The wind carried the scent of smoke.
Miles and Gail stood atop a cracked ridge, overlooking what was once the beating heart of a continent—the capital of the Eltan Dominion, now reduced to ruin. From here, the city looked less like a place and more like a wound carved into the earth. The towers that once pierced the heavens now leaned like broken spines; the gilded domes of the Imperial Hall were buried under waves of black ash.
The Skyfire storm still lingered above, faint but pulsing. It painted the ruins in shifting hues of blue and silver. Lightning flickered silently within it, as if the heavens themselves whispered secrets the earth was not meant to hear.
"Looks worse than the stories," Gail muttered, shielding her eyes.
Miles didn't answer immediately. His gaze was distant, cold—drawn toward the faint glow at the city's center. The Dragon Veins were visible there now, threads of crimson and gold flowing beneath shattered stone. Even from miles away, he could feel them humming like a heartbeat.
"The Empire called this place eternal," he said quietly. "But eternity is fragile when built on lies."
Gail glanced at him. "And you'd know?"
He gave a faint smile. "I studied those lies."
They began their descent.
The path into the city was a graveyard of machines and monuments. War golems lay in pieces, their metal bodies rusted and scorched. Statues of emperors, scholars, and saints were toppled, faces melted beyond recognition. Every few steps, the ground cracked open, revealing veins of molten rock pulsing with strange light.
"Don't step on those," Miles warned.
Gail raised an eyebrow. "Why? They look solid."
"They're not. The Skyfire altered the crust. The veins underfoot carry residual energy from the collapse. Step wrong, and the ground might decide to swallow you whole."
"Noted," she said dryly. "I'll walk lightly."
Despite the banter, tension pressed thick between them. The silence of the dead city was unnatural—too deliberate, as if something waited beneath the stillness. Even the wind moved carefully here.
They passed an overturned caravan, its cargo scattered—books, relics, and fragments of crystal. Miles paused, crouching to pick up a half-burned page.
It bore a familiar crest: a circle encasing a dragon eye.
"The Arcanum Order," he murmured. "My old academy."
Gail peered over his shoulder. "The people who taught you how to poke sleeping gods?"
He smirked. "Something like that."
The page crumbled to ash in his hand. The mark on his arm pulsed faintly in response.
Gail frowned. "That's been happening more often."
"It's reacting to the Veins," he said. "The Breath recognizes what's buried here. The Empire might've burned, but its heart still beats."
They reached the outer district by dusk. The buildings here had fared better—some walls still stood, though hollowed out by fire. They found shelter inside a shattered observatory, its dome half-collapsed but still shielding them from the wind.
As night fell, Miles lit a rune-lamp salvaged from the ruins. The blue glow reflected in his eyes as he examined a map laid across a cracked stone table.
"This city used to sit on the intersection of seven Veins," he explained, tracing glowing lines across the parchment. "That's why the empire built its capital here. They believed control of the ley lines meant control of creation itself."
"And did it?" Gail asked.
Miles's expression darkened. "For a time. Until they tried to replace the dragons with themselves."
He tapped a point on the map. "The Imperial Vault lies here—under the old sanctum. If the Breath is reacting this strongly, that's where we'll find the next seal."
Gail nodded. "Then we go there."
He hesitated. "It's not that simple. The Vault is protected by living constructs—imperial sentinels. The collapse might've disrupted their orders, but… some of them could still be active."
"Good," she said, checking her blade. "I could use the exercise."
Miles gave her a look somewhere between amusement and disbelief. "You're disturbingly calm about this."
"Calm people die slower," she said with a shrug.
Later, when the fire dwindled, Miles found himself unable to sleep. The silence pressed on him like a weight. His thoughts wandered—to the tower, the breath, the voice that called him vessel.
He opened his journal again, flipping to a blank page. The ink shimmered faintly as he began to write.
> "The dragons were never gods. They were keepers of balance—between knowledge and instinct, between order and chaos.
The empire misunderstood that. They believed taming wisdom meant mastering fate.
But knowledge… is not a chain. It's a mirror."
He paused, staring at the words. His hand trembled slightly.
> "If I am to carry the Breath, I must decide whether to be a mirror—or the flame that shatters it."
A faint sound broke the stillness.
Metal scraping stone.
He froze. Gail was still asleep, her blade within reach. Slowly, Miles doused the lamp and crept to the broken doorway.
Outside, under the dim starlight, shadows moved—three figures, cloaked and armored. They moved with purpose, silent and disciplined. Their armor bore the crest of the empire's purification corps: a stylized sun with a bleeding center.
Purifiers.
