Page 2 of Echoes of Fire

I looked out over the horizon, at the lights of the suns that shone like two burning eyes, watching me. She would be mine.

I pushed past the fear, the self-doubt, the uncertainty. My wings snapped open, and I took to the sky, ready and determined. The ground rushed away under me as my muscles worked, propelling me upward. A plan was forming.

I needed to see her, to touch her, to mark her as mine. And nothing—especially not a stubborn old healer—would stop me. My roar echoed through the air; a promise written in flames.

ONE

ORLA

The walls breathed.

I pressed my palm flat against the warm stone of one of Scalvaris’s cavernous corridors, feeling the faint vibration beneath my fingertips—a rhythmic hum, like the planet itself was pulsing. The rock walls arched above me, their surfaces etched with glowing crystal inlays that spiraled in fractal patterns. My eyes traced the designs, recognizing the deliberate engineering: the veins of heat-resistant mineral branching like capillaries, channeling thermal energy away from inhabited spaces.

Brilliant. A passive cooling system.

“You’re doing that thing again,” Selene’s voice echoed slightly in the vastness around us.

I blinked, lowering my hand. “What thing?”

“TheI’m-about-to-dissect-a-moonrockstare.” She adjusted the strap of the medical kit she had slung over one shoulder, her dark eyes sharp. “You forget to breathe when you’re geeking out.”

“I’m breathing.” I tapped the journal tucked under my arm, its pages already crammed with sketches of the Drakarn’smetallic-bark trees—their root systems siphoning groundwater from aquifers even deeper than this underground city. “This isn’t just architecture, Selene. It’s abiome.They’ve integrated their ecosystem into every structural choice. The heat redistribution alone?—”

“Isn’t going to matter if you collapse from dehydration.” She thrust a canteen into my hands. “Drink. I don’t want you falling to heat sickness again.”

I grimaced but obeyed, the lukewarm water bitter with electrolyte tablets. Two weeks in that cave after the crash had left all of us humans frayed, but my body still hadn’t forgiven me for sprinting through 120-degree winds during our subsequent capture.

The scar along my ribs throbbed faintly as I moved, a reminder of giant claws. It had been nearly a month since I was released from the medical caverns, but my body was still recovering.

Selene watched me swallow, her medic’s gaze dissecting every micro-expression. “You’re favoring your left side.”

“It’s ahabit,not a limp. The muscle’s healed.” Mostly. I pivoted to distract her, gesturing toward a nearby archway where Drakarn artisans welded alloy into the stone. “Look at those joints—we don’t have anything like that back home. The thermal expansion coefficient must beexactlymatched to the surrounding rock.” My fingers itched to take a sample.

She sighed, knowing she couldn’t win this. “Just … don’t vanish into another magma vent. Terra’ll skin me if I lose you.”

“Noted.” I smirked, scribbling a hypothesis about the crystal inlays’ refractive index. “But if Idofall into a lava tube, prioritize saving the journal. It’s got a month of soil pH readings.”

Selene rolled her eyes but lingered as I crouched to examine a fissure in the floor. Thin tendrils of steam curled upward, carrying a mineral tang that made my sinuses burn. My thumbbrushed the tattoo on my wrist—a DNA helix entwined with oak leaves, inked the day I’d defended my thesis.

Adapt or die,my mother’s voice whispered in memory.Life persists where logic says it shouldn’t.

The Drakarn had taken that mantra to staggering heights. Above us, massive roots from the surface trees plunged through the cavern ceiling, their metallic sheen shimmering under bioluminescent fungi. I sketched frantically, labeling the symbiotic relationship:Fungal networks neutralize soil toxins; roots stabilize subterranean chambers. Mutualism evolved under extreme pressure.

“Orla.” Selene’s tone shifted, the playful edge replaced by steel. “You’re swaying.”

“I’mbalancing.” The lie tasted stale. My vision blurred at the edges as I straightened, the cavern tilting like a ship in a storm.

Her palm gripped my elbow to steady me. “You need rest. Actual rest, not … whatever this is.”

I pulled away gently, nodding toward a distant bridge fortress. Its obsidian spans glittered with embedded heat crystals, their prismatic light fracturing into rainbows across the river below. “I need tounderstand.How they’ve sustained a civilization here—it’s everything I’ve studied. Everything I …”Wanted to prove I could achieve.

Her gaze softened. “You can’t unlock the secrets to the planet in a single day. Maybe one of us could help?”

The words prickled. I adjusted my grip on the journal, its leather cover worn smooth from years of use. “I work better alone. You know that.”

A beat passed. Selene’s jaw tightened, but she nodded. “Fine. But if you’re not back by nightfall, I’m sending Kira with a tracking beacon. And she’ll bring the handcuffs.”

I saluted half-heartedly, already turning toward a shadowed tunnel where the walls pulsed with unfamiliar glyphs. “Tellher to bring the scanner on my table. I’ll want spectrographic readings.”

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