Chapter 5 Bloodlines and Betrayal
The air stank of ozone and burnt metal. Sparks hissed from the shattered conduits as Kaia stumbled through the wrecked lab, Mira dragging her by the wrist. Behind them, the witch’s laughter echoed soft, measured, like a teacher watching a child struggle through a test she already knows the answers to.
“Kaia,” Mira gasped, “she’s not following”
“She doesn’t have to.” Kaia’s voice came out hoarse. “She already knows where we’re going.”
The corridor trembled. Pipes groaned overhead. The magic she’d unleashed in the fight that chaotic surge of dragonfire and blood was still eating away at the walls. Every flicker of blue light carried her heartbeat, pulsing in sync with the runes carved into her skin. The power wasn’t fading this time. It was spreading.
“Left!” Mira yanked her into a maintenance tunnel. The walls narrowed, the light dimming to a sickly green. She could taste the iron in the air. Blood and metal.
For a moment, neither spoke. The silence was heavier than the sound of pursuit.
Finally, Mira said, “That woman. She knew Eryndor.”
“She knew my mother too.” Kaia wiped grime from her face. “She said her name before I told her anything. That shouldn’t be possible.”
Mira’s gaze flicked toward the faint burn mark on Kaia’s neck the one that glowed whenever her magic stirred. “Maybe it’s time you told me what really happened the day the Order fell.”
Kaia hesitated. Memories stirred like smoke broken walls, fire raining from the sky, her mother’s scream cut short by the roar of dragon wings.
“I was a child,” she said quietly. “Old enough to remember what they wanted me to forget. The Order said my blood was cursed that no mortal could carry a dragon’s heart and live.”
Mira frowned. “You’re saying”
“I’m saying I’m not entirely human. My father wasn’t a man. He was something older.” Kaia’s voice trembled but didn’t break. “And the Order killed him for it.”
The tunnel shuddered again this time not from distant collapse, but footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate.
Mira drew her pistol. “Not her again.”
But the shape that emerged from the shadows wasn’t the witch. It was armored head to toe in black steel, the crest of the Sovereign Guard etched into its breastplate. Its helm flickered with a cold blue rune.
“Kaia Draen,” the figure said in a distorted voice. “You are under the protection and the custody of the Sovereign Crown.”
Kaia froze. “Protection?”
“You’ve been declared an asset of strategic value.” The voice was too calm. “You will come with us.”
Mira fired. The bullet ricocheted off the armor with a dull clang. The knight didn’t flinch. Instead, it raised a gauntleted hand, and the air warped. Blue runes spiraled outward, cutting Mira off from Kaia with a shimmering wall of energy.
“Mira!”
The knight stepped closer. “You don’t understand what you carry. The witch wasn’t lying your bloodline is the key. And the Crown intends to keep that key locked.”
Kaia’s pulse thundered. The power inside her surged again not from fear, but fury. The wall separating her from Mira cracked, the runes flickering.
“Then they’ll have to kill me first.”
Flames erupted from her hands. Dragonfire, bright and alive, filled the tunnel. The knight staggered back, armor glowing red under the heat. Kaia lunged, her body moving on instinct the way it always did when the dragon part of her took over. Claws instead of fingers. A roar instead of breath.
When the fire dimmed, the knight was gone melted into slag and smoke. Only the rune on the wall remained, flickering weakly before fading to black.
Mira stared. “Remind me never to make you angry.”
Kaia didn’t answer. She was staring at her reflection in the twisted metal. For a moment, her eyes were gold not human gold, but the molten glare of something ancient.
Mira stepped closer. “Kaia. Look at me. You’re losing control.”
Kaia blinked. The gold faded. Her chest heaved. “I can’t keep it down anymore.”
“We’ll find a way. But first, we get out of here.”
They pushed through the maintenance hatch into the night. The ruins of the old city stretched before them towers half-buried in moss, broken rail lines glinting under the moonlight. A storm gathered over the horizon, black and electric.
Kaia felt it a pulse calling from deep within the clouds.
“He’s awake,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Eryndor.” Her voice barely carried over the wind. “The storm isn’t weather. It’s him.”
Lightning split the sky, revealing a silhouette vast wings curling through the clouds, scales flashing silver like the reflection of a shattered sea.
Mira took a step back. “You told me he was gone.”
“He was.” Kaia’s throat tightened. “Which means something brought him back.”
Before Mira could reply, a shadow fell across them not from the sky, but from the ruins. The witch stepped out from behind a collapsed wall, her silver hair unruffled, eyes glowing faintly blue.
“Bravo,” she said softly. “You’ve made it farther than I expected.”
Kaia raised her hands, magic flaring. “You should’ve stayed in your cage.”
“Oh, darling, I built the cage.” The witch’s smile was cold. “And you were born inside it.”
Mira aimed her gun again, but Kaia stopped her. “What do you want?”
“Balance,” the witch said. “And blood. Your blood, specifically. It’s the missing verse of a very old spell.”
Kaia’s power built beneath her skin, threatening to break loose again. “Why me?”
“Because your father broke the world once. And you’re going to help me rebuild it.”
The witch lifted her hand. The ground split open runes flaring, light searing the ruins in a circular pattern. From below came a low, thunderous growl. The kind that made every instinct scream run.
Mira grabbed Kaia’s arm. “What is that?”
Kaia swallowed hard. “A summoning circle.”
The witch’s smile widened. “Correction, dear. Resurrection.”
Lightning struck the center of the circle, and something began to rise scales glinting black, wings unfurling from the smoke. It wasn’t Eryndor. It was smaller. Rougher. Incomplete.
The witch whispered a single word. The creature’s eyes snapped open the same molten gold as Kaia’s.
Kaia felt the link instantly. A heartbeat inside her own.
Her dragonblood had been used.
Mira fired again. The bullet tore through the witch’s shoulder, but the woman didn’t even flinch. “Run, Kaia,” Mira shouted. “Now!”
Kaia hesitated every nerve screaming to fight, to stop this abomination from taking form but the dragon part of her already knew the truth. This wasn’t a battle she could win. Not yet.
She grabbed Mira’s hand and sprinted through the collapsing ruins as the half-born dragon roared behind them, shaking the earth.
The witch’s voice chased them through the storm:
“You can’t run from what you are, Kaia! The blood always calls back!”
Rain began to fall thick, hot, smelling faintly of ash. Lightning painted the ruins in molten light.
Kaia didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
Because if she did, she’d see the thing wearing her blood learning to breathe.
And she wasn’t ready to face that.
