Page 4 of Echoes of Fire

The onyx-scaled male moved first. His wings snapped open with a crack like splitting stone, the gold filaments in hismembranes catching the monoliths’ hellish glow. Claws longer than hunting knives scored the rock as he ascended the terraces in liquid surges, each lunge closing twenty feet. The air around him shimmered like a living mirage.

“Wait—” My voice was strangled, drowned by the sudden dissonant hissing. A dozen warriors flanked him, tails lashing. Their collective heat