Miles's pulse quickened. He'd hoped they were still days away.
He whispered a suppression rune over Gail, dimming her breath, then crouched low as the figures entered the courtyard.
The leader spoke softly. "Residual readings are high. The source passed through here recently."
Another voice: "Do you think it's the same anomaly from Caer Vana?"
"The pattern matches. The scholar must still be alive."
Miles's stomach turned. They're tracking the Breath.
He knew what Purifiers did to anomalies. They didn't capture—they incinerated.
Gail stirred slightly, and the faint clink of her weapon drew one soldier's attention. The man turned sharply.
"Movement!"
Miles reacted instantly. His mark flared. He extended a hand, whispering a command he barely understood.
The air rippled.
The ground beneath the soldiers erupted in molten light, forming glowing fissures that cracked outward like spiderwebs. Two of the Purifiers stumbled, their boots searing as the Vein's energy licked upward.
Gail was on her feet in an instant, blade flashing. She struck with brutal efficiency—one down, throat cut before he could scream.
The leader recovered fast, raising his gauntlet. "Vein-bearer confirmed! Engage!"
Arcs of golden fire shot from his palm. Miles dove aside, the blast striking the wall and shattering it into shards. The entire observatory groaned.
"Miles!" Gail shouted. "We can't stay here!"
"I know!"
He reached for the mark again. Pain surged through his arm, but he forced the energy outward, shaping it with sheer will.
A luminous wave burst from him, washing over the courtyard like a heartbeat. The air thickened. The world slowed.
For a brief moment, he saw everything—the flow of energy through stone, flesh, and air. The Vein Sense expanded, tracing the pattern of life itself.
He saw where the enemy stood, where the heat gathered, where their next strike would come.
And then the moment snapped.
He moved before thought, dragging Gail with him as another blast struck, vaporizing the spot where they'd stood.
They rolled into the open street, dust and ash swirling around them. The remaining Purifier charged, his blade glowing with divine fire.
Miles caught the motion, whispered the same command that had come to him in the tower.
The ground cracked—and the Vein responded.
From the fissure erupted chains of molten light, wrapping around the soldier and dragging him down into the earth.
The man screamed, the sound echoing through the ruins until it cut abruptly short.
Then, silence.
Miles collapsed to one knee, gasping. The mark burned white-hot.
Gail caught his shoulder. "Hey! Easy!"
He looked up, eyes glowing faintly with draconic light. "I didn't… mean to do that."
She tightened her grip. "Then you'd better learn before it eats you alive."
He nodded weakly, breath ragged. "We need to move. More will come."
"Where?"
He glanced toward the center of the city, where faint lightning arced between broken spires.
"Into the heart," he said. "If this is the empire's grave… then it's time we dig up its ghosts."
The streets of the capital were a labyrinth of shadows and ash.
Miles and Gail moved through them like ghosts — silent, watchful, guided by the faint glow pulsing beneath the cobblestones. The Dragon Veins here were stronger than anywhere they'd been before, their hum filling the air like a living heartbeat.
The storm above mirrored that rhythm. Each flash of lightning illuminated the jagged skyline — spires half-collapsed, statues twisted into grotesque shapes, the skeletal remains of temples that once touched the heavens.
"This city feels alive," Gail whispered.
"It is," Miles said softly. "Just not the way it used to be."
They stopped near a shattered plaza. In its center stood what remained of a monumental statue — a dragon coiled around a rising tower, both split down the middle as though by divine judgment. Beneath it, a massive fissure cut through the stone, descending into an abyss of crimson light.
Miles crouched, brushing away soot. Ancient runes were carved into the edge of the crack, faint but familiar.
> "Vault Entrance — Authorized by the Arcanum Throne."
He felt his stomach tighten. "We're here."
Gail frowned. "This is the vault? Doesn't look very secure."
"That's because what guarded it wasn't meant to be human," he murmured.
He touched the rune, and the mark on his arm flared in response. The light from both symbols merged, weaving together into a spiral that slowly rotated, dragging the fissure wider.
The ground rumbled. Wind rushed upward from the depths, carrying the scent of iron and something ancient — something that remembered being alive.
"After you," Gail said, voice steady but eyes sharp.
Miles gave a half-smile. "Bravery or recklessness?"
"Both. You first."
He chuckled weakly and dropped into the darkness.
The descent was long. Too long.
They followed a winding stairway carved into the stone, illuminated by faint lines of glowing script along the walls. The deeper they went, the more the air changed — thicker, heavier, laced with energy that thrummed like blood through a vein.
At last, they stepped into a vast chamber.
