Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
The cave mouth sealed behind me without a sound. One moment I could feel the dying light at my back—the next, it was gone. Utter darkness surrounded me, a silence so complete it clawed at my chest.
I lifted my hand before my face and saw nothing.
Not even the slightest outline of fingers.
But then a breath of wind brushed across my skin, cool and damp, winding like unseen fingers through my hair.
My heart hammered, and I swiped at the air, expecting claws, a blade—something.
But there was nothing. Nothing except the chill wind and the echo of my own uneven breaths.
Kaelith? I reached through the bond.
I am here. You walk in the Hollow now. Trust your instincts.
The air thickened, as dense as water, and shapes began to flicker at the edges of my vision. Shadows at first, formless and quick. Then sparks of light, scattering like embers on the wind. They shifted, merged, until images swam into place around me, one bleeding into another in quick succession.
A battlefield littered with broken blades. A line of black dragons chained to stone. The silhouette of Veralin’s twisted throne.
Illusions, I thought, though doubt gnawed at the word.
The images spun faster, flashing like pieces of memory torn from another life—half real, half dream. My stomach turned, vertigo clawing through me, until suddenly they stilled.
And before me stood a woman.
Her face was my own, softer around the edges but hauntingly familiar. Her hair fell in white waves over her shoulders, catching the shimmer of unseen light. Her eyes—gods, her eyes—lavender, as luminous as twilight, so piercing they nearly stole my breath. My knees wavered, threatening to buckle.
“Mother…” My voice cracked, splintering into the silence.
She was draped in pale silks, their edges tattered as if they’d been pulled from both wedding altar and battlefield. But it was not the gown that stole my attention. It was the necklace.
A strange pendant hung heavy against her breast, its chain wrought of a metal I couldn’t name.
At its center lay a shard of crystal that pulsed, as if lit from within by her own heartbeat.
The stone gleamed black at first glance, but when it caught the Hollow’s dim glow, streaks of violet and silver rippled across its surface—like trapped lightning caged within.
I couldn’t breathe. That necklace—that was what I had come for. My mother’s defiance made flesh. Her final act of rebellion forged into something Veralin himself had never been able to use or destroy.
Her lavender gaze locked on mine. And though I knew—gods, I knew—this was only an illusion, my heart lurched painfully in my chest.
“Why have you forsaken me?” she whispered.
I closed my eyes, shutting her out for just a heartbeat, steadying the ragged beat of my chest. When I opened them again, she was still there—standing with her lavender gaze pinning me like a blade through silk.
“You aren’t real,” I whispered, my voice trembling but firming with each word. “Tell me what you want in exchange for the necklace.”
Her hand lifted, fingers pale and elegant, brushing against the pendant that pulsed at her chest. A caress, as though even she feared the power it contained.
“It will restore the balance,” she said, her voice like wind sweeping through hollow stone. “But you must have the trust of your dragon if you wish to restore what is lost.”
“My dragon trusts me,” I shot back without hesitation. She does. She has to.
Her smile was wistful, edged in sorrow and knowing. “Are you willing to bet both your lives on that?”
“Yes.” I didn’t even blink. The word tore free from my throat with the sharp edge of conviction. My bond with Kaelith wasn’t something to wager. It was the truth of my soul.
For a heartbeat, silence pressed in again. Then her lips curved into the slightest smile—proud, sad, and endless. “Then proceed.”
Her form unraveled like mist on the morning air, dissolving into threads of silver and violet that swirled upward into the cavern’s unseen heights.
And then the world changed.
The dark that had pressed like a living weight against my skin split apart as if a thousand cracks had torn through the stone itself.
Light poured in—not sunlight, not firelight, but something purer.
It was blinding, cascading in every direction, filling the Hollow until it felt as though I stood within the heart of a star.
I staggered back, throwing my arm over my eyes, the radiance searing and holy.
The air itself thrummed with power, vibrating through my bones, echoing in the deepest part of me where Kaelith’s soul twined with mine.
The cavern shuddered, walls glittering like crystal veins awakened from a centuries-long sleep.
I lowered my arm, squinting through the brilliance, and there it was.
The pendant.
No longer resting against her phantom form, it hung in the air before me, suspended by threads of light, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat that was both my mother’s and mine. It called to me, insistent and alive, as though it had been waiting, hidden and guarded, for this exact moment.
My breath caught, a prayer, and a curse tangled on my tongue. This was it. The choice. The hope. The burden.
Kaelith, I thought, clutching at our bond like a lifeline. Are you ready?
Her voice answered, steady and fierce, searing through the blinding brilliance. Always.
The Hollow shivered, shadows peeling back to reveal another vision—one that twisted my insides.
Veralin stood within a chamber of black stone, his red eyes glowing like embers.
At his feet, a silver hatchling squirmed, its wings pinned by thick iron chains, its cries high and desperate.
His hand rested on the chest—that cursed artifact—the other pressed to the baby dragon’s head.
His lips moved, dark syllables dripping like poison.
The hatchling’s silver scales rippled, then dulled, bleeding into black. Its bright, frantic eyes dimmed to lifeless crimson. Its cries cut short, and it slumped against the chains.
My knees nearly buckled. No.
Kaelith’s grief struck through me like a blade, intense and raw. I placed my hand against the cavern wall to steady myself. Why are we seeing this? I whispered to her through our bond.
It must have something to do with the price, she answered, her voice ragged, almost breaking.
