"Are you sure you're alright, Ash?" I asked again. My worry was a sharp, annoying needle in my chest. He didn't look at me, he just gave a stiff, even a nod, keeping his distance as if my very presence was a flame he couldn't afford to touch.
It was suspicious.
"Let's move before the sun drops," Lori suggested, his voice tight.
We ventured into the heart of Jamana, but the mountain itself seemed to scream a warning. A sudden, violent gale blasted us from behind, bending ancient trees like blades of grass. Small forest creatures scrambled past our boots in a panicked frenzy.
Then, the shadow fell.
A massive silhouette eclipsed the dark clouds—a dragon of back scales, horns like obsidian towers, and eyes that glowed with a rhythmic, crimson pulse. It didn't roar in challenge, it simply soared over us, its massive wings creating a wake of wind that nearly threw Jasmia off her feet.
It flew straight into a colossal cave. Driven by a pull I couldn't explain, we followed.
The interior was a graveyard. Piles of human bones hunters who had come for the bounty littered the floor. Jasmia whimpered, ducking behind Lori.
"Keep going," Nightshade muttered. His voice was raspy, his silver-blue eyes darting around with a frantic, feverish intensity. He was unraveling, and I was the only one who seemed to feel the heat coming off him.
When we reached the inner sanctum, we stopped dead. The dragon wasn't waiting to feast. She was curled around a single, pulsing egg.
Lori's hands ignited instinctively. The dragon turned her head, her prehistoric gaze locking onto us.
"Tsukia?"
The voice didn't come from the air; it vibrated in our skulls. A dragon that could speak.
"How do you know her name?" Nightshade asked, stepping forward. His fingers were twitching, his Absolute Undo flickering at his tips.
"I am the keeper of this mountain and I'm quite old." she replied, her voice a heavy, melodic rumble. She stood up, and we all flinched, backing away. "Don't worry. I won't harm the child I have spent years protecting in secret."
"Protecting?" I whispered, my hand frozen on the hilt of my sword. "Why?"
"A secret," she chuckled, a sound like grinding stones. "You look so much like the woman who saved me decades ago... the one with the wings of light."
She leaned in, her massive snout inches from my face. Nightshade and Lori surged forward, pulling me back with a protective ferocity that made the dragon giggle.
"So," she breathed, "did you come for my head? Like the others?"
"Your head..." Jasmia blurted out, then slapped her hands over her mouth.
The dragon laughed, a hollow, sad sound. "I cannot die yet. My child is not ready for the sky."
We stood there, consumed by a guilt that tasted like ash. How could we kill a mother? How could we kill my silent guardian?
"I can't do it," I said, my voice shaking. "I won't."
"If the majority says spare her, we move on," Nightshade said, but his eyes were fixed on the cave entrance.
BOOM.
An explosion rocked the cavern. Dust and shale rained down as a group of hunters blasted their way in. They wore the silver-and-black insignias of the Tasukai.
"Intruders!" the dragon roared, standing over her egg.
"Let's go, Kia! It's too many!" Lori shouted, grabbing my arm.
We ran, but the sound of the dragon's groan the sound of her wings being pierced by magical bolts stopped me cold. I looked back and saw her struggling against a dozen Gifted. She was fighting for her egg. She was fighting for a future.
"I'm helping her!" I screamed, wrenching my arm from Lori's grip.
I ran back into the fray, my dual blades snapping into existence. "Don't just decide things!" Lori yelled in frustration, but he and Jasmia were right behind me, fire and light erupting to meet the hunters.
I looked for Nightshade. I found him in the shadows.
He had fully surrendered. His hair was jet-black, his eyes a terrifying scarlet. He was mid-strike, his fangs buried in the neck of a woman hunter. It was brutal. It was primal. I felt a surge of something fear, or maybe a strange, dark jealousy seeing him give in to the hunger I had sparked.
"TSUKIA, LOOK OUT!"
The lead hunter loosed a massive, combined blast of energy. The dragon, wounded in the eye and blinded by pain, swung her wing, throwing us behind a stone pillar. She took the hit. The blast tore through her scales.
I leave my child to you, her voice echoed in my mind. You really do look like her, Tsukia...
I watched, paralyzed, as the final blade fell. They severed her head.
Author's POV
The silence that followed the dragon's death was louder than the explosion that had preceded it. It was the sound of a world breaking.
Lori and Jasmia froze, their breath hitching in the frigid mountain air. They didn't look at the hunters, and they didn't look at the severed head of the mountain's keeper. They looked at Tsukia.
She wasn't screaming. She wasn't even moving. But the air around her began to liquefy, turning into a thick, oily black mist that swallowed the light. Her eyes, once vibrant and sharp, bled into a flat, terrifying white two dying stars in a skull of shadow.
"Tsukia?" Lori whispered, taking a half-step forward.
He was met with a shockwave.
A massive, obsidian aura erupted from Tsukia's skin, cracking the cavern floor into a web of jagged fissures. Every step she took left a footprint of scorched earth. The black veins on her wrists didn't just pulse, they writhed like living serpents under her skin, stretching toward her throat.
She didn't run. She glided.
In a blur of motion, Tsukia appeared in front of the lead hunter. The man, a high-ranking veteran of the Tasukai, didn't even have time to raise his shield. Tsukia didn't use her swords. She reached out with a hand encased in a claw of pure, dark energy and gripped his throat.
The sound of his neck snapping under the weight of her "Disaster" echoed through the cave like a dry branch breaking.
She dropped the body as if it were a piece of discarded trash. Dark, viscous tears—as black as the void in her eyes—trailed down her cheeks. She turned toward the remaining hunters. They weren't fighting anymore; they were prey.
"What is she...?" one hunter gasped, his legs giving out. "What a terrific potential!"
Before the carnage could continue, a streak of scarlet and black cut through the darkness.
Nightshade Ash appeared, his own transformation complete. His hair was a midnight shroud, and his eyes burned with the hunger of a starving vampire. He didn't flinch at the pressure of tsukia's aura. He walked directly into the center of the storm.
"Lori! Get Jasmia back!" Nightshade's voice was a alike command, stripped of its usual mockery.
He lunged, catching Tsukia's wrists. The collision of their powers his Absolute Undo fighting her Infinite Void erupted in a blinding flash of white light. Tsukia let out a sound that wasn't human a guttural, melodic shriek of pure agony and rage. She fought him, her fingers digging into his arms until blood coated his skin.
Nightshade didn't let go. He leaned into the heat of her power, his face inches from hers. For a moment, amidst the chaos, there was an intimacy that was almost suffocating. He looked at her with a terrifying sort of adoration.
"You're beautiful when you're breaking," he whispered, his voice a low, jagged rasp.
With a practiced, possessive grace, he pulled her body flush against his, his hand tangling in her hair to expose the side of her neck. He didn't wait. He sank his fangs into her for some unknown reasons
"What the hell are you doing again?!" Lori grinned his teeth in madness.
As he drank, the black aura began to shudder and collapse. The cracks in the floor stopped spreading. The oily mist retreated back into her skin, leaving her pale and trembling in his arms.
Tsukia's head fell against his shoulder, her consciousness vanishing as the "Disaster" went dormant.
Nightshade held her tightly, he looked at Lori and Jasmia over her shoulder—as his scarlet eyes glowed.
"Take her." he commanded, his voice cold and flat as he handed the limp girl to a trembling Jasmia. "I have a few loose ends to 'undo.'"
He turned back toward the remaining hunters, a dark, blood-stained smile playing on his lips. He wasn't just a teammate anymore. He was the only thing standing between the world and the girl who would eventually destroy it.