It wasn't a vault. It was a tomb.
Dozens of colossal sarcophagi lined the walls, each shaped like a dragon coiled in slumber. Runes glimmered faintly on their surfaces — not words, but seals. In the center of the chamber floated a massive sphere of light, pulsing like a heartbeat suspended in air.
Gail let out a low whistle. "That doesn't look like treasure."
"It's not." Miles's voice was reverent, almost trembling. "It's the Empire's sin."
He walked toward the sphere. As he neared, the mark on his arm pulsed brighter, resonating in harmony.
"These aren't coffins," he said softly. "They're batteries. The Empire sealed dragon souls inside to power their miracles."
Gail's face hardened. "And you want to open one?"
"I don't have a choice."
He pressed his palm against the glowing sphere.
The reaction was instant.
Light exploded outward, and the world dissolved into sound and motion. A thousand voices roared in unison — pain, rage, memory — flooding his mind like a tidal wave. He saw flashes of another age: dragons soaring over continents of gold, the rise of the first scholars, the betrayal that forged the Empire's foundation.
> They took our hearts and called it progress.
They took our voices and called it silence.
Now you bear what they stole.
Miles fell to his knees, gasping. The mark on his arm flared into draconic patterns across his chest and neck. Gail shouted his name, but her voice was distant, muffled beneath the roar.
Then, from within the sphere, something stirred.
A shadow — vast and serpentine — coiled through the light, its eyes burning like twin suns.
> Vessel.
The word echoed through the chamber, vibrating in his bones.
> You carry the Breath. Then you carry us.
Miles forced out a whisper. "Who are you?"
> The one who remembers.
The shadow's shape shifted — wings unfurling, claws scraping the air.
> For centuries we slept beneath their chains. You broke the first. Now break the rest.
The light intensified. The chamber walls cracked, runes flaring, seals fracturing one by one.
Gail grabbed Miles, pulling him back. "You're going to bring the whole place down!"
"I can't stop it!"
The sphere shattered.
A beam of pure energy erupted upward, piercing the ceiling and tearing through layers of stone and steel. The roar that followed wasn't just sound — it was memory given form.
Dragons of light and shadow twisted in the storm above the city, their outlines flickering like ghosts reborn. The ground quaked, fissures spreading through every street.
Miles felt something enter him — not flesh, but essence. The Breath expanded, merging with the remnants of that dragon's will. His vision filled with scales of molten gold.
> Awaken, Draconic Scholar.
The words seared through his soul.
When the light faded, silence returned. The Vault was half-destroyed; the sarcophagi along the walls had cracked open, releasing faint trails of luminous mist that drifted upward like departing spirits.
Miles lay on the ground, trembling, smoke rising from his skin. His breathing was shallow, but his eyes — when they opened — burned with the color of living fire.
Gail knelt beside him, scanning for wounds. "Talk to me, Miles. Are you still you?"
He stared upward, dazed. "I… heard them. The dragons. All of them."
"What did they say?"
He turned to her, voice distant, almost hollow. "That knowledge isn't meant to be owned. It's meant to be remembered."
Gail frowned. "That's… comforting, I guess?"
He shook his head slowly. "No. It means the Empire's fall wasn't the end. It was the beginning of remembrance."
Above them, thunder rumbled — not from the Skyfire, but from within the city itself. The air shimmered as if the ruins were breathing again.
Gail rose, gripping her blade. "We need to move. Whatever you just woke up, it's not going to stay quiet."
Miles stood shakily, the mark on his arm still glowing faintly. He looked around the ruined Vault one last time, eyes filled with something between awe and regret.
"This place was once the brain of an empire," he said softly. "Now it's a tomb for its arrogance."
Gail snorted. "Let's make sure we don't join them in it."
He nodded. Together, they climbed out of the Vault as the city trembled beneath their feet.
When they emerged, dawn had broken. The first light of morning spilled across the ruins, illuminating the ashes in hues of gold. The storm had retreated toward the horizon, its glow dimming — but in its place, the air shimmered faintly with residual energy.
Miles paused, looking back. From the center of the city, the beam of light they'd unleashed still hung in the air like a spear of crystal, marking the spot where the seal had broken.
"Word will spread," Gail said quietly. "The Purifiers, the Magisters — everyone will know something woke up here."
"Let them come," Miles said, his voice low, steady. "The empire's ashes will teach them what fire really means."
He turned away, the mark beneath his sleeve pulsing once — a silent heartbeat, echoing with draconic will.
The scholar walked on, burdened with memory, chased by gods, and carrying the first spark of a forgotten age.