed with the same rhythm as her mark. A throne of blackened obsidian loomed ahead, empty. Behind it, a mural carved into the mountain itself: dragons in flight, spires aflame, a crown split in two.
And in the air, thick and heavy, the echo of breath.
Not hers.
"You came early."
The voice was not Vaerenth's.
This one was colder. Deeper. As though the mountain itself had spoken.
Elira turned slowly. A shape moved in the dark. Immense. Wreathed in smoke. Eyes like shards of dying stars watched her from across the room.
A dragon—but not like the others.
Older. Wounded. Bound in chains that shimmered between planes, half-real, half-remembered.
"The pact was broken once. Your blood seeks to bind it again."
"I never wanted this," Elira whispered. Her throat was raw, her voice barely audible.
"And yet you carry the seal. The sigil speaks. The mountain hears."
The dragon stepped forward, chains groaning, each movement sending a tremor through the chamber.
"Tell me, daughter of flame—do you even know what you are?"
The mark burned again, and suddenly Elira saw:
A memory not hers.
A woman in white—her mother—kneeling before a great fire, whispering in Draconic. Vaerenth, younger, furious. Another dragon—this one, broken and bound—bleeding into the earth as an oath was made.
An ancient promise sealed in unborn flesh.
Her flesh.
Elira gasped and fell back, gripping her chest as the truth struck her like lightning.
She wasn't just a bride.
She was collateral.
A living clause in a bargain no one dared speak aloud.
---
The vision shattered.
She was back in her chamber, drenched in sweat, shivering despite the lingering heat. The mark glowed softly now—less a flame, more a warning. The fire was no longer rising.
But something else was.
A presence in the stone beneath her.
A hunger.
She heard Vaerenth's voice again, urgent, strained. "Elira. Listen to me. The mark is syncing. You've triggered a layer of the pact no one has touched in centuries."
"Something's awake," she whispered. "It's not you."
A beat of silence.
Then: "No. It's not me."
And suddenly, she wasn't alone in her body.
The mark pulsed again, not with heat—but will.
Not hers.
Not Vaerenth's.
But something deeper.
Older.
And very, very angry.