Chapter 2 Ash and Whispers

By the time the sun dragged itself over the skyline, New Arcana looked hungover.

Rain fell in lazy streaks, washing the soot from the night before into black rivers that coiled through the gutters. Sirens moaned somewhere downtown, the kind that meant containment crews. The Obsidian Order always cleaned their messes before the press could sniff the blood.

I hadn’t slept. Couldn’t.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Veris Quinn’s body turning to light, her scream folding into that impossible roar inside my head.

I sat on the floor of my apartment, back against the peeling wall, a chipped mug of cold coffee between my palms. The mark on my hand pulsed like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to me. The burn had healed overnight. That wasn’t natural.

You’re welcome, the voice murmured.

I stiffened. “Stay out of my head.”

Your head is my home now.

I pressed the mug to my forehead and breathed through the urge to throw it. “You’re the thing they sealed inside me.”

Thing?

I was the sky’s first breath. The flame that forged the bones of gods.

“Congratulations,” I muttered. “You’re trapped in a woman with rent due.”

A low rumble of amusement. Then silence.

The city outside the window blinked with charm-lights and transport runes. The news drones buzzed overhead, projecting holo-feeds about the “Club Pyra Tragedy.” Forty-three dead, authorities investigating possible ritual terrorism. No mention of dragonfire. No mention of me. The Order was already rewriting the story.

I pulled on a clean shirt, wrapped the mark with a bandage, and stepped into the corridor. The hall smelled of mildew and burnt incense. Neighbors peered through cracked doors scavengers in bathrobes, witches hiding hangovers. I avoided their eyes.

The stairwell took me down to the street, where the rain had turned the asphalt to mirrors. Every puddle reflected the city’s glow and sometimes, for half a breath, the flicker of wings behind my reflection.

I needed information. Answers.

And there was only one person in this district reckless enough to talk about dragon relics.

The Market Below sprawled beneath the subway lines a labyrinth of rusted steel and flickering wards, where anything illegal could be bought if you didn’t mind losing your soul in the process. Vendors hawked charms from folding tables; spell-smoke curled from cauldrons the size of trash cans. Somewhere, a child was laughing at a ghost in a bottle.

I walked fast. No one stopped me. I’d earned my reputation years ago the witch who didn’t flinch when the world burned.

At the end of the corridor, an iron gate marked with graffiti: KEEP OUT / DEMONS BITE.

I knocked twice. A slot opened. Two yellow eyes blinked at me.

“Tell Drix it’s Kaia,” I said.

The gate screeched open. A pale creature with tusks and too many rings stepped aside.

“Cross, you look like death in boots,” Drix rasped. His voice was smoke and gravel. “Heard the Order’s sniffing around your block.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”

His grin showed teeth filed into points. “Trouble follows you like perfume.”

Inside, his shop was a cathedral of stolen magic — relics hanging from chains, shelves stacked with bones, feathers, vials of blood that glowed faintly blue. I’d seen enough cursed markets to know half of it was lethal.

“I need info on a relic,” I said. “Glass shard, runes like flame.”

Drix whistled. “True Flame? That’s not something you window-shop for.”

“I’m not shopping.”

He tilted his head. “You shouldn’t be alive if you touched it.”

“Guess I’m lucky.”

He sniffed the air, then frowned. “No, not lucky. Marked.”

Before I could reply, he grabbed my wrist. His nails scraped the bandage away. The dragon’s eye beneath glowed faintly, golden veins threading up my forearm. Drix hissed and recoiled as if burned.

“By the void, Kaia what did you do?”

“I picked up the wrong souvenir.”

He backed away, shaking his hand. “That’s not a relic anymore. That’s a soul seal. You’re carrying a fragment, maybe a full spirit. They’ll come for you.”

“They already did.”

He swallowed hard. “Then you’re dead and walking.”

He’s right, the voice purred. You are mine now.

I clenched my jaw. “Can you trace where it came from?”

Drix hesitated, then rummaged through a stack of cracked grimoires. Pages fluttered like dying birds. Finally, he slammed one open a faded etching of a serpent-shaped dragon encircling a rune identical to the one burning on my hand.

“Eryndor,” he said softly. “The Ninth Flame. Said to have burned the gods themselves before they chained him beneath the earth.”

I felt the air around me tighten.

Lies, Eryndor whispered. I burned tyrants, not gods.

“Why was he sealed?” I asked.

Drix shrugged. “Because he liked to play god, maybe. Because the Order feared what he’d do if he woke. I don’t know. But if that mark’s real, they’ll come to cut it out of you.”

He slid me a small metal token a charm etched with a spiral. “Go to the old subway under Ash Line. There’s a witch who deals in containment magic. She owes me a favor. Tell her Drix sent you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He grabbed my arm before I could leave. “Kaia, listen. If that dragon wakes fully, you won’t just burn the city you’ll unmake it. Don’t let him in.”

I met his eyes. “Too late.”

Back on the street, the rain had stopped, but the air felt heavier, charged. I pulled my hood up and kept walking. Somewhere behind me, footsteps matched mine.

I turned a corner nothing.

Another still nothing.

They follow, Eryndor murmured. The hunters smell my flame.

“Then shut it off,” I hissed under my breath.

You think power is a lantern? I am the sun.

Great. I was arguing with a god inside my skull.

I ducked into an alley filled with trash wards and dripping pipes. The reflection in a puddle twitched a second too late when I moved. My instincts screamed. I spun, dagger drawn.

The blade stopped an inch from a stranger’s throat.

“Easy!” the woman gasped, hands up. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. Pink hair, combat jacket, eyes like electric jade. “Whoa, you really are jumpy.”

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Mira. Drix said you might be coming.”

“Then he should’ve warned you I bite.”

She grinned. “Good. Means you’re still breathing. Come on, witch-lady, you want answers or not?”

I hesitated, scanning the alley mouth. No movement. For now. “Lead the way.”

She guided me through backstreets until we reached a rusted subway entrance sealed with rune-wire. Mira whispered a phrase and the wards flickered out.

“Old Order tunnels,” she said. “They don’t patrol here anymore bad memories.”

The descent was steep. Each step echoed off the walls like a heartbeat. The deeper we went, the warmer the air grew, carrying a faint smell of sulfur. Eryndor stirred restlessly, humming against my ribs.

This place remembers me.

“What is this?” I asked.

Mira switched on a small lantern. “An old cultivation chamber. Used to train mages back when dragonfire was legal.” She shot me a quick look. “You’re carrying one, aren’t you? A dragon.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. The glow from my palm lit the tunnel brighter than her lamp.

She swallowed. “Then you really are screwed.”

At the bottom of the stairs stood a door carved from obsidian, veined with faint gold light. Mira placed her hand on it; runes sparked.

“Wait,” I said. “What’s behind there?”

“The witch you’re looking for,” she replied. “Or what’s left of her.”

The door creaked open.

Inside lay a room lined with glass tanks.

Bodies floated in viscous liquid humans, fae, something between. Some were missing faces, others wings. Every tank glowed softly, heartbeats of trapped magic.

Mira’s voice was small. “She called it research.”

I stared at the horror, my stomach tightening. “Drix sent me here for this?”

A rustle answered fabric, slow and deliberate.

From the far side of the room, a figure stepped into the lamplight. A woman, thin, silver-haired, eyes like candle flames. She smiled when she saw me.

“Kaia Vale,” she said. “At last.”

The mark on my hand flared in response.

Eryndor’s voice went very still.

I know her.

“Who is she?” I whispered.

The one who betrayed me.

The woman tilted her head, the corners of her lips curling upward.

“Welcome home, child of fire.”

And the tanks began to crack.