Empire of Cinders and Fury: Dragonfire (Book 3)

ISOLDE

I climbed onto one of the chairs and quickly leaned toward the window, careful not to make too much noise as I peered outside. From there, I could see the couple standing in the courtyard, their faces bright with happiness as they spoke to Ryna. The little girl seemed equally delighted, her laughter carrying faintly through the glass despite the distance between us. I couldn’t help but grimace as I watched them. There was something almost painful about seeing how naturally the three of them seemed to fit together, as though they had already become a family before they had even left the orphanage. I knew I shouldn’t feel jealous. I knew Ryna deserved to be happy. Still, there was a strange ache in my chest as I watched the couple fuss over her, wondering what it would feel like if someone looked at me that way-if someone chose me and promised that I had a place somewhere beyond these walls.

“I’m jealous,” my companion suddenly said.

I hadn’t even noticed him standing beside me. Norman had climbed up beside the window as well, resting his arms against the frame while he watched the family outside. His voice was quiet, almost playful, but I could hear the longing underneath it. I quickly turned away from the window and looked at him instead.

“Don’t worry,” I said, giving his shoulder a gentle tap. “Someday, someone will adopt us too.”

I climbed down from the chair and straightened my clothes, pretending that I believed my own words without question. Norman followed me down, but his expression remained thoughtful.

“When do you think that will happen, Sol?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I paused for a moment, then smiled at him. “But I know it has to be soon. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe we’ll be the ones someone comes for next.”

Norman looked at me with tears gathering in his eyes. He tried to hide them behind a bitter little smile, but I could see right through it. I smiled back anyway. Sometimes, I thought, that was all we could do for each other-pretend that tomorrow would be better until we eventually began to believe it ourselves. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close for a few seconds, and for that brief moment, the orphanage seemed quieter than usual. Then hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor.

We both turned.

One of the women who cared for us was rushing through the hallway, her expression tense and hurried. She barely seemed to notice us as she passed.

“What happened?” Norman asked.

I pulled away from him and watched the woman disappear toward the hall. “I don’t know.”

We ran after her.

Our footsteps echoed against the old wooden floor as we followed her toward the staircase. The woman descended quickly, gripping the railing as though she was afraid of losing time. Norman and I stopped near the top of the stairs, leaning over just enough to see where she was going. She crossed the lower hall and stopped before one of the doors. Without hesitation, she opened it.

What I saw on the other side made me freeze.

Two men were standing inside, carrying a young boy between them.

He looked as though he had been dragged through half the countryside before arriving here. His clothes were filthy and covered in mud, his hair was tangled, and his shoes were barely recognizable beneath the dirt. He looked small between the two men, but there was something in the way he held himself that made him seem less frightened than confused-as though he had no idea where he was or why he had been brought there.

One of the men began speaking rapidly to the woman.

I couldn’t hear every word from where I stood, but I didn’t need to. The woman’s expression told me enough. Her face hardened with anger as she grabbed the boy by the arm and pulled him closer. Whatever the men were telling her, she clearly didn’t like it.

After a few moments, the two men left.

The door closed behind them, and the woman crouched beside the boy, speaking to him in a softer voice. I watched silently from the staircase. The boy barely responded. His eyes moved around the room, taking in the unfamiliar walls, the old furniture, the other children who had begun peeking into the hallway.

Norman leaned closer to me.

“Looks like we have a new kid joining us.”

I looked at him, then back at the boy.

Something about him caught my attention.

Maybe it was the way he stood there, alone in a place he had never seen before. Maybe it was the expression on his face, the uncertainty he was trying so hard to hide. Everyone who came through those doors carried a different story, but somehow I felt that his story had only just begun.

The woman eventually led him toward a chair and left him there for a moment. He sat stiffly, his hands resting on his knees as he stared at the unfamiliar room. He looked lost.

Before I could think about it, I was already moving.

“Sol!” Norman called after me.

I ignored him.

I hurried down the stairs and crossed the hall toward the boy. As I approached, he immediately looked up. His eyes met mine, cautious and uncertain, and for a second neither of us said anything.

I stopped in front of him and gave him what I hoped was a friendly smile.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Sol. What’s your name?”

The boy hesitated.

