Before she could respond, thunder exploded outside. Lyra lunged, dagger raised. She wanted only one thing now: to stay alive. If this dragon wanted to feed on her, he'd have to work for it.
She stabbed blindly at the beast's underbelly. Horror and adrenaline fused into a scream as her blade sank into living scale.
Pure blue fire blasted from the wound, its howl like the scream of a dying world.
The cathedral shattered around them: lamps cracked, lightning laced the walls, and thunder rattled every bone in Lyra's body.
Pain and heat exploded behind her ribs as Vaelrix—the dragon—twisted.
Bone shards and debris flaked out. Lyra's back slammed into stone, her spine buckling under the impact.
Stars danced in her vision.
The taste of blood and ozone filled her mouth.
Her stolen relic jar clattered from her grip and shattered. The Lazarus-Blood was gone, evaporated into the raw storm unleashed between them.
For a moment, all sound was static in her brain. Then a new current surged through Lyra's veins—she felt it, a warmth threading from her ripped wrist downward.
Soft and golden.
The pain from the dragon's bite started to ease, as if something alive worked at the torn flesh.
Lyra's blurred vision cleared.
The wound on her arm was closing, stitch by stitch. She sucked in a ragged breath. Her muscles coiled like steel springs, her senses sharp to a painful degree, every hair standing on end with electricity.
Vaelrix hung motionless above her, rain splattering off his scales. The burn on his wing smoldered with cobalt-blue blood. He panted, great chest heaving, one front claw resting lightly on the floor beside Lyra.
For all his size, he seemed… careful, as though sizing her up.
For several heartbeats, the dragon simply stared, purple tongue flicking to taste the air.
Lyra's head swam with fear, wonder, and something almost like recognition. She had clawed her way through life, she had begged, lied, stolen to survive, but this was beyond any nightmare she'd imagined.
And yet in Vaelrix's amber eyes she saw centuries of suffering, loneliness far older than any mortal war.
Run, her instincts screamed.
Every ounce of her wanted to scramble away, leave this cave and never look back. But something deeper knotted in her chest.
The storm around them, the wildness in the air—it spoke to something in her blood.
Lyra dragged herself upright, feeling more raw and human than ever. Her left hand still clenched around the broken vial, a few stubborn drops of blood glistening on her palm.
"I didn't ask for this," she rasped, voice cracking. Her words were swallowed by thunder, but as she met Vaelrix's gaze, she added under her breath, "But I'm not your enemy."
Vaelrix's gaze narrowed. His maw opened, lightning crackling at his fangs.
Lyra tightened her grip on the jagged dagger fragment.
His huge head dipped closer.
Lyra forced herself to stay still. In that tense hush, they were two predators locked in a deadlocked stare.
Suddenly, Vaelrix lunged. The world exploded into violence.
The dragon's jaws snapped around Lyra's dagger arm, dragging her screaming against the stone. Pain seared up her arm; blood sprayed from the missing limb.
She tasted ash and ozone as Vaelrix's venom-laden saliva scorched her flesh.
But in the dragon's eyes she saw something else: memory.
Lyra's mind ripped open. She was flying above golden fields, a tiny wyrmling perched on her back as a boy—someone gentle, kind—bound him to the old pacts.
Then flames. Then the boy's scream. A pact broken by her steel.
Another memory...
Darkness, thunder, and a spear made of wyrmbone slaying a man with Lyra's eyes. The weight of all those stolen years pressed down: the fights, the hunger, all the blood on her hands and now on his.
And yet, as agony doubled her over, a single thought thundered clear in her mind: live.
Vaelrix released her.
Lyra collapsed into the cold stone, every breath jagged and burning.
The dragon loomed above, massive and sure.
His crimson blood dripped onto her cheek, warm on her skin. His foreleg pressed down gently on her shoulder, not choking, almost comforting.
Lyra forced her eyes open. Pain lanced through her arm where the dragon had bitten. Darkness circled at the edges of her vision.
She drew in a shaky breath. Somehow, she could breathe again.
Vaelrix's fangs left her blood still glowing on her skin. The dragon's wings folded behind him as he growled softly, steam and rain drifting off his scales.
"You fool," he murmured in her mind, voice thick with sorrow and anger. "You would have killed us both."
Lyra managed a cruel laugh. "Hope so," she wheezed. Sharp pain shot through her arm as she tried to right herself. "Better us than them," she added.
Vaelrix's golden eyes flashed, then softened a fraction. "The Wyrmwatch will be upon us in moments," he rumbled. "We must move."
Lyra hated every second of it: scared, bleeding, broken.
Still, she pushed herself to her knees, then standing. The stormlight magic that wracked her should have destroyed her, but instead it had stitched her wound shut, just leaving a faint golden trace.
Her mind reeled: was she healed? Or poisoned? If the bond was happening, it was at her expense. Already, her legs felt rubbery. Something in her heart was lighter, drained.
She took two unsteady steps. Vaelrix lowered himself, unfolding his wings. He offered her a pale look – massive head level with hers. "Stay close," the dragon ordered, almost kindly.
Lyra met his gaze and gave a nod. She expected rage or contempt but found quiet understanding. "They will hunt you... us..." she said softly.
Vaelrix gave a short, rumbling snort. "Are you always so kind to dangerous things?" he teased, but there was no real anger.
Lyra refused to look afraid. "For every human I kill, there's someone who deserves it. But this? This was my mistake as much as yours."
A sudden crack of lightning split the sky as Lyra and the stormwyrm took to the chamber's entrance. The once-silent chapel was now the stage of their crime. And somewhere beyond that threshold, the Wyrmwatch were coming.
Lyra picked up her broken dagger handle, talisman of her worst gamble. Together, human and dragon slipped into the shadows beyond the chapel, two fugitives under one dark, roaring sky.