Chapter 12 #2
Only those chosen by dragons—those whose fire is strong enough, whose will is unbreakable, whose very blood has been forged in battle—are granted the right to channel. Dragon-bonded Fire Wielders are the wildfire that clears the battlefield.
They do not just summon flames; they become them. They can ignite their entire bodies in fire without burning. It takes tremendous will, and the transformation only lasts seconds, but when it happens, they become the inferno. A living flame that no blade can pierce.
Fire Wielders can summon flames so intense they burn blue, white, hotter than any natural fire. The kind of fire that does not just consume flesh but melts steel, reduces stone to nothing but ash. But it only lasts for a few seconds because it takes so much energy.
And they are not alone. Because once bonded—and this is true for all clans—a dragon is more than a mount. A dragon is an extension of their soul. They feel one another’s rage, one another’s pain.
I’ve never lived in a world where strength was everything. Growing up on a farm near a small village, hard work and kindness meant more than dominance and war. No one fought to rule, no one had to prove they deserved to exist.
But in the Fire Clan? You take your place, or someone takes it from you.
I don’t know if I could ever be like them.
I don’t want to be. But if I am to survive—if I am to become something more than a girl grasping at a power she doesn’t understand—then I have no choice but to learn. Because fire does not wait.
Water is not soft. I used to think it was. That it was gentle, that it gave—but water doesn’t give. It takes. It carves through stone, it drowns without mercy, it wears away mountains one drop at a time until nothing remains but sand. Water is also life.
That is the Water Clan.
They are the seers of fate and the keepers of prophecy. It was the Water Clan seers who first saw the Spiritborn coming.
Their leader, the Water Sage, is not chosen by blood, but by the tides of fate. Some believe water itself chooses them.
They rule through knowledge, wisdom, and patience. And yet, the power they hold is more terrifying than any blade.
I’ve seen it now—the way they heal, the way their magics don’t just mend flesh, but reaches deeper, into something woven into the soul itself.
Those who can wield greater magics can do more than soothe pain or seal a wound.
They can pull a dying man back from the edge, purge sickness from the body, mend what should be broken beyond repair.
Many dragon-bonded Water Clan wielders are not only soldiers. They are the realm’s greatest healers. They are the ones people turn to when the wounds are too deep. They do not just heal the body, they heal the mind and soul too.
I wonder how many Fire Clan warriors would have burned out long ago without them.
Most wielders do not fight in legions like the Fire Clan. The few they do train are nearly unstoppable, like Rian. Because they are patient. They see. And when they strike, they do not miss.
I don’t know if I envy them or if I fear them. They believe that power, like water, should not be forced—but should be directed. That it should be used only when needed. And they are always waiting. Because water always returns and it never forgets.
Valen once told me that the Water Clan doesn’t just bend rivers and shape tides—they craft stories. Their magics flow through memory, emotion, and rhythm. He said that in the Water Clan, art isn’t separate from magics—it is magics.
I didn’t understand it at first. I thought of power as something sharp and wild, something to be mastered. But Valen spoke of it like it was a song—like it needed to be felt, not controlled.
Their greatest artists are more than just painters or musicians. They’re dream-weavers, memory-makers, truth-speakers. Their stories don’t just entertain, they inspire and move people into action.
In the Water Clan, creativity is sacred. Children are raised with paint on their fingers and stories in their ears. The capital—Sevrin—is a place where art breathes. Canals wind like blue ribbons through the city, and music drifts across the water. Murals shimmer on walls.
He said that’s why so many go there to train—not to learn how to fight, but how to feel. Creativity opens the soul in ways strength never could.
I think about that more now. How my magics stirs when I feel too much. Maybe Valen is trying to teach me that skill. That not all power is about control. Some of it is about surrender.
Earth is unyielding. I used to think that meant it was stubborn, immovable, something that simply existed without change. But now I understand—it isn’t that earth refuses to move. It just refuses to fall.
That is the Earth Clan. That is my Clan.
