Chapter 1 The Flame Beneath the Skin

Rain turned the alley to mirrors long, fractured pieces of neon slicing across wet brick and rusted steel. Caelumspire never slept; it only changed colors. Tonight the glow was sickly red, bleeding from the holo-signs that screamed CLEANSE YOUR SOUL / NO MAGIC ALLOWED.

Rin Astra kept her head low and her hood higher. Her boots sloshed through runoff that smelled of metal and oil, her gloved hands tucked deep into the pockets of her coat. The city cameras blinked overhead, their lenses sweeping like predators’ eyes. She moved between the blind spots; she knew them all.

At the end of the alley, a steel door waited under a flickering rune-light. She pressed her palm against the lock. A faint hiss answered then a heartbeat of warmth pulsed through her veins. The runes dimmed. The door opened.

Inside, the air changed: thicker, quieter, tinged with the copper tang of blood and burning sage.

Rin’s “clinic” was a one-room den carved out of the skeleton of an old subway station. The walls were covered in talismans painted over street maps, their ink pulsing faintly. The smell of antiseptic clashed with incense smoke. Jars of qi-infused salves lined a cracked counter.

A man lay on her cot, chest rising shallowly. The knife wound across his ribs gleamed wet under dim light. His eyes fluttered as Rin approached.

“Stay still,” she murmured.

She peeled off her gloves, revealing the faint scales patterned across her fingers. They shimmered once, catching the light before fading. She pressed her palm to his skin.

Qi stirred.

It started as a vibration in her bones soft, like music too low to hear. Then the rhythm changed. The air around her rippled; motes of gold light sparked under her touch, swirling into the wound. Flesh knitted. Blood hissed and turned black before evaporating.

The man gasped, the pain replaced by something close to awe. “You’re… Skyborn?”

Rin’s hand tightened on his chest. “You didn’t see anything. You understand me?”

He nodded too quickly. She could feel his fear; it rolled off him like smoke.

When she finished, she wiped her hands on a rag and stepped back, chest heaving. Healing always took something from her an echo of her own life force.

“Five hundred credits,” she said.

He blinked. “That’s robbery.”

“It’s mercy. The Order would’ve let you rot.”

He paid. They always did. He left without another word, limping into the rain.

Rin slumped against the counter, staring at the faint steam still rising from her hands. Beneath her skin, the dragon mark pulsed once, like a heartbeat too deep to be human.

Noise from above filtered through the ceiling sirens, gunfire, the distant thrum of air-skiffs. Caelumspire was eating itself again.

Rin poured a shot of bitter spirit into a chipped glass and let it burn down her throat. She’d told herself she’d stop after the last job, but survival was an expensive habit.

A voice broke the quiet. “You shouldn’t push that hard, Astra.”

Rin turned. Mira Sol sat cross-legged on the counter, pale hair glowing faintly under a rune screen. She wore a patched jacket wired with blinking circuits, fingers dancing over a holo-tablet.

“You watching me again?” Rin asked.

“Someone has to make sure you don’t fry your organs.” Mira smirked, chewing gum. “You pull that much qi without rest, you’ll burn out by thirty.”

“Maybe I’ll get lucky and die before then.”

“Morbid. Even for you.”

Rin ignored her and poured another drink. Mira’s screen flickered with news feeds: protest fires, black-market raids, a grainy photo of a woman with silver-black hair captioned UNLICENSED CULTIVATOR WANTED FOR QUESTIONING.

Rin’s face, blurred but recognizable.

“Order’s tightening patrols,” Mira said. “They hit the southern sector this morning. Rumor is they’re searching for a ‘dragon-line anomaly.’ Sound familiar?”

Rin’s grip on the glass tightened. The mark under her shoulder burned, a quiet reminder of what she was. “Rumors are all Caelumspire’s good for.”

Mira didn’t press. She knew better.

