The tunnel narrowed again, the crystal light flickering low. I kept my distance behind him, the only sounds the crunch of ice under our feet and the whisper of the cloak against my ankles.
My chest still felt tight. Not from hunger. From everything else.
Thirty years in an egg. The word hatchling. The way he kept calling me unstable.
I wasn't sure which part I hated more.
"You said I was in the egg for thirty years," I said quietly. "Is that… normal?"
Lirian didn't stop walking. "Long. But not unheard of. Though, you are unique."
His voice was calm, unreadable.
I stepped over a frost-covered ridge. My core pulsing, out of rhythm with my heart. "I keep feeling something inside me. Like… a second heartbeat. But off. Do you know what it is?"
He slowed, just slightly.
"I assume that's your magic," he said. "A dragons magic is something inside them. It grows and evolves as you do. Elves don't, ours is pulled from living things around us."
Magic. Not core. That's just what I called it. A second pulse buried beneath my ribs, not quite in time with the one I knew.
"So how do you use magic?" I asked.
Lirian reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out a thin, sharpened stone. "Differently. Words. Structure. Intention. Elven spellwork is passed down. It's learned."
He crouched suddenly and began to draw something into the icy floor. Not a flourish—just a simple, precise motion. One line. Then another.
I watched, but didn't speak.
When he stood, we turned back, then went another direction—down a narrow slope that bent left, then straightened again.
He stopped. Drew again.
Still no answers.
"Can you at least tell me what's happening outside? Who won the war?"
Lirian didn't respond. His shoulders stayed stiff, head low.
He kept moving.
Another tunnel. Another circle of lines. This time, he stayed crouched longer, eyes studying what he made.
Then he looked up at me.
"I'll answer more later," he said. "But not now."
"Why not now?"
"Because I need to be sure."
"Sure of what?"
He stood slowly.
"That you can hunt."
I blinked. "I told you, I'm not hungry and again, I have had my share of campaigns as a sword for hire."
"You said that," he replied. "but I need to be sure."
My jaw tightened. My thoughts going back to the moment I almost attacked him. I sighed, "I guess."
He didn't back down. "The last hatchling I tended to killed the others kept with her."
My chest stilled.
"She didn't mean to. Not at first. It was instinct. Hunger. She didn't know how to recognize it—until it was too late."
His expression didn't change. "I survived. The others did not."
I stood in silence.
"Stand still," he said.
I did, though I didn't like the tone. I crossed my arms and shifted my weight.
He stepped away and knelt beside one of the rune-markings he'd just carved. "This is a boundary."
I arched a brow. "A line in the ice?"
"A rune," he corrected. "Written language given shape. Magic tied to structure."
I didn't move.
"Certain words, certain sounds," he said, "have weight. The closer a tongue is to the First Language, the more power it holds. That's why draconic and old elvish are so potent. They remember."
He looked up, gaze flicking toward me.
I nodded slowly, uncertain. "Okay. But what does that matter?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he spoke.
Not in Common.
I recognized the rhythm. Elvish. Ancient. Heavy.
I didn't know the words—but I felt them.
The rune beneath my feet flared.
My core twisted.
Not painfully—just… tight. Like it was being squeezed.
I staggered a half-step back. "What the hell was that?"
"A ward," he said. "It'll hold you here until the enchantment ends, or I break it."
"You trapped me?"
"Yes."
He pointed past me, toward another tunnel.
"There's potential food down there."
I turned slowly, following his gesture. Focus on the moment Elias. "You locked me in. With prey?"
He didn't flinch. "Yes."
My hands clenched. "Why would you—?"
"Because I need to know what you'll do."
I stared at him.
"I don't trust you yet," he added. "But I trust your instincts."
I didn't respond. Rage bubbling inside, I felt my core begin to quiver.
He exhaled through his nose. "This isn't punishment. It's proof."
"Of what?"
"Of what you are."
I shifted my weight. My jaw locked.
He kept speaking. "This tunnel leads to a nest. A small one. Claim it."
