The world outside the cave was a graveyard of forgotten things.
Eryk Thorn emerged from the darkness, blinking against the sickly yellow light of the Whispering Wastes. The air here was thick with the scent of rust and old magic, a metallic tang that clung to the back of his throat like the aftertaste of a curse. The dragon egg pulsed against his chest, warm and alive, its fractured shell whispering secrets only he could hear.
Cold. Dark.
The words weren't spoken. They were felt, sinking into his bones like winter's first frost. The egg was afraid. Or maybe it was just echoing the fear coiled tight in his own ribs.
He adjusted his grip on it, fingers pressing gently against the crack.
Not much longer now.
The thought should have thrilled him. A dragon. A creature of legend, breathing and real, hatching in his arms. But all he felt was the weight of it—the weight of choice. Because once it broke free, once it opened its eyes to this ruined world, what then? Would it burn him? Would it trust him?
Would it look at him the way Sera had, just before she vanished, like he was something she couldn't quite recognize anymore?
He swallowed hard, scanning the wasteland ahead. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been picking through the wreckage, her knife glinting as she scavenged for supplies. That was before the cave.
Now, the Wastes were silent.
No Sera. No footsteps. No sharp voice calling him an idiot for wandering off.
Just the wind, howling through the skeletal remains of broken constructs, carrying the ghosts of dead spells on its breath.
"Sera?" His voice cracked, too loud in the stillness.
The egg pulsed again, a shuddering beat against his palms.
Hurry.
He took a step forward, then another, his boots crunching over shattered glass and twisted metal. The further he walked, the heavier the silence grew. The Wastes had a way of swallowing sound, of making even a shout feel small.
Where is she?
The question gnawed at him, sharp as hunger. She wouldn't have left. Not without him. Not after everything.
Unless she thought he had.
The realization hit like a fist to the gut. He'd fallen. Disappeared into the dark without a word. If she'd searched for him, if she'd called his name and heard nothing in return—
Stars above.
He picked up his pace with his heart hammering. "Sera!"
Still nothing.
The egg trembled, its whispers were growing louder and more insistent.
Danger. Close.
Eryk froze.
The air shifted.
A presence, silent as a shadow, slid into place behind him.
He didn't have time to turn. Cold steel kissed his throat.
The blade pressed just enough to draw a thin line of heat—not deep, but the promise was there. A breath away from cutting.
Eryk's pulse roared in his ears. His hands tightened around the egg, his body locked in place, every muscle coiled but unwilling to move. One wrong twitch, and the blade would bite deeper.
"Hello, Spellbreaker Thorn."
Eryk knew that voice.
Magister Dain.
The Council's hound.
The blade didn't waver. Eryk didn't dare breathe.
Dain's chuckle was a dry, rattling thing, the sound of bones shifting in a shallow grave. "You've led us on quite the chase."
Eryk's jaw clenched. He could feel the others now—shapes moving at the edges of his vision, figures clad in silver-trimmed black, their faces obscured by hoods. The Black Tongues. The Council's enforcers.
And somewhere among them was his... father.
The thought was a knife all its own.
Dain leaned in, his breath hot against Eryk's ear.
"Drop the egg."
No.
The refusal burned in his chest, but the blade pressed harder, and Eryk had no choice. Slowly, carefully, he bent and set the egg on the ground. The moment it left his hands, the whispers in his mind went silent.
The egg lay there, fragile and exposed, its faint pulse the only sign of life.
Dain's boot came down beside it, close enough to crush. "Good."
Eryk's vision darkened at the edges.
"Where's Sera?" The words tore from him, raw and desperate.
Dain's smile was a blade all its own. "The girl? Oh, she's around."
Eryk knew it in his bones that it was a lie. If they'd had her, they'd be parading her in front of him, using her as leverage. The fact that she wasn't here meant she was still free.
The relief was fleeting.
Because then Dain stepped aside, and Eryk saw him.
Kael Thorn.