A new presence filled the Hollow then—massive, radiant, ancient. The surrounding light coalesced into the form of a gold dragon so vast he made the cavern seem small. Siergen. His scales burned like molten sunlight, but I knew this wasn’t truly him. Only an echo. An illusion woven by the Hollow.
Still, when his voice entered my mind, it carried the weight of eternity. To obtain the necklace, you must prove your dragon trusts you with not just her life—but her soul.
The breath caught in my chest. “What does that mean?”
I already showed you.
Kaelith hissed inside me, her voice biting with fury and fear. He wants you to bind me.
My heart lurched. “No. No way. I don’t want to turn dark, and I don’t want to live forever.”
It doesn’t work that way, she said, her tone quieter now, steadier.
Not when an adult dragon chooses to bind its soul to its rider.
What Veralin did was unnatural. But the first riders—their bonds were chosen.
They shared their souls. It made them stronger.
It slowed the aging process. But when a rider reached the end of their natural lifespan, the dragon rescinded the bond. The rider simply… slipped away.
My throat tightened. “But what if one of us died before the other?”
The dragon can rescind the bond at any time, Kaelith explained. If death is imminent, the dragon lets go. That is the choice we hold. Always.
I shook my head, fighting the hot sting of tears. “Why haven’t you done this since the first riders?”
Her answer came like a whisper of smoke in the back of my mind. Because the bond is strong. And it is usually the dragon who is left behind… to recover after their rider’s death. To share one’s soul, and then learn to live without it—it is nearly unbearable.
My chest caved inward. “I don’t want to put you through that. I can’t.”
But Kaelith’s voice was firm now, filled with conviction that seared through me like violet fire. And if we don’t, Ashlyn, then all the black dragons die needlessly. There are over fifty of them. They were innocent. Victims forced into slavery.
I closed my eyes, tears burning down my cheeks. What do you want to do? I asked her. My voice was hoarse, breaking.
Her presence coiled around mine, unshakable, proud, and strong. I want to choose you.
A single tear slid down my cheek, hot against my skin as I whispered into the Hollow, I choose you, too. My chest ached, but it wasn’t pain—it was the immensity of what I was about to give, and what Kaelith was about to share.
Then speak the words after me, she said, her voice low and ancient, carrying the weight of generations.
Soul to soul, flame to flame.
Let storm and scale entwine,
Let breath and blood combine.
I give and I take,
I bind and I break,
Till end meets end,
And flesh returns to ash and sky.
I recited the spell, each syllable foreign and harsh, like the crackle of a raging fire. The sound vibrated in my bones, in my very blood. And as the last word left my lips, I felt it—threads tightening inside my chest, delicate but unbreakable, latching onto something deep within me.
Kaelith’s essence surged forward. Power bled through me in a rush, her strength wrapping around my soul like a second skin. I gasped as her magic coiled through my veins, mingling with mine until I wasn’t sure where she ended and I began.
Visions flooded me. Not memories of my own—but hers.
I saw sun-drenched skies over Warriath, brighter than I’d ever known them. Lush green fields stretched endlessly, and dragons of every color soared above villages that looked untouched by fear. A golden age—one I’d never imagined.
Then the Dragon Isle—Kaelith and Siergen as fledglings, clumsy wings tangling as they tumbled and chased each other across cliff edges, their growls ringing in the air like music. My heart cracked with the purity of it.
The vision shifted—darkness, fire, screams. The first war.
Kaelith’s scales gleamed with smoke as she stood over their mother’s body, Siergen’s bowed head beside her.
Their cries ripped through me as if they were my own.
I doubled over, clutching my chest, unable to tell if the sobs were mine or hers.
The images bled away, dissolving into a violet-gold shimmer that sank into my skin.
And then—quiet.
I staggered, breath ragged, and placed a trembling hand against my chest. I felt it—the difference. My soul no longer solitary but braided with Kaelith’s, luminous and eternal. Her power was my power, her memories part of me now, her grief and her joy inseparable from my own.
It is done, Kaelith whispered in my mind, her voice warm, fierce, proud.
An altar rose from the stone floor as if the cavern itself had been waiting for this moment.
Black rock split apart with a groan of ancient weight, revealing a pedestal that shimmered with veins of silver light threading through its surface.
It wasn’t carved by hands, not by fae nor dragon.
This was earth-forged, born of magic and time, rough in places but pulsing with a steady heartbeat that made my skin prickle.
Atop it lay the pendant.
It glowed, a teardrop of obsidian caged in a lattice of veins that glimmered like molten silver. The chain shimmered like woven starlight, too delicate to be metal, too enduring to be anything mortal.
I swallowed, every instinct in me both screaming to take it and warning me away. The Hollow was silent, watching, testing. Kaelith’s breath whispered against my thoughts. Step forward, Ashlyn. It is meant for you.
I forced my legs to move. Each step closer made the air heavier, as if I carried the weight of a mountain on my shoulders. My hand shook when I reached out, and the pendant’s glow pulsed in answer, as if it were aware of me, waiting.
Fingers brushed it. The stone was warm, almost alive. The moment I lifted it, the altar shuddered before sinking back into the earth as if it had vanished.
I stared at the pendant in my hand, then slowly slipped the chain over my head.
The instant the obsidian teardrop touched my skin, magic seared through me, hot and cold all at once.
My breath caught, my pulse racing with Kaelith’s, with something older, something bound to dragons long before I’d ever drawn breath.
My voice was a whisper in the silence. Now, what do I do?
Kaelith’s answer slid into my mind like a hiss of flame curling through smoke. Now… we see if your mother’s defiance is strong enough to undo what Veralin has wrought.