Rayne stood at the edge of the shattered grove, his heart thudding in sync with the pulsing heat in his palm. The red sigil—the mark of a tamer's pact—still glowed on his skin, faint yet unyielding. The dragon, now shrunk into a sleek, ember-scaled wyrmling, perched on his shoulder, nuzzling against his neck like an affectionate predator.
"I should name you," Rayne muttered, still unsure if this was a fever dream or divine mockery. "But I don't even know what you are."
The wyrmling huffed a puff of smoke in reply.
The sun dipped low, casting the ruins of the temple in golden light. Rayne had many questions—how he summoned a creature from myth, why the relic responded to him, and more importantly, how he was supposed to survive now that he was marked.
Taming an SSS-rank beast wasn't a blessing.
It was a death sentence.
⸻
The Guild's Response
Back in Highcrest City, panic whispered through the marble halls of the Tamer's Guild. The central orb, used to track beast summoning signatures, had flared blood red—an anomaly unseen in over a century.
At the head of the table sat Guildmaster Loric Kaen, a man whose eyes held the weight of history. He stared at the pulsing red map glowing above the table.
"SSS-rank," he said flatly. "Confirmed. East quadrant. Border of Elderglen."
A murmur spread through the council room. Only six such creatures had ever been recorded. All of them had razed cities.
Loric turned to his second, a woman named Alira Vos, dressed in combat armor and lined with beast runes.
"Send the Black Crest Hunters. If a rogue tamer has summoned one, they either control it… or we take both down."
⸻
Into the Wild
Rayne had taken shelter in the hollow of an ancient tree. The dragon—he'd finally named her Ember—slept curled on his chest, radiating warmth even in slumber. His body still felt foreign. Stronger, but tense. As if the pact had rewired him inside.
Ember was not like other beasts. Her intelligence was startling. She understood him. Communicated in feelings. When Rayne asked where she came from, he didn't hear words, but saw flashes—images of black skies, chained mountains, and a golden seal breaking.
She was sealed away.
And he had broken that seal.
"Are you cursed?" he asked, brushing her scaled back.
A single word echoed in his mind, soft and feminine:
"No… Chosen."
⸻
The Bandits of Hollow Reach
Rayne didn't stay hidden for long. Word of a boy walking with a red-scaled dragon reached the ears of more than just the Guild. A notorious bandit group, the Iron Fangs, cornered him as he crossed a narrow ravine.
"Well, well," drawled a man with a hooked scar across his jaw. "What's a little tamer doing with a pet like that?"
Rayne raised his hands. "I don't want trouble."
"You've got it anyway," the man grinned. "You're going to hand over the beast. Or we'll carve her off your bones."
Ember's scales crackled with heat.
"No," Rayne whispered. "You'll leave."
Five bandits laughed.
Rayne closed his eyes. Don't kill them, he thought desperately.
Ember hissed. Her wings flared and fire exploded in a ring around them. The ground trembled. Trees snapped like twigs.
The bandits dropped their weapons and fled, howling in terror.
Rayne collapsed to his knees, breath ragged.
Ember didn't kill. But she could have.
And the message was clear:
She would burn the world for him.
⸻
A New Purpose
With Ember beside him, Rayne began to travel. He hunted small beasts to feed her, trained with her flame to control its radius, and discovered the pact had given him more than strength.
He could feel other beasts now. Sense them. Understand their intent. It was like his soul had fused with the wild.
In the foothills near Lunebrook, he saved a village from a rampaging Flameclaw, a C-rank beast with magma-like fur. When he soothed it with nothing but his aura and sent it fleeing, the villagers bowed to him.
They called him a guardian.
Rayne was stunned.
He had spent his whole life being told he was useless.
Now, people looked at him with awe.
But even as he helped more settlements, he knew a shadow was forming behind him. Word was spreading. An unnamed tamer and his fire-dragon. Some called him a savior.
Others, a threat.
⸻
The First Hunter
They came in the night.
Rayne had just finished helping a farmer tame a feral boar-beast when the moonlight split open and a figure descended in a black cloak, beast runes etched across twin blades.
"I am Kael Vos of the Black Crest," the man said. "By order of the Tamer's Guild, you are to surrender your creature and submit to extraction."
Rayne backed away, Ember landing in front of him with a snarl.
"I haven't done anything wrong."
"You summoned an SSS-rank beast without registration. That's treason. You risk breaking the Tamer Accord."
Kael's voice was flat, his aura deadly.
"I didn't summon her. She chose me."
"Then both of you will burn."
Kael struck. His twin blades gleamed with beastlight. Ember countered with a torrent of fire, but Kael moved like wind incarnate, slicing through flame with blade-dancers' grace.
Rayne watched in horror. Kael was too fast. Ember screamed in pain as one blade slashed her wing.
"No!" Rayne cried, surging forward.
The mark on his hand blazed like a dying star. Time seemed to slow.
Something awakened.
A second flame—colder, darker—rose from beneath his skin. His body jerked, and a burst of black fire erupted from his chest, blasting Kael back into the trees.
Rayne stood, smoke rising from his arms, his eyes glowing.
Kael coughed blood and stared at him. "What… are you?"
Rayne didn't answer.
He didn't know.
⸻
A Deeper Truth
That night, Ember licked her wounds beside a small fire. Rayne sat silently, staring at the flames dancing around his fingertips.
He could feel it now. The mark on his hand had changed. There were two cores inside him—one fiery, one abyssal. The second hadn't come from Ember.
It was something else. Something older.
When he slept, he dreamed again.
A chained throne beneath a broken sky.
And a voice that said:
"Two flames. One fate. He who binds beasts will bind fate itself."
Rayne woke in a sweat. Ember watched him.
"Did you hear it too?" he asked.
She nodded.
They were no longer running from fate.
They were walking straight into it.
⸻
The Guild's Ultimatum
Back in Highcrest, Guildmaster Loric studied the battle report.
Kael Vos had failed.
Worse, he had been injured.
The boy was growing in strength.
And the red dragon was just the beginning.
"He has another power," Kael had said, wincing. "Something not of this world."
Loric turned to the ancient scroll sealed in crystal behind him. A forbidden relic that spoke of the Primordial Flame—a beast not bound by nature, but by prophecy.
"We must act now," he murmured. "Before he gathers more."
He reached for the guild crest and stamped a golden letter.
A kill order.
⸻
End of Chapter Suspense
As Rayne and Ember crossed into the forest known as Whispering Hollow, the wind changed. A rustle in the trees. A shimmer in the shadows.
Rayne paused.
"Something's watching us."
From the trees, a pale girl stepped forward—eyes glowing silver, a serpent coiled around her arm.
She smiled.
"I've been waiting for you, Rayne Vareth."
Ember growled low.
Rayne raised his fists.
The girl's next words made his blood freeze:
"I'm your sister. And I'm here to take her back."