Then heat floods my veins—sudden, shocking, impossible.
Not my dragonfire. The frequency’s wrong, the flavor different. This is older. Rawer. Power from before dragons learned to shape themselves into something civilized.
It burns through me without consuming. Fills the empty spaces without replacing what I lost.
The restraints around my wrists flicker, circuits struggling against something they weren’t designed to suppress.
My eyes snap open.
The dampeners were calibrated for modern dragon magic. Specific frequency. Known parameters. Centuries of Syndicate research condensed into energy fields that can shut down any registered dragon signature.
But whatever this ancient power is, it operates differently enough that the tech can’t fully contain it.
Like trying to cage sunlight with chicken wire.
I don’t waste the opportunity.
I grab the restraint housing with both hands and pull. Borrowed strength surges through muscle and bone; not my dragon exactly, but dragon power, nonetheless. Foreign and familiar all at once.
Metal groans. Circuits spark and smoke, acrid smell filling the small cell.
The left cuff shatters with a crack like breaking ice.
I freeze. Listening for alarms. For the automated systems that should be screaming through every corridor.
Silence.
Just the hum of machinery. The pulse of the ancient thing beneath the mountain. My own ragged breathing.
I work the right cuff loose; slower, more methodical, using leverage and the brief strength while it lasts. Fingers finding purchase on metal still hot from shorting circuits.
It releases with a hiss of depressurizing energy fields.
The ancient power fades as quickly as it came, warmth draining out of my veins and leaving me purely human again. Weak. Mortal. Alone in my own skin.
But free.
I flex my hands. Wrists raw where the cuffs sat, skin burned and blistered from suppression energy. But functional.
Whatever you are,I think toward the power still thrumming beneath me.I don’t know if you’re helping or using me. But thank you.
We’ll settle accounts later.
I move to the cell door. Electronic lock, biometric backup, reinforced frame designed to withstand dragon strength. The kind of security that requires either proper credentials or enough firepower to bring down a building.
No tools. No explosives. No dragon strength anymore.
I test the handle anyway, habit more than hope. A lifetime of breaking out of places I’m not supposed to be.
It clicks.
Not forced. Not broken.
Simply… unlocked.
As if the mountain itself reached into circuits and wiring and quietly opened the path.
My hand hovers over the handle. Heart hammering against damaged ribs hard enough to make stars burst across my vision.