I took a deep breath and held it for a moment. "You think I'll be fine?"
"I know you will."
"Because I'm a dragon."
He nods "Even if you don't want to admit it."
I hated how he said that.
I looked back at the tunnel.
The runes behind me pulsed again. Not bright. Just steady.
A low burn began under my ribs.
I bit the inside of my cheek.
She wants to move. Not me. Her.
I took a breath. "You said I am unique. Is that because I still look hum...er Elven?"
He hesitated.
"That body of yours—it's a visage form."
I frowned. "A what?"
He nodded at me. "Dragons don't usually look like this. They can, but only when they're powerful enough to compress all that magic without bleeding it into the world."
My brow furrowed. "Bleeding it?"
"Losing control," he clarified. "Overloading a shape not meant to hold it. Magic without direction will search for any outlet it can find. Bad luck, curses and overloaded spell craft is just a few things that come to mind. "
He tilted his head. "Elves can manage it better. We're built to endure it longer. Humans break much more easily."
"So how am I not breaking?"
He looked at me like the answer should be obvious.
"You were born in it."
My stomach turned.
"I've never heard of that happening," he added. "It was… theorized. But you're the first I've seen."
The heat in my chest grew.
He stepped back. "Enough now. Hunt, Let the instincts teach you what I can't."
I stood there, unsure what to say.
He didn't speak again.
So I turned toward the tunnel.
And walked into the dark. The tunnel swallowed me in silence.
Eventually No more flickering crystals. No more Lirian's voice behind me.
Only the sound of my feet brushing frost, the heavy drag of the cloak over uneven ice, and the subtle, rising tempo of something deeper—her.
No… mine.
The pressure in my chest wasn't unbearable. Not yet. But it had a rhythm now, a soft, insistent pulse—like a second heartbeat ticking faster than the first.
The hunger.
That's what he called it. That twisting pull I didn't want to name. Not physical—no emptiness in my stomach—but something else. Deeper. Like my blood knew something my head hadn't caught up to.
I didn't know how long I walked. The tunnels here were narrower, shaped more by force than design. Jagged ridges, sharp inclines, places where claw marks scraped through layers of ice like they were parchment.
No footprints. No tracks.
But I felt something.
Like heat brushing the back of my neck. Or breath through stone.
My legs slowed on their own.
Is this it?
I crouched low, not because I decided to—but because that's what I would've done back when I was a sell sword. That training was still in me, muscle memory buried under new skin.
But something about it felt… different.
Sharper. Cleaner.
She moves better than I ever did.
My palm touched the ice.
And for a moment—just a flicker—I felt it.
The floor hummed.
Not noise. Movement. Distant vibrations—like something large shifting weight down the tunnel.
I blinked.
Then, instinctively, I closed my eyes.
What is that… feeling?
Not fear.
Focus.
Like every part of me had narrowed to a single line pointing forward. My breath slowed. My fingertips tingled.
The warmth in my chest—the second heartbeat—fluttered.
There.
I turned slightly, angling toward the smallest of the branching paths ahead. I didn't know anything was down there. I didn't need to.
Something in me had already decided.
I took a step. Then another.
The scent hit me a second later. Not blood—but something near it. Wet fur. Rotten musk. The kind of smell you never forget once it's wrapped itself into your lungs.
Prey.
I didn't question it. The moment I thought the word, that other part of me surged forward.
I wasn't ready.
My balance shifted forward. My spine straightened. My legs bent. Hands hovered low like I was bracing for a sprint I hadn't committed to.
I tried to slow my breathing.
What are you doing?
I tried to speak the words in my head, but they came out fragmented. Distant. Like something else had stepped ahead of them.
Focus. Control it.
But the second heartbeat pulsed harder.
No. She doesn't want control. She wants release.
I swallowed and took another step.
Then froze.
A shape moved in the dark ahead. Just at the edge of my sight.
Long. Low. Covered in fur that shimmered faintly with frost. Two pale eyes caught what little light there was—reflecting it back in a cold gleam.