His lips parted, but no sound came out at first. He looked down at his hands, then back at me, as though he was trying to remember whether he was allowed to trust anyone in this strange place.

Finally, he spoke.

“Ro-Rowan.” His voice was quiet and uncertain. “My name is Rowan.”

- • -

I woke slowly.

For several moments, I didn’t move. I simply lay there with my eyes closed, listening to the quiet world around me. There was no shouting. No footsteps. No clashing of swords. No voices calling my name from somewhere in the darkness. There was only the faint rustling of leaves and grass, accompanied by a distant sound that I couldn’t quite recognize.

I took a slow breath.

For the first time in what felt like forever, my body didn’t feel like it was waiting for something terrible to happen.

It was strange.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept like this.

Not the kind of sleep where I collapsed from exhaustion because I had spent the entire day running, fighting, hiding, or worrying about what would happen the next morning. This felt different. Deeper. Almost...peaceful.

It felt like I had finally fallen asleep somewhere I knew I was safe. And somehow, that thought frightened me more than it comforted me.

My hand slowly moved toward my face, and that was when I felt the wetness beneath my eyes.

I froze.

I brushed my fingers across my cheek and stared at the moisture left behind on my fingertips.

Tears.

I was crying.

But why?

I couldn’t remember being sad. I couldn’t remember dreaming about anything. I couldn’t even remember the last thing that had made me cry.

I swallowed hard. “Why am I crying?”

My voice came out hoarse, barely more than a whisper. I wiped my face with the back of my hand and slowly opened my eyes.

Green.

That was the first thing I saw. Not the walls of a room. Not the wooden ceiling of a cabin. Not the stone floor of a dungeon, but grass. Soft green grass stretched beneath me, its blades bending gently beneath my body. Tiny droplets of moisture clung to the tips of some of them, catching the pale light above me like scattered pieces of glass.

I blinked several times.

For a moment, I simply stared.

I slowly pushed myself up onto my elbows, then sat upright. My body immediately protested. Every muscle felt heavy, as though I had been asleep for days.

Maybe...I had.

I looked down at myself.

My clothes were still the same ones I had been wearing before everything happened. They were dirty, torn in places, and stained from everything I had been through. My wrists still carried faint marks from the ropes that had bound me.

The memories began returning in fragments.

Not all at once.

They came like flashes of lightning-bright, sudden, and gone before I could fully understand what I had seen.

First came the island.

I remembered the sand beneath my feet and the unfamiliar trees stretching toward the sky. I remembered being dragged across the shore, my wrists bound tightly enough that the rope had left angry marks against my skin. I remembered the men surrounding me, their faces unfamiliar, their weapons drawn as they searched the island for something.

For someone, Me.

Then came Carla.

Her voice, her hands gripping my arm. The coldness in her eyes when she ordered the others to search for the dragons.

For so long, I had thought of her as the old woman who had once given Rowan and me shelter. Someone who had fed us when we had nowhere to go, someone who had treated Rowan’s wounds when he could barely stand.

Now, that memory felt like a lie.

Then Lovemir.

I remembered him standing between me and the soldiers. I remembered the confusion in my chest when he told me that he wanted to repay Rowan’s kindness by keeping me from being taken away. I remembered wondering why someone who had been part of the reason I was in danger was suddenly willing to protect me.

And then-the arrow.

I remembered the sound before I remembered the pain. A sharp whistle cutting through the air.

The sudden impact.

Lovemir dropping to his knees in the sand. My own voice screaming his name. Then, the soldiers came running.

I had to get away, and then the sky went dark.

I stopped.

I remembered looking up.

Nyra.

Her enormous sapphire-blue wings stretched across the sky, blotting out the sunlight as she descended toward the island. Her scales shimmered beneath the light, blue as the deepest part of the sea, and her eyes found me almost instantly.

I remembered the heat.

The roar.

The sudden burst of blue fire that erupted behind me.

I remembered the soldiers scattering.

I remembered the wind created by her wings forcing me to shield my face. And then her claws-careful despite their size-closing around me. I remembered being lifted from the ground. I remembered the island growing smaller beneath us.

The sea stretching endlessly below.

The clouds drawing closer.

And then...nothing. The memory disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

I opened my eyes fully and drew in a shaky breath.

