Dragon Witch

The floorboards groaned under Jin’s weight, a splintering protest in the stifling attic heat. Dust motes danced in amber light through the cracked window, illuminating the graveyard of the Lee family’s past.

She wasn’t supposed to be up here. Keep the door shut, keep the memories contained, keep the secrets buried. But the photograph—the one of her and Mala at the pier, the only one where they both looked alive—had been missing for three days. Her mother swore it hadn’t moved, but Jin knew better. Mala had been prowling like a restless ghost.

She shoved aside water-damaged encyclopedias. The air tasted of cedar and decay. She shifted a heavy rug, expecting floor joists.

Instead, her sneaker caught on a brass ring set flush into the boards.

She crouched, brushing away grime. A hatch, small and square, anchored by a serpentine knot etched into the metal—something grown into the wood.

She pulled. The mechanism hummed, a vibration rattling her wrist. A soundless note.

The hatch popped open.

Inside, resting on rotted black velvet, sat a gemstone the size of a goose egg. It swallowed light, swirling with internal mists—violets, indigos, veins of molten gold pulsing with a slow rhythm.

Jin reached out. Not magnetic tug—an invitation. Recognition so profound her knees weakened.

She touched the surface. Scorching heat seared her fingers. She jerked back, but too late. The light shrieked. The gem dissolved into liquid fire that surged up her arm.

Jin cried out, stumbling backward. She hit a support beam. The light raced through her veins like molten quicksilver.

Her vision tilted. The attic walls stretched into a cathedral of starlight. A roar that wasn’t a roar—a name whispered in a language of tectonic shifts and dying stars.

The thought arrived, not her own:The cycle breathes again.

Jin scrambled toward the window, clutching her right arm. Her skin glowed, veins turning luminous gold. She tried to scream, but the air vanished, replaced by ozone-thick pressure.

She looked at her hand. The glow traced her bones. She wasn’t holding the light; she was becoming its conduit.

“Stop!” Her voice echoed as if spoken by two throats.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but the light was there too—skies filled with wings blocking out the sun. She wasn’t just Jin Lee anymore. Her identity frayed.

With a desperate heave, she collapsed. The light buried itself behind her ribs like a second heart.

The attic went still. Dust settled.

Jin lay gasping, forehead pressed to rough wood. Her hand showed only a faint shimmering brand on her inner wrist—the serpentine knot.

She pushed herself up, trembling, muscles coiled with new tension.

“Jin?” Mala’s voice drifted from the hallway. “I heard a crash. If you broke the floorboards—”

Jin froze. She tried to hide her wrist, but the power still hummed, making the light seem dim and artificial.

“I’m fine,” Jin called out, her voice steadier than it had any right to be—deeper, resonant.

She stood. The floorboard beneath her crumbled to fine ash.

She stared at the debris. She couldn’t go back to the girl she’d been five minutes ago.

The attic air ionized. Opalescent shards of the stone hovered, then lunged at her palm like liquid mercury.

“Child of the threshold,” a voice boomed in her mind—grinding tectonic plates.

Jin threw her head back, spine arching in agony. The walls expanded into cavernous shadows. She saw obsidian scales eclipsing the sky, felt crushing gravity.

“Jin? You’ve been quiet for ten minutes—”

Mala’s voice was distant, anchored to a shattered reality.

Jin slammed her hand against the floor. The wood disintegrated into calcified ash. The energy—Drakon’s legacy—was too much, a flood of instinct and primal authority.

“Control it, successor,” the voice resonated, quieter now. “Breathe. Bind the flame to the bone.”

Jin scrambled backward, jerky and uncoordinated. She felt leaden yet terrifyingly light. The mark on her wrist pulsed.

Mala’s boots hit the stairs. Thump-thump-thump. A countdown.

Jin grabbed a moth-eaten tapestry, tossing it over the hole. The fabric hissed and singed. She kicked crates over it.

“Jin, I’m coming in.”

“No!” Jin’s voice cracked. She forced brittle calm, hands in pockets, fingers trembling. “The floor’s unstable. I almost fell through.”

The door creaked. Mala’s face appeared, dark eyes sharp, scanning shadows with practiced suspicion. She stepped inside, gaze flicking to the crates and Jin’s frantic look.

