From outside, the cabin looked like something out of a pioneer museum. Inside, it’s anything but. Modern appliances gleam in the kitchen. The furniture is comfortable, quality pieces. A flat-screen TV hangs above the fireplace.
But that’s not what catches my attention.
Carved into the wooden beams overhead—intricate, deliberate, beautiful—are symbols I’ve never seen. Spiraling patterns that seem to shift in my peripheral vision. Geometric shapes that make my head ache if I stare too long.
Dragon runes.
The words surface from nowhere, certain and strange. I don’t know how I know. I just... do.
The fireplace draws me closer. Fresh scorch marks blacken the stones around the hearth. Recent. As if someone burned something here within the past few days.
Above the mantel, a medieval sword hangs with an edge that gleams.
What the hell were you into, Grandma?
I drop my pack by the couch and start exploring. The bedroom is sparse but comfortable. The bathroom is stocked with thick towels. The kitchen pantry holds enough canned goods to survive a siege.
In the living room, I find what the lawyer told me about. A section of the wall that sounds hollow when I knock. I press, prod, and finally locate the hidden latch—a carved symbol that depresses like a button.
A panel swings open.
Journals. Dozens of them. Leather-bound, handwritten, their pages yellowed with age. I grab the one on top and flip it open.
My grandmother’s handwriting fills the page. Neat. Precise. Completely insane.
The dragon bloodlines are older than human memory. They walk among us, hidden in plain sight, guardians of a balance most will never comprehend. And our family, Selene—our blood carries fire.
I flip to another entry.
Fire-Bringers are rare. Perhaps one in a generation. I sensed the spark in you from the moment you were born, but your mother refused to acknowledge it. She wanted you safe. Normal. But there is no hiding from what we are.
“Dragon bloodlines.” I say the words out loud, testing them. They sound ridiculous. Fantasy nonsense from a grandmother I barely knew.
Grandma Helen. Sensible. Practical. Made the best pies at Thanksgiving and always smelled like lavender. Apparently also believed she was a descendant of fire-breathing lizards.
The dementia must have started earlier than anyone realized.
But those claw marks on the tree...
The fire roars to life.
I spin toward the hearth, journal clutched to my chest. Flames dance in the fireplace—tall, hungry flames that weren’t there seconds ago. No kindling. No match. No logical explanation.
Okay.I take a shaky breath.Okay. That’s... that’s probably some kind of automatic ignition system. Rich people have those. Right?
The flames lean toward me. Actually lean, as if caught by a wind that doesn’t exist. As if reaching for something.
I stumble back, grab my pack, and retreat to the bedroom. The door has a solid lock. I use it.
DRAYKE
Her scent hits me mid-patrol.
I’m two thousand feet up, wings cutting through the storm clouds, when it rises from the forest below. Wildflowers. Something warm—determination, maybe, or stubbornness. And beneath it all, a note that stops me dead in the air.
Fire.
Not burning wood or scorched earth. Fire itself. Raw and waiting. The kind of fire that lives in the heart of a volcano. The kind that existed before the first dragon ever drew breath.