I pressed a hand against my forehead.

“Nyra...” The name escaped my lips.

I looked around instinctively, expecting to see her somewhere nearby.

Nothing.

Only grass.

Trees.

And a silence so vast that it seemed to stretch beyond the horizon.

I slowly got to my feet. “Where am I?” The question disappeared into the open air without an answer.

I turned around.

The landscape was unlike anything I had ever seen.

Tall trees surrounded the area, their trunks enormous and their branches spreading so high above me that they seemed to form a natural roof over parts of the forest. Strange plants grew between the roots, some bearing flowers I had never seen before.

But it was what lay beyond the trees that made me stop breathing.

A mountain.

No.

A volcano.

A massive volcano rose in the distance, its dark slopes disappearing into the clouds above. A faint column of smoke drifted from its peak, slowly twisting into the sky. The sight alone would have been enough to leave me speechless.

But the volcano wasn’t what frightened me.

It was what filled the sky around it.

Dragons.

Dozens of them, maybe more.

Some flew high above the mountain, their enormous wings cutting through the clouds. Others circled lower, gliding effortlessly over the forest. A few disappeared between the trees, their bodies so large that I could still see their wings rising above the canopy.

And they weren’t hiding, they weren’t fleeing, they weren’t being hunted-they simply existed.

As though this were their home. As though seeing dragons in the sky was the most ordinary thing in the world.

I stood completely still.

My heart began pounding.

“No...”

I took an uncertain step backward.

Another dragon flew overhead.

Its shadow passed across the ground, briefly covering me in darkness before disappearing as quickly as it had come.

I looked up.

The creature was enormous. I had seen dragons before. I had heard stories about them. I had watched Nyra fly.

But this was different. There were so many of them. Different shapes, different sizes, different colors and...they filled the sky.

My mouth slowly fell open. I turned in a slow circle, trying to take everything in.

The trees, the mountain, the dragons, the strange, untouched wilderness surrounding me. Nothing about this place felt like Norvain. Nothing about it felt like any place I had ever known.

A terrible thought slowly formed in my mind.

I looked toward the sky again. “Where am I?”

My eyes followed one of the dragons as it disappeared behind the distant mountain. Then another flew overhead, its roar echoing across the valley. The sound sent a shiver through my entire body.

I wrapped my arms around myself.

I looked around me again, and suddenly the tears that I had felt earlier made a little more sense.

Perhaps some part of me had already known.

Perhaps even while I slept, some part of me understood that I had finally arrived somewhere I had been searching for without knowing it.

Somewhere beyond the kingdoms, beyond the wars, beyond everything I thought I knew. I stared at the dragons flying freely across the sky. My heart began to beat faster. “Am I...”

I hesitated.

The words felt almost impossible to say. “Am I in the land of dragons?”

“Sol.”

My entire body went still.

The hairs along my arms rose as a familiar voice reached me from somewhere behind. For a moment, I was afraid to turn around. I knew that voice. I had heard it in dreams, in whispers, in the quiet moments when the bond between us was the only thing keeping me from feeling completely alone.

Slowly, I turned.

And there she was.

Nyra stood several paces behind me, her enormous body framed by the towering trees. Sunlight slipped through the branches above and scattered across her sapphire-blue scales, making them shimmer like pieces of the sky had been carved into her hide. Her wings were folded against her sides, though even at rest they were enormous compared to the Nyra I remembered. Her head was lowered slightly, her eyes fixed directly on me.

“Nyra.” The name escaped me like a breath I had been holding for days.

I didn’t think.

I ran toward her.

Nyra barely had time to lower herself before I threw my arms around the front of her neck. My face pressed against her warm scales, and the familiar heat of her body immediately washed over me. I closed my eyes, holding her as tightly as I could despite the impossible difference in our size.

“I missed you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I thought I wasn’t going to see you again.”

For a moment, she remained still.

Then I felt her move.

One of her enormous wings shifted around me, not quite wrapping me in it, but close enough to make me feel sheltered beneath its shadow. “I missed you too, Sol.”

I froze.

Slowly, I pulled away. My hands remained against her warm scales as I stared up at her. “Wait.” My brow furrowed. “You spoke.”