“Rotten floor? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Just the dust. I shifted something heavy.”

Mala crossed her arms, eyeing the scorched tapestry. “You’re shaking. You haven’t touched that box since Mom passed. Why today?”

“I don’t know,” Jin whispered. She felt Drakon coiled in her perception.She is of the blood, but not the chosen. Guard the truth, or they will hunt you both.

Mala reached out, hand hovering near Jin’s arm.

Jin flinched. Static arced from her shoulder. The lightbulbs shattered in a shower of sparks.

Total darkness.

“What the hell was that?” Mala whispered, voice dropping to predatory register.

Jin could see perfectly—not with eyes, but heat signatures. She saw Mala, a silhouette of nervous heat. She wasn’t just Jin Lee anymore. She was a beacon.

“Jin? Why aren’t you moving?”

Jin closed her eyes, trying to force the vision away.Breathe. Bind the flame.

“I tripped,” Jin said, eerily steady. “I broke the light. I’m just scared.”

Mala didn’t move. She knew when Jin was lying.

“Stay there,” Mala commanded. “I’m getting a flashlight.”

As Mala retreated, Jin collapsed to her knees, pressing her burning wrist against cool wood. The wood absorbed the heat, just enough.

She looked into the rafters. The dragon still watched.

She was holding a secret that could burn the world down.

The silence pressurized with ozone and singed cedar. Jin’s veins glowed molten amber. Thin smoke curled from her lips.

Breathe, little spark,Drakon rumbled.The heat is a language. Learn it before you burn the house.

“I don’t know how.”

She tried to pull the tapestry over the hole, but her fingers blackened the fabric.

Panic is fuel. Draw it inward. You are the vessel, not the pyre.

Mala’s boots began the ascent. Jin felt panic clawing her throat. She tried to visualize a dam—like catching lightning.

“Mala, wait!” Her voice cracked, deeper now.

“I’m almost there.”

Jin grabbed an old woolen blanket, wrapping her hands. Burning wool filled the air.

Ingenious,Drakon noted.Suffocate the flame with the mundane.

“Shut up.”

The attic door groaned. A beam of LED light sliced through. Jin flinched—even artificial light felt acidic.

Mala stepped inside, scanning. Her eyes found the obliterated floor. “What did you do?”

“I touched something. The floor gave way.”

Mala knelt, scraping glassy wood with her knife. It sparked a blue flare. She pulled back, eyes widening.

“You’re vibrating,” Mala observed. “And your skin. Look at your neck.”

Jin clutched her collar, useless. The internal temperature was a fever dream.

She is perceptive,Drakon whispered.Be careful. She has teeth.

“I’m fine. Just get out.”

“You’re shaking the foundation,” Mala said. “If Thorne’s goons feel this—”

The name—Thorne—spiked Jin’s heat into protective rage.

“They won’t come near us.” Her voice dropped an octave, reverberating, dust swirling in a wind.

Mala stepped back, hand to her concealed holster. “What was that voice?”

Jin gasped, clutching her chest. “I didn’t—”

She is afraid. Let her be.

“Get out!” Jin shouted.

A wave of force erupted, blowing the door off its hinges, skittering trunks, knocking the flashlight from Mala’s hand.

Darkness, lit only by Jin’s molten glow.

Silence. Just settling dust and ragged breathing. Mala stood pinned against the frame, staring at her sister—not as a sibling, but something new.

“Jin,” Mala breathed, lacking bite. Something flickered—recognition.

Jin sank to the floor. “I can’t stop it,” she sobbed, tears evaporating to steam. “I don’t know how.”

Mala didn’t run. She stepped closer, reaching into her pocket, pulling out a heavy lead-lined pouch. She shook it—dry, metallic herbs rattled.

“I don’t know what you are,” Mala said, low and steady, “but I know people who do. If you don’t get a grip on that fire, the whole block will be ash by morning. You want to save this house? Then listen.”

Jin looked up, vision blurring with heat-haze. Through the shimmer, Mala was a jagged silhouette, a lifeline of steel and grit.

“I’m listening,” Jin whispered.

“Good,” Mala said, stepping within reach. “Because we just went from hiding secrets to surviving a war, and you’re the primary target.”