Chapter 2 Ash and Echoes

The rain hadn’t stopped since midnight. It fell in sheets, turning the lower district into a mirror of neon and filth.

Rin pulled her hood low, her boots splashing through puddles thick with oil. The sounds of the city the hiss of hover trams, the buzz of holo-ads, the faint hum of generator wards all pressed in, crowding her head. Every sense was raw. Her heartbeat was too loud. Her skin too hot.

Something inside her still burned.

She’d wrapped her hands three times in gauze, but faint lines of red light pulsed beneath the fabric the same crimson that had bled through her when she touched Elias. The light moved like veins of molten metal, tracing old scars that had once been invisible.

“Breathe,” she whispered to herself. “It’s just backlash. Just mana recoil.”

She didn’t believe it.

She hadn’t felt that surge that impossible, ancient pulse since the night she was branded. The night her master sealed her cultivation, forced her to live as nothing but a healer scraping for scraps.

But last night, when she pressed her hand to that soldier’s chest, when his heart refused to stop beating something older than both of them had woken up.

She reached the back entrance of her clinic a narrow slot between a noodle shop and a pawn exchange. The sigil on the door flickered faintly. Her wards were still holding.

She entered, bolting the door behind her. The clinic was dark except for the dim glow of alchemical tubes stacked on the shelves. The scent of herbs and antiseptic filled the air, grounding her.

Rin peeled off her soaked cloak, hung it on the rack, and exhaled.

For a moment, the world was still.

Then the whispers started again.

They weren’t real sounds, not in the way her ears could hear more like vibrations under her skin, curling along her spine. A deep voice, layered, resonant, and old.

Little flame.

Rin froze.

Her pulse spiked.

You woke me. You bled for him.

She clutched her wrist, staring at the faint glow beneath the bandages. “No,” she whispered. “You’re gone. You’re sealed.”

A low chuckle more like a rumble of thunder.

Seals fade. Hunger does not.

The lights flickered. Glass vials trembled on their shelves.

Rin bit down hard, forcing the panic to still. She went to the counter, uncorked a vial, and downed it. The bitter taste of frostweed hit her tongue a suppressant, used to cool volatile mana.

It burned going down, but the glow in her hands dimmed. The voice faded to an echo.

She leaned on the counter, shaking. “You’re not real.”

But she knew better.

The Crimson Dragon the ancient being bound to her bloodline was very real. And now, somehow, it was awake.

A soft beep cut through the silence.

Rin turned toward the comms terminal blinking on the wall. A distorted voice filtered through.

“Rin. You alive?”

She exhaled in relief. “Mira. Saints, you scared me.”

Static crackled. Then Mira’s face flickered into view dark hair in braids, a jagged scar down her cheek, and the perpetual smirk of someone who didn’t believe in safety.

“Couldn’t reach you all night,” Mira said. “You went dark.”

“Power outage. You know how it is down here.”

“Sure. And the tremor that fried half the block was also a power outage?” Mira leaned closer. “What the hell did you do?”

Rin hesitated. Mira wasn’t just her friend she was her best informant, ex-gang, still wired into the city’s black channels. But even Mira didn’t know the full truth. No one did.

“I saved a man,” Rin said finally. “Soldier. Looked upper district. He was dying. I... might’ve pushed too far.”

Mira’s smirk vanished. “Define too far.”

Rin opened her palm toward the screen. For a moment, she let the suppression slip — just a fraction. Crimson light flared under her skin, bright and alive, like living magma.

Mira cursed softly. “Saints of the Ash. Rin… you can’t show that. Not here. The Order’s been sweeping the lower rings all week.”

“I know.”

“Who was he?”

“Didn’t get a name. He had an insignia black phoenix, silver eye. Military crest, but not local.”

Mira’s brow furrowed. “That’s not Caelumspire military. That’s” she lowered her voice “Ascendant Corps.”

Rin frowned. “That’s impossible. The Ascendants don’t leave the Sky Citadel. They’re ghosts.”

“Guess one of them decided to slum it.” Mira leaned back. “Listen, Rin. You need to disappear for a few days. Lay low. There’s movement up top the Order’s looking for something. Or someone.”

“Me.”

“Maybe.” Mira sighed. “You’ve always been good at hiding. Don’t make me have to find what’s left of you.”

The connection cut out.

Rin stood there for a long moment, the silence pressing down.

She knew she should run. Pack what little she had and vanish into the Outer Rims. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the soldier about the moment his eyes opened, bright with that same red fire.

She wasn’t the only one anymore.

Someone else carried the dragon’s flame.

That meant the old prophecy wasn’t dead.

A soft knock interrupted her thoughts.

Rin’s head snapped up.

No one knocked on her door this early not clients, not suppliers.

She reached under the counter, fingers brushing the hilt of a concealed dagger. “Who is it?”

A pause. Then a deep, steady voice: “The man you saved.”

Her heart stuttered.

She unbolted the door slowly, blade still hidden in her sleeve.

Elias stood there, pale but alive. His dark hair was still matted from blood, his coat torn, eyes gleaming with something that wasn’t entirely human.

“May I come in?” he asked softly.

Rin stepped aside warily.

He entered, scanning the clinic with the trained precision of a soldier. When he turned to her, his gaze lingered on the faint glow at her wrist.

“You felt it too,” he said.

Rin didn’t answer.

“I woke with your voice in my head,” Elias continued. “And… something else. Something that calls to you.”

Rin felt the air tighten. The dragon’s whisper stirred again, coiling beneath her ribs.

He carries my twin flame.

Her breath hitched. “What are you?”

“I could ask you the same,” Elias said, his expression unreadable. “But for now, you should know this your act of mercy lit a beacon. The Order isn’t just looking for you. They’re hunting both of us.”

“How do you know?”

He reached into his coat and tossed something onto the counter a cracked obsidian seal, carved with runes that still smoked faintly.

“The Inquisitors were at my door when I woke. I didn’t wait for introductions.”

Rin stared at it, recognizing the sigil instantly. The Mark of Purge.

“Then we’re dead already,” she murmured.

“Not yet,” Elias said. “You awakened something when you healed me. I can feel it fire, ancient and furious. It’s not human.”

Rin met his gaze. “It’s not supposed to be.”

For a moment, silence stretched between them heavy, electric, charged with the shared pulse of something neither could name.

Outside, thunder rolled across the skyline.

Elias turned to the window, scanning the rain-soaked streets. “If the Order knows, they’ll burn this block to the ground.”

“They’ll burn more than that,” Rin said. “They’ll burn anyone who carries dragon blood. Anyone like us.”

“Then we can’t stay here.”

She looked around the clinic the shelves, the herbs, the quiet safety she’d built from nothing. Leaving meant losing everything she’d fought to keep.

But staying meant death.

The dragon’s whisper coiled through her thoughts again, softer this time, almost fond.

Little flame. Do you finally understand? You were never meant to hide.

Rin closed her eyes. “Fine,” she whispered. “Then let’s burn.”

When she opened them, her decision was made.

She grabbed her satchel, swept a few vials and charms inside, and fastened the straps tight. Elias watched her, silent but steady, as if he’d been waiting for her to reach this point.

“Where to?” he asked.

Rin glanced once more at the rain outside, the city lights flickering like dying stars.

“Up,” she said. “To the Citadel. To whoever started this.”

He nodded once. “Then we go together.”

And as they stepped into the storm, the crimson light beneath their skin pulsed in unison two flames burning against the dark.