Nyra’s eyes narrowed slightly, almost as if she found my reaction amusing.

“I can her you.” I stared at her. “Am I dreaming?”

A soft sound escaped her-almost like a quiet laugh. “You’re awake, Sol.”

I swallowed.

“Then why can I hear you?” I asked. “I thought the only time I could actually speak with you was through dreams.”

The question had been haunting me ever since I first heard her voice inside my head. Our bond had always been strange, but there had been limits to it. When I was awake, I could feel her presence, sense her emotions, sometimes catch fragments of what she was feeling. But hearing her like this-clearly, naturally, as though she were standing beside me and speaking with her own voice-was something entirely different.

Nyra lowered her enormous head until her eyes were closer to mine. “This place is different.” Her voice was deeper than I remembered, carrying a strange resonance that seemed to vibrate through the air itself. “Power moves through this land in ways you have never felt before. The bond between rider and dragon becomes stronger here.”

I looked around.

The forest suddenly seemed different. The air felt heavier, almost alive. Even the earth beneath my feet seemed to carry a faint warmth.

“And because of that,” Nyra continued, “our bond has grown stronger as well.”

I stared at her for a moment before glancing toward the sky. “So this really is where you came from.”

Nyra didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked toward the enormous volcano rising beyond the forest. “Yes.”

I followed her gaze.

The sight of it still felt unreal. Then another thought came to me. “Are Xylar and Vaerik here?” I looked around excitedly. “And the others? The dragons who left Norvain with you? Are they here too?”

Nyra’s expression softened. “We’re all here.”

I let out a quiet breath.

Nyra began walking through the grass, her enormous feet pressing into the earth with each deliberate step. I quickly followed beside her, though I had to walk several steps for every one of hers.

“Why did you leave?” I asked.

Nyra remained silent for a moment.

Then she answered. “We left because we could no longer bear to watch humans destroy one another simply because they wanted to control all of Norvain.”

Her words were calm, but there was something heavy beneath them.

“We watched kingdoms turn against kingdoms. Houses turn against houses. Riders fight riders. Dragons were treated as weapons, their bonds reduced to symbols of power and blood.”

I lowered my eyes. I thought about Velmora.

About the five Houses. About everything I had learned since becoming a rider. “I understand why you left,” I said quietly.

I truly did.

But then I looked back toward Nyra. “Still... you need to come back.”

She stopped.

I nearly walked into her leg.

“You could help us,” I continued. “Velmora needs to be restored. People are suffering. If you and the others returned, maybe we could finally take the kingdom back and-”

The ground suddenly moved beneath my feet.

I stumbled.

“What-?”

A deep rumble rolled through the forest.

I looked toward the trees.

Something enormous was approaching.

The earth shook again.

Branches trembled overhead, and several birds burst from the canopy in a frantic cloud. I instinctively stepped closer to Nyra.

Then the trees parted.

A massive dragon emerged from the forest.

Vaerik.

His enormous body moved with a slow, deliberate grace, each step sending a faint vibration through the ground. His eyes settled on me, and there was something almost ancient in his expression.

“Restored?” he asked. His voice was deep enough to make the air around us seem heavier. “Is that what you call it?”

I swallowed. “Vaerik...”

He continued toward us. “There is no order to restore, Sol.” His gaze hardened. “There was never true order to begin with.”

I remained silent.

Vaerik’s wings shifted slightly behind him.

“And even if we returned,” he continued, “nothing would change.”

His eyes moved toward the distant volcano.

“War will continue as long as humans believe that only five Houses have the right to bond with dragons.”

The words struck harder than I expected.

I knew that belief.

I had heard it repeated throughout my entire days since I got in Norvain.

The five Houses.

The bloodlines.

The right to ride.

The idea that dragons belonged to certain families.

Vaerik’s voice grew colder. “You could give them every dragon in this land, and they would still find a reason to fight over who deserves to control them.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came.

Then a powerful gust swept through the clearing. I looked upward. Another dragon descended from the sky.

Xylar landed several yards away, his enormous green wings folding against his body. His scales shimmered beneath the sunlight, shifting between deep forest green and brighter shades whenever he moved.

He looked toward Vaerik.

Then toward me.