His father stood at the edge of the gathered enforcers like a monument carved from frostbitten stone—tall, immovable, untouched by the ruin that smoked around them. The silver trim of his Council cloak glinted faintly in the sickly light of the Wastes, not with pride, but with the burden of oaths kept for far too long. His hand rested just above the hilt of the Mythblade, but did not grip it. That sword—once a beacon of hope, once his father's fire—hung dull and silent at his hip. The runes that once danced like living embers now lay dead, inert as bone.
The flame was gone.
And maybe it had died in him, too.
Eryk's breath caught.
Their eyes met across the scorched earth. And for a heartbeat, no Black Tongues, no Dain, no blade at his throat, there was only a boy looking at the man who had raised him to be a weapon, a law, a legend. And failed to raise him as a son.
His chest ached, not from the edge of the blade against his neck, but from the fracture splintering wide beneath his ribs. Years of silence. Years of being trained, tested, judged. Years of waiting for a nod of approval that never came. He used to dream of hearing Kael say he was proud. That he mattered.
Now, standing here, bleeding under the weight of his choices, he just wanted to matter enough to be saved.
But Kael didn't move.
Didn't draw the blade.
Didn't stop them.
His expression was unreadable—carved from the same marble justice he wore at every Council tribunal, every battlefield funeral.
But then… something broke in him.
His eyes wavered slightly.
He took a step forward—not bold, not commanding, but hesitant. The way a man steps when his heart is already broken and he doesn't know if he's about to shatter someone else's too.
His voice when it came was low. Frayed at the edges. So quiet only Eryk would hear it.
"Please… obey them, Eryk."
It wasn't an order.
Not a command from the fabled Kael Thorn, the Firebrand Kael.
His eyes shimmered. The kind a father wears when he realizes he might lose the last thing that made him human.
"Don't make them hurt you," he said, softer still. "Don't make me… watch."
Eryk blinked.
The words hit harder than any blow.
He searched Kael's face for something—anything. Mercy. Anger. Love.
But all he found was exhaustion. And a hollow sort of hope that this could still end without blood. Without fire. That maybe, if Eryk just obeyed, he could still walk away. Still be Kael's son.
But Eryk wasn't that boy anymore.
He'd tried. Gods, he had tried.
And Kael hadn't stopped this. He was letting Dain press steel to his throat, even now.
Letting the Council cage the very flame they had once sworn to protect.
Eryk's jaw clenched.
He wanted to scream. To ask if obedience was really what Kael wanted or just the thing he'd been taught to believe had to be done.
The blade at his throat pressed deeper, and a bead of blood welled up was hot and sharp.
Dain's breath was at his ear now, reeking of cloves and iron and rot.
"The Council wants you alive," he whispered. "But they didn't say how alive."
The words coiled like a curse.
Eryk closed his eyes.
Because the fire inside him was no longer a flicker.
It was rising.
The egg pulsed again, soft but insistent.
He felt it resonate through his bones, through the scorched ground, through the dead air between him and his father. The hum grew louder and more urgent. Cracks spread across the obsidian shell behind him like veins of gold, threads of promise and awakening.
And still… Kael stood there.
A father caught between duty and blood.
Was this his answer?
To plead, and then let go?
Was this all he could give?
Eryk opened his eyes.
The egg split with a sound like thunder given voice. Light tore free like a blade through the veil. Flame burst outward in a roar of rebirth, not destruction. Time stalled around and the sky blinked.
Dain was thrown back, screaming, his blade spinning useless through the air.
Eryk didn't flinch.
Because from the fire, something rose.
A dragon, not of old tales but of now. Its scales shimmered like molten bronze. Its wings beat once, and the ash scattered. Its eyes locked onto Eryk's.
The glyphs burned bright beneath his feet now. The sigils weren't restraints.
They were summons.
Kael staggered but he didn't draw the blade.
Eryk rose slowly, the heat rising with him, the dragon at his side curling protectively around his frame like a second soul. Flame steamed from its nostrils. The world was ash and smoke behind him.
He turned to face his father.
Their eyes locked again. And this time, Kael saw more than defiance.
He saw freedom in his son.
And it terrified him.