Hours later, the door alarm shrieked a harsh buzz that set Rin’s nerves alight. No appointment this late. She drew the blade hidden in her sleeve and gestured for Mira to kill the lights.

The door burst open before she reached it. A man stumbled through, armor scorched, blood streaming down his neck. Military insignia glimmered faintly under the grime.

He collapsed at her feet.

Mira swore. “That’s Order tech. Astra, we can’t”

“Lock the door,” Rin snapped.

She knelt beside him. His pulse was weak but there. She stripped away the cracked armor, revealing a wound deep as her thumb, edged with black rot the signature of cursed metal.

She hesitated. Healing an Order soldier was suicide. But leaving him would be worse. Something about his face, even under the blood, felt… familiar.

“Help me turn him,” she said.

Mira stared. “You’re serious?”

“Now, Mira!”

Together they rolled him onto the cot. Rin pressed her palms against his chest. The dragon mark flared beneath her collar, a blaze of red heat.

Qi surged violent, hungry, alive. It roared up her spine like liquid fire. The room’s runes flared crimson, the air vibrating with raw power.

The wound closed but the energy didn’t stop. It rushed back into her, clawing at her ribs, demanding release. Her vision blurred; she smelled ozone and ash.

Then, inside her mind, a voice echoed ancient and furious.

You awaken me, child of flame.

Rin froze. The soldier convulsed. The entire clinic shook. Bottles shattered; light exploded. For a heartbeat, she saw something through him wings of red light unfurling in a realm of shadow and storm.

Then silence.

She tore her hands away. The man was breathing steadily, the corruption gone. The mark on his chest glowed faintly in the same pattern as hers.

“What the hell was that?” Mira whispered.

Rin couldn’t answer. Her pulse thundered; her veins felt molten.

The man’s eyes fluttered open bright amber, reptilian for an instant before fading to human brown. He looked straight at her.

“You shouldn’t have saved me,” he rasped. “They’ll come for you now.”

Rin stepped back. “Who will?”

He smiled weakly. “Everyone.”

Then he passed out.

Outside, thunder rolled. But it wasn’t weather. Through the narrow window slit, Rin saw streaks of white fire crossing the skyline Order skiffs descending. The city’s sirens wailed in unison.

Mira swore again, fingers flying over her tablet. “They’re scanning for qi surges. That thing you just did lit up half the district.”

Rin grabbed her pack. “We move him.”

“Move him where?”

“Anywhere not here.”

They hauled the soldier toward the back exit. Rain poured through cracks in the roof, washing streaks of blood across the floor. The air tasted of static and smoke.

As they reached the stairs, the dragon mark on Rin’s shoulder flared again. She stumbled, catching the railing. Images flickered in her head mountains made of fire, skies torn by wings, a voice like thunder whispering her name.

Mortal shell… vessel of flame… awaken.

She bit back a scream. The world snapped back into focus.

“Rin?” Mira’s voice was distant.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

Sirens grew louder. Down the alley, the shadows thickened shapes moving with military precision. The Order of Ash had found them.

Rin looked at the unconscious soldier, then at Mira. “If they see him alive, we’re dead. Help me hide him.”

Mira started to protest, but the first flash grenade detonated outside, turning rain into steam.

Rin drew her blade, heart pounding.

The dragon inside her purred.

When the door blew open, she was already moving spinning through smoke, steel flashing. Her qi flared with each strike, golden arcs cutting through the dark. The first enforcer dropped. The second fired a rune-pulse that shattered the counter.

Mira screamed something maybe her name but Rin barely heard it. The dragon’s power burned too bright now, flooding her nerves with lightning.

In the chaos, she felt the soldier stir. His eyes snapped open, glowing gold. For an instant, their gazes met and a pulse of shared energy surged between them, violent and electric.

The world froze.

Through the storm of fire and sirens, Rin saw his face clearly for the first time.

Elias Corren. The name surfaced unbidden, like an echo from a life she didn’t remember.

Then the building collapsed around them.