“Vaerik is right.” His voice was calmer, but no less certain. “We have no reason to return.”

Xylar lowered his head slightly.

“For centuries, humans treated dragons as possessions. They decided which bloodlines were worthy of us and which were not. They built kingdoms around our existence, fought wars over our eggs, and turned our bonds into proof of noble blood.”

His eyes narrowed. “And that belief became the reason fewer dragons were willing to hatch in that cursed land.”

I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

Xylar’s gaze shifted toward the distant horizon. “The dragons felt it.”

His voice became quieter.

“They felt what humans had done to our kind.”

I stood there, listening.

For the first time since waking in this strange land, I realized that the dragons hadn’t simply abandoned Norvain. They had fled from it. And perhaps there was a reason they had never wanted to return.

I understood the dragons’ grievances. They were the same truths Valerius Rander had discovered-the truths that ultimately led Lucerian Dravencrest to have him killed. Perhaps Lucerian had feared what would happen if Valerius revealed everything he had learned, especially if he shared the knowledge of dragons with people outside the five Houses.

The more I thought about it, the more I began to understand.

Lucerian hadn’t simply wanted to protect the tradition. He had wanted to protect the power that came with it.

If dragons could bond with anyone, then what would make the noble Houses different from the common folk? What would remain of the hierarchy they had built around dragon blood? Perhaps, to Lucerian, the dragons were more than creatures-they were the very reason he and the other Houses were considered superior. As long as the dragons remained within their control, people would continue to look up to them, respect them, and believe that their blood made them worthy of power.

I lowered my gaze.

“So all of this...” I murmured. “Everything that happened in Norvain... it started because of that.”

Nyra remained silent.

I looked at the dragons surrounding me before continuing.

“But what about the creature from that night?” I asked. “The one they called the False God?”

The moment I said those words, something changed.

The dragons became still.

Even the wind seemed to die between the trees.

My stomach tightened. “That creature was also the reason Velmora was destroyed,” I continued. “I saw what it did. I saw what happened to the kingdom.”

I looked at Nyra. “Do you know what it was?”

“We know,” Nyra replied, her gaze shifting toward the massive volcano looming ahead of us.

“The power of the creature you speak of is the same kind of power that gave life to us dragons,” she said. “And it came from there.”

Nyra’s words left me silent.

I followed her gaze toward the enormous volcano rising beyond the valley. Its peak disappeared into a veil of dark clouds, while faint streams of smoke curled from its crater and drifted slowly across the sky. Even from where I stood, I could feel a strange warmth coming from it-not the ordinary heat of fire, but something deeper, something that seemed to pulse beneath the earth itself.

“Do you mean...” I began, my voice quieter than before. “The False God came from there?”

Nyra did not answer immediately. Instead, she stared at the volcano as though she were looking at something far beyond its slopes and molten depths.

“Not exactly,” she finally said.

I frowned. “Then what do you mean?”

“The power came from there.”

A chill ran down my spine despite the warmth surrounding us. I looked back at the volcano. “What kind of power?”

Nyra’s wings shifted slightly behind her. “The kind that existed long before humans learned how to speak to dragons. Long before your kingdoms were given names. Long before the Houses claimed that dragons belonged to them.”

Her words settled heavily in my mind. “So the dragons...” I swallowed. “You were created by that power?”

“We were given life by it,” Nyra corrected. “There is a difference.”

I stared at her.

For the first time since waking in this strange land, the volcano no longer looked like a part of the landscape.

It looked like a warning. “What is inside it?” I asked.

Vaerik moved closer, his enormous body casting a shadow over the grass. His red eyes remained fixed on the volcano. “Something that should never have been awakened.”

My heart began to pound. “Then the False God-”

“May have awakened what was never meant to return,” Xylar finished.

Silence followed.

I thought of Velmora, of the destruction I had witnessed.

Of the creature that had appeared that night, something so powerful that even the people who had once believed themselves untouchable had been forced to flee. And suddenly, I understood why the dragons had been so afraid to return.

They hadn’t abandoned Norvain because they no longer cared about humans. They had left because they knew something about that world that humans had never understood.

Something that Valerius Rander had discovered.

Something Lucerian Dravencrest had tried to bury.

And perhaps something that was now beginning to wake again.