I was born to the soil, the fields, the quiet strength of the land. I worked the earth the way my parents did and the way their parents before them. I know the changing of the seasons, the rhythm of planting and harvest, the patience required to tend something and watch it grow.
I grew up hearing stories of the Earth Clan warriors, the immovable pillars of the realm.
They were never the ones to strike first. But when the time came to stand—they did not falter.
They were the last defense, the final wall.
Strength, in the Earth Clan, is not about power. It’s about endurance. About lasting.
If the Fire Clan burns with passion, the Earth Clan is the rock that tempers it. We are the builders, the keepers of the land, the ones who make sure the world itself remains standing. We do not fight to dominate or expand; we fight to preserve.
This is why our leader is not chosen by might, but by resilience. To lead the Earth Clan is to bear the weight of its people, its lands, the past, and the future itself.
The dragon-bonded Earth Wielders can call upon the roots beneath them, splitting the ground apart with a thought. They can become as unbreakable as the mountains themselves, bodies hardening like stone, untouchable in battle.
And when the world is on the brink of falling?
It is they who hold it together and help rebuild.
The Earth Clan does not crave power like the Fire Clan.
We do not seek influence like the Water Clan.
We do not live in the skies, untethered, like the Air Clan.
We are here, on the ground. Rooted. Reliable.
If there is one thing I’ve learned about my Clan, it is this—we do not waver. And neither will I.
Air Clan is something else entirely. They are never where you expect them to be; they are the wind that shifts without warning, the whisper in a storm, the force that moves unseen until it is already too late.
Soldiers carried the messages across battlefields. They moved between armies, unseen, delivering strategies that shaped the course of the Shadow Wars. They don’t just fight with blades—they fight with knowledge and foresight.
And that’s what makes them dangerous. Air Clan doesn’t rule with brute strength, but rather intelligence.
To them, power is not about dominance. It’s about knowing—seeing the path before anyone else does, understanding the storm before it begins to gather. Air Clan is known for its scholars, scribes, and strategists.
Air Clan warriors are few, but the ones they train are lethal.
They don’t stand in the center of a battlefield, hacking through enemies like the Fire Clan.
They don’t fight to hold the line, unyielding, like the Earth Clan.
They fight where no one is looking. They move like ghosts.
Strike like wind. Disappear before anyone knows they were there.
Their scouts are the best in the realm, their assassins even better. Their spies and informants are almost always the first to know. It’s why they’re feared. You never know if the Air Clan is watching.
But their influence runs deeper than war.
Air Clan believes that knowledge is the foundation of power. Their libraries are the largest in the realm, their archives holding histories long forgotten.
Leaders are chosen for what they see, not for bloodline. But for perception.
Their traditions are built around movement and change. They don’t anchor like the Earth Clan. They don’t rule by law like Fire. They shift—ready to adjust and flow the wind.
Air Wielders are born with small abilities—a whisper of wind, a lightness in their steps, an uncanny sense of shifting weather.
But true power belongs to the dragon-bonded.
The ones who ride the wind itself and command the skies.
Only they can summon winds strong enough to break an army, shape the air into blades that slice through steel, and call down the fury of the storm itself.
They don’t just fight for the Air Clan. Like all dragon-bonded, they fight for the realm itself, led by the Warlord, standing alongside the strongest of every Clan.
Dragon-bonded on all clans become legends. And it is not just power they hold. It’s glory. When the stories are told, when the histories are written, it is their names that are remembered.
On our days off, Lyra and I meet up with Taila, Darius, and Fenric—usually spending the day in the village. Sometimes we wander the market, sometimes we just find a quiet spot to sit and talk.
Most days, I only see them in passing or in the mess hall. Lyra trains with them—they were assigned to the same squad. But in the moments we do share, I’ve come to know them better.
Taila and Darius grew up together in the Water Clan’s capital, Sevrin—a coastal city carved into the cliffs, where waterfalls cut through stone and the sea never stops moving.
They talk about it with the kind of fondness that only comes from growing up in the same streets, swimming in the same tide pools, getting in trouble for sneaking out past curfew to watch the moon rise over the water.