Chapter Sixteen
Flames rip through the square like thrown spears, bright, fast, and screaming. They hit with a shuddering roar, bursting across rooftops and market stalls, turning wood and stone into splinters. Fire surges outward in violent waves, lighting up the square in red and gold.
Then comes the heat.
Real heat. Heavy and instant. The kind that doesn’t just touch skin—it punches through it. Smoke quickly follows, thick as ink, curling around my legs, clawing up my throat, filling my lungs until I can’t breathe.
Can’t see.
Can’t think.
The air smells the same, tastes the same. Burnt wood, hot metal. And just like that, my mind snaps back to that night. The crack and collapse of wood, my mother’s cries, the door that won’t open. I choke. I can’t stop it.
Then a scream—closer, sharper—drags me back. Somewhere to my left, someone letting out a raw gutting wail but it vanishes into the fury of fire and falling stone.
Focus, Lyra. Not then. Now. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, just to reset. God, all I wanted was to make a run for it—get out, away from the Citadel, from Talen. But now? Now I just want to survive the next five minutes without becoming dragon fuel. And to do that, I need to move. Fast.
Exhaling hard, I force my eyes back open. Ryven’s gone. Beth’s gone. Smoke stings, thick in the back of my throat as I turn in a circle, searching. Nothing but rubble, fire-glow, and the dark shape of something moving in the haze.
Panic hits first, tight in my chest, breath snatched short, then my Threads surge, magic spikes, climbing my spine like rising pressure before a storm.
Bless them. Even at full strength, they’d be about as useful against a dragon as a spoon in a knife fight.
I was supposed to be safe here, inside the Innerland Veils, at least safe from fucking dragons.
Back in Ashvale, I only ever saw them from a distance, dark shapes gliding above the northern peaks.
Lately they’ve started pushing closer to town, but I’ve only ever seen what’s left behind—ash, smoke, and whatever story survives it.
Even Bren’s never faced one up close, he just volunteers to put out the fires.
But this? This is different. This is here. Now.
They’ve breached the Innerlands.
Actually breached them.
The Veils were supposed to hold. They’ve held for centuries, protecting their precious Realms. Their gleaming Citadel, their people.
This isn’t supposed to happen.
Not here, not ever.
But there’s a fucking massive one—in this goddamn square right behind me, now. No one taught me how to survive this. I don’t know how to fight something like this.
Teeth grit tight. Doesn’t matter that I’ve never done it before.
I have to.
A shaky, hammering rush rolls through me, but I risk a glance back, gaze darting across the square. Through the smoke, I spot the dragon about three hundred metres behind me, sniffing through the wreckage of a storefront like it’s hunting for something, someone. But it’s not looking this way. Yet.
Okay, I need to move quick, get away from this overgrown lizard with a built-in flamethrower before it spots me and turns me into a scorch mark with a tragic backstory.
To my left I spot a half-standing stall—barely intact, but upright enough to count and close. If I can get there, I might be able to slip into one of the alleys behind and disappear.
If.
But fuck... if I move, will it see me? If it sees me, I’m dead. Simple as that. Still, if I stay here, it’s just a slower execution.
My body’s screaming to stay frozen, to hold still, but I move anyway. Fingers push into the stone beneath me as I try to hurl myself up, but the second weight hits my ankle, pain rips through it, sharp and searing, like the bone’s tearing loose. I gasp—loud, too loud—then bite it back.
Fuck, okay, well, walking isn't an option but I don’t have time to complain. I drop down, elbows scrape stone, knees catch on uneven cobbles as I drag myself, hands and knees, toward the stall.
Every shift makes my ankle wince, every drag of air fills my lungs with the taste of ash and copper. Smoke clings to my mouth like a gag, I choke, eyes burning, but the stall’s just a few metres off.
By the time I reach it, I’m half-blind and wheezing. Slamming myself into the splintered frame, my chest heaves, trying to suck in air that won’t go down clean.
God, there’s no way I’m making it to the alley, not with that thing so close. Not when my ankle won’t hold and my chest won’t settle, fluttering like a fucking moth.
My mind scrambles, hands shake, looking, searching for a new plan, any plan, but—
Thump.
It’s not just sound, it’s something deeper. Heavier. The stone beneath me pulses like a heartbeat, causing a trickle of dust to slide from the beam above, drifting in a lazy spiral to the ground.
A vibration. A warning.
Then—another.
Thump.
The market stall jerks faintly beneath me. Tiny pebbles near its legs jitter, dancing for half a second, then fall still.
I don’t breathe, don’t move.
