Chapter 3 The Fire Beneath the Veil
Wind screamed through the canyons like a wounded beast.
Kaelin pressed her back to the rock, the Ashwing stronghold rising before her a fortress carved into the bones of the mountain. Torchlight spilled across black stone, and sentries in soot-streaked armor moved along the battlements like restless ghosts.
Two days inside enemy walls, and she already knew more than she wanted to.
The rebels weren’t the blood-drunk zealots Ardyn claimed they were. They were people farmers, scholars, and outcasts who had lost everything to the Crown’s cleansing fire. And worse, they spoke of her power emberfire not as a curse, but as something sacred.
That thought unsettled her more than any blade could.
“Keep moving,” murmured Taren beside her, his voice low. The scarred warrior moved like a shadow, his hand always close to the hilt of his curved dagger. “If they catch us past curfew, you’ll wish you’d stayed in the tunnels.”
Kaelin forced a smirk. “You’d miss me if I did.”
He didn’t answer. He rarely did.
The two slipped through a narrow archway into the Hall of Cinders a cavernous chamber where the air shimmered with old magic. Cracked murals lined the walls, telling stories of dragons and their riders winged titans soaring over cities of flame. One fresco in particular drew Kaelin’s gaze: a woman wreathed in fire, her eyes like molten gold, standing before a kneeling army.
A chill slid down Kaelin’s spine.
The woman’s face could have been her own.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice called from behind.
Kaelin spun, flame twitching in her palm before she quenched it. The speaker was a tall woman draped in layers of indigo silk and ash-grey armor. Silver hair framed a face that had seen centuries. Her gaze was sharp, unyielding like a blade forged in dragonfire.
“Commander Veyra,” Taren said, bowing his head. “We didn’t mean to”
“I know exactly what you meant to do,” Veyra interrupted. Her eyes slid to Kaelin. “You’re the newcomer. The one who hides her flame.”
Kaelin stiffened. “I don’t hide anything.”
“Liar.”
The word cracked like a whip. “The air around you hums, girl. You’ve walked through the Veil or something older. You can’t lie to magic.”
Kaelin’s heart stuttered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Veyra’s lips curved in a knowing smirk. “Then perhaps the Ember chooses its vessels blindly.”
The commander turned, motioning for them to follow. “You both will train at dawn. The Wyrmroot Trials begin tomorrow. Survive them, and you’ll earn your place among us. Fail…” She paused, her silver eyes gleaming. “…and the mountain will decide what to do with your bones.”
They walked in silence until Veyra’s steps faded down another corridor.
Taren stopped near the barracks, glancing at Kaelin from under his hood. “You really don’t know what she meant, do you?”
Kaelin met his gaze. “Do you?”
He hesitated. “The Ember chooses warriors those tied to dragonfire by blood or spirit. Legends say it calls through dreams, through fire, through death. No one’s heard it in years.”
She tried to laugh, but it came out hollow. “Then it must be broken. Because it calls to me.”
The words slipped free before she could stop them.
And when she looked up, Taren wasn’t mocking her. He looked almost… afraid.
That night, Kaelin dreamt of wings.
Not the delicate kind in storybooks these were vast, skeletal, wreathed in flame. She stood on a battlefield of molten glass, ash falling like snow. The air trembled with an ancient heartbeat.
“You carry my echo, child.”
The voice rumbled through her bones vast, patient, eternal. “But echoes fade. The ember must awaken, or all will fall to frost.”
Kaelin reached toward the fire, and a dragon’s eye opened in the dark a burning sun that saw everything.
She screamed, and the world shattered.
She woke to the sound of horns.
The Trials had begun.
Smoke rose in spirals from a ring of black stone carved into the canyon floor. Rebels circled the pit, chanting old words. Magic thrummed beneath her feet like a pulse.
Veyra stood at the center, her blade planted in the ground. “Wyrmroot chooses no favorites,” she declared. “Face what it sends or be devoured.”
Kaelin stepped into the ring beside Taren, her chest still tight from the dream. The air thickened, shimmering with heat. Symbols flared beneath their boots ancient sigils of fire and fate.
Then the ground cracked open.
A surge of molten light erupted, coalescing into a creature made of smoke and ember a drake, smaller than a dragon but burning with feral hunger. It roared, shaking the mountainside.
Kaelin’s pulse roared to match it.
“Stay back!” Taren shouted, drawing his blade. The drake lunged, molten claws slicing air. Kaelin dove, rolling beneath its strike. Heat scorched her arm, blistering skin. Pain flared and with it, something deeper.
Fire burst from her palm, wild and gold.
The crowd gasped as the blaze spiraled upward, cutting across the beast’s chest. For the first time, Kaelin didn’t suppress it. She let it burn.
The drake snarled, but instead of attacking, it recoiled its molten eyes locking on hers. Recognition. Reverence.
Then, with a low rumble, it bowed.
The world went silent.
Kaelin’s fire flickered, fading as shock stole her breath. Around her, whispers spread like wildfire.
“She commands it.”
“The Ember answers her.”
“Impossible…”
Veyra’s expression was unreadable. “It seems the mountain has chosen,” she murmured. “Welcome, Kaelin Dravyr… the last Emberborn.”
Later, when the flames had died and the chants faded, Kaelin stood alone by the canyon’s edge. The air smelled of ash and dawn.
She stared at her trembling hands, remembering the dragon’s eye from her dre
am, and the echo in her blood.
The Ember wasn’t broken. It was waking up.
And it wanted something from her.