It hadn't seen me yet.
But it would.
My hands tensed. My feet adjusted. I could hear my blood now—rushing fast through the second beat inside me.
The thing growled.
A low, bone-deep rumble that shook the floor.
And I—
—I grinned.
Not fully. Not even consciously. Just the smallest twitch of my lips, like something inside me had been waiting for this.
It charged.
I didn't run.
I moved.
Low. Quick. To the side, like water down a slope. Its claws struck the ice where I'd been.
Too slow.
I spun behind it, hands flexed—
And then I saw them.
My hands.
No longer mine.
Fingers sharp, elongated. Nails black and ridged like claws, faintly glowing with magic—or heat—or her.
I faltered.
Just for a second.
What—?
The hesitation cost me. The beast turned on me and lunged.
I didn't get my arms up in time. It slammed into my chest, knocking me back into the ice.
But…
Nothing tore.
No blood.
The creature reeled back. Confused. Its claws had raked across my skin—but there were no marks. No wounds.
My gaze dropped before I realized it.
My skin shimmered faintly under the glow of its slashing strike—hardened. Scaled. However, after a moment they faded away.
Dragon.
The beast backed away now.
It wasn't wounded. But it knew.
I wasn't prey.
It growled again—this time softer. A warning.
And then it turned and vanished into the tunnel behind it.
I didn't chase.
I just sat there.
Breathing.
Staring at my hands.
They were still mine.
But they weren't.
Not fully.
A breath caught in my throat. My hands shaking from the adrenaline.
I laughed.
It burst out sharp, breathless, and wrong. Not funny. Not joyous. Just a crack in the dam of everything pressing in from the inside.
Laughter or a scream.
It echoed off the walls like it didn't belong to me. Like it was someone else—some thing else—rattling in my throat.
I clutched my chest. Not from pain—no. The warmth was back. Fiercer now. Rhythmic.
Not warmth.
Magic.
My magic.
My second heartbeat.
I closed my eyes. Let it pulse. Not fight it this time.
With each beat, I could feel it—threading out, tracing through limbs that weren't entirely mine. My blood sang. My breath steadied.
And then, it aligned.
Magic surged through me, matching my pulse. A wave. A rhythm. A second heart syncing to the first.
When I opened my eyes, everything was sharper.
The tunnel no longer felt narrow—it felt alive. The cold bit less. The shadows held shape. I could smell the beast's retreat—its trail curled through frost, thick with fear.
I ran, fast.
My feet skated over the ice without slipping. The wind kissed my skin and slid from scaled patches like rain off metal. My senses screamed forward.
And I found it.
Cornered in a narrow bend—snarling, pawing at the walls as if it could dig its way to safety.
Too late.
I didn't think nor speak.
I moved.
A single step. A stomp.
The crack of force split the air. Shattering the floor and spider like cracks climbing the wall.
Dead.
Just like that.
I stood over the body. Breathing. Heaving.
The smell of blood and fear was thick now. Sweet.
Intoxicating.
I grinned.
I didn't mean to but I did.
A slow curl of satisfaction worked its way through my chest.
And something else.
Hunger. Not for food—but for this.
Domination.
The power. The stillness after. The knowing that I had done it.
I inhaled slowly through my nose.
More.
The scent of other prey filtered in—faint. Buried deeper in the tunnels, beneath the crust of frost.
But something else caught my eye.
Stone work.
I looked up.
The tunnel here had changed—barely wide enough for me to walk upright. The walls were jagged but made of worked stone now, with old carvings half-swallowed by frost.
A ruin half buried in ice. Or maybe more.
I took another step.
And there, just beyond the bend, I heard them.
Movement.
Dozens of heartbeats.
Small. Quick. Animal.
A nest. They're here. All of them. Waiting.
And for the first time since I'd awakened, I didn't feel like the prey.
I felt like the one they should fear.
My claws flexed.
The stone pulsed beneath me.
Mine.