Another pulse. Another vibration.
Thump. Closer. Stronger.
Is it coming this way?
I don’t know. I don’t want to find out.
Thump. Louder.
I go still. Utterly still. It stops.
The silence thickens, but the pounding in my chest floods through every part of me, a violent rhythm sparking in my fingertips, pulsing at my temples. If it gets any fucking louder, it’s going to give me away.
Then the light dies. Not dims, not flickers. Dies. Darkness drops over the stall in an instant as something massive shifts overhead.
The pulsing rhythm behind my ribs cuts out in a single brutal beat, replaced by a raw scrape of pain where my fingers grind into the cobblestones.
But I don’t loosen my grip. Don’t move. Can’t.
Every muscle pulled tight, even my head’s locked, like if I so much as twitch, the thing will notice. Will pounce.
Only my eyes dare shift.
Breath held, slow, controlled, terrified, I glance sideways—
Smoke coils thick through the square, warping the light, blurring every shape. For a second, I think maybe it’s gone. Maybe it moved on…
Then—breath. Deep, hungry, hot.
Not mine.
A chill licks down my spine, magic sparks, as the air around me shifts—thinning the smoke just enough for a shard of light to skim over a blackened mosaic of interlocking plates easing out of the dark.
Each piece shaped like a jagged teardrop, layered so precisely they form seamless, living armour.
And between them, fleshy and twitching, lurks a single, pulsing nostril.
Steam hisses out in slow, rhythmic breaths, each one warping the air around it.
It's wet and hot, reeking of sulphur, ash and something metallic—like blood and iron.
Pressure clamps hard around my chest—I lock my jaw, crush the scream before it breaks loose as the dragon shifts beside me, scales sliding past the warped slats of the stall, until I see it.
Dark and endless, like a void, like ink, like the space between stars.
No light. No reflection. Just a solid, terrifying black sphere.
And it’s looking straight at me.
Tension climbs my spine in a slow, biting crawl. Beneath my skin, Threads draw taut—straining like cords almost stretched to their limit, silent but vibrating, waiting for the snap.
Everything I’ve ever heard, everything they teach in the Outerlands—the paintings, the fables, the bedtime stories—all said dragons had eyes like gemstones. Bright. Alive. Powerful.
But this one’s not gold. Not jade, not sapphire or opal.
This is... empty, hollow, dead.
Sweat drips down my face, rolling into my mouth, dragging with it the taste of ash, salt and terror. I should look away, yet I can’t stop staring. Because it’s beautiful, like a nightmare you can’t look away from, one that demands to be seen.
But then it starts to narrow its gaze, a deep snarl building, teeth appear from under its wall of scales.
Shit, my heart lurches.
The dragon inhales hard. Air rips past me, whipping my red curls forward like it means to pull me in.
The heat builds. The pressure builds.
Unbearable.
No, no, no.
I have to do something. I can't just lie here and wait to burn, wait to die in the Innerlands, while I’m wearing this fucking white Citadel uniform.
Jaw tight and every muscle pulled taut in one long brace, I dig deep. Threads stir, magic listens—hot, unstable. Dulled from the duck, but they’re still there, still starving for any excuse to break loose.
There’s no way this will work, but still. I let the pressure build, chest rising, sparks flooding down my arms, fingers twitching as a flare snaps loose, raw and volatile, too wild to aim and definitely not enough but fuck it, here goes nothing.
I roll—
A shout tears across the square. Loud, male, close. The dragon jerks toward the sound, head snapping, nostrils flaring.
I freeze, the magic inside me grinding to a shaky halt. But it doesn’t last long—quickly, it starts to claw upward, wanting to finish what it started. I press it down hard, breath tightening in my chest before it bursts out and draws the dragon’s gaze back to me.
For a second, it pauses there. Black eyes slashed sideways towards the sound, narrowed to slits, teeth still bared like it’s mid-snarl.
Not confusion. Fury.
Then another shout, louder this time, closer, familiar.
And it moves.
Massive shoulders roll, body coils, then it surges forward. Stone groans, buckling as its claws hammer into the cobblestones like war drums, each strike landing harder, faster than the last—pounding into a rhythm that swallows everything else.
Then pressure. Heavy and sudden, like a wall of force collapsing around me.
Not wind.
Wings
Beating once.
Twice.
Debris explodes sideways, slamming into stone as the dragon tears through rooftops. Each wingbeat a deafening crack of air and force, shoving its weight skyward one brutal surge at a time.
Then, suddenly.
It’s gone.
Air goes still as the last wingbeat fades