And underneath it all—a sound.
A rhythm.
A heartbeat.
I closed my eyes and listened.
Zeke.
Zane.
The bond was unspoken; it was a pulse running through the wild—wolves howling somewhere far off, the sharp cry of a hawk echoing through fire and stone. “They’re here,” I said. “North ridge. And something’s with them.”
Jet turned sharply toward the glowing horizon. “You feel it too?”
“Hard not to,” I muttered.
No sooner than the words left my mouth, a shockwave of power slammed through us—half flame, half frost, pure chaos. The horizon erupted in white-blue light that froze the air itself, then shattered it in fire.
I barely threw my shield up in time, electricity bursting from my hands to deflect the wave. Nathan braced beside me, flames coiling like armor. Jet didn’t move—he justabsorbedit. The energy hit him and vanished, snuffed out like smoke.
When the wind finally died, the landscape was… changed.
The volcanoes had quieted. The sand had fused into black glass. And far off, two Draxon shapes loomed against the red sky—vast and glowing, one wreathed in fire, the other in frost.
Zane and Zeke.
“What the fuck?” Nathan breathed. “They actually?—”
“Awakened something,” I finished for him. My voice dropped lower. “And not just themselves.”
Because above the twins, shadows moved—enormous, slow, deliberate. The air vibrated under the weight of their presence. Eyes opened in the clouds.
Ancient.
Hungry.
“Ancestors,” Jet said quietly, almost to himself.
A crack of thunder answered him—except there were no clouds left to make it—just the beating of colossal wings.
Nathan’s kestrel squawked loudly in warning as it landed on his shoulder. I contacted the other animals that came through and warned them to lie low until we came to retrieve them. There were monsters in this world that would consider them prey.
I lifted off the ground slightly, letting the lightning hum through me. My skin tingled, my bones humming with power I couldn’t contain. “We need to move before we’re seen.”
Nathan smirked. “Too late.” The crazy bastard stroked the kestrel and seemed to anticipate the fight to come.
The air split open behind us—a roar that held such power it felt like the very foundation of Aurathia trembled.
I turned just in time to see a shape dive from the haze—a Draxon, smaller but fast, its scales reflecting the firelight like molten mirrors. No way this was the one that had made that sound.
It must be a hunter.
“Contact,” I hissed. “We’ve got company.”
Jet rose higher beside me, eyes narrowing. “Maybe we need to see how well these things handle our abilities.”
Nathan’s smirk grew into a grin. “As my precious Nexi would say, let’s get western on their ass!”
