A guttural hiss cuts through the air. We turn as a Fellborn with hollow eyes emerges from the wreckage of a collapsing cottage. My blood turns to ice.We can’t outrun that.Without thinking, I shove Lyra behind me, arms outstretched as if I can protect her.
The creature lunges.
For a heartbeat, time slows. I’m going to die, some part of me realizes—calm, detached, already resigned to my fate.
And then—everything rushes in at once.
A flurry of emotions slams into me—terror, rage, disbelief. Grief for a future I might never see. Guilt for not doing more with my life. The desperate, furious ache tolive.
Somethingbreakswithin me.
A deep, rumbling crack splits through me, through the earth beneath my feet. I don’t channel it. Don’t shape it. I become it.
The groundshudders—then splits wide open with a deafening roar, forming a jagged maw beneath the nearest Fellborn. It stumbles in, the earth swallowing it whole.
The chasm seals shut behind it with a thunderous crack.
Silence.
A stunned beat of stillness follows. Even the shadows hesitate.
The ground is scarred, but whole again. And I’m standing at the center of it, trembling, breath ragged, hands still outstretched.
I did that.
The earth answeredme.
A sharp intake of breath at my side.
I turn.
Lyra is staring at me, unmoving, her face ghost-pale in the firelight. She takes a slow, hesitant step back—eyes locked on the scorched line where the ground split open and swallowed the Fellborn whole.
“Amara . . . ” she whispers, her voice tight with fear.
I stare at my trembling hands.
The earth is not supposed to do that. Not without a proper channeler. Not without years of training. And definitely not without a dragon. Not from someone like me.
But the ground moved. Itlistened.
The silence around us trembles—then, without warning, a roar tears through the smoke.
Another Fellborn. Larger. Leaner. Faster.
It surges forward, shadow trailing like a cloak, its hollow eyes locked on me.
Several others begin to shift as well—snapping their heads toward me. As if theyfeltit; the power I just unleashed painted a target on my back. Their empty eyes lock onto me, like wolves sighting prey.
Claw-like fingers unfurl from the ends of their arms—jagged and too long, like shadows sharpened into weapons. They scrape against the stone as they walk, leaving deep gouges in the earth.
They don’t charge—theyadvance. A terrible, deliberate glide. The only sounds they make are thedragof limbs, the hiss of smoke, and the whisper of ancient raspy breath slithering through ruined mouths.
A surge of heat and energy floods my chest, bursting outward like a dam giving way. My vision goes white, and a roar tears from my throat. It might be mine—but it sounds inhuman.
Power explodes from my core, blinding and scorching—flames erupt at my fingertips, crackling with a force I’ve never felt before.
And then—without thought or aim—fire strikes the nearest Fellborn dead-on. The creature shrieks, then disintegrates into a cloud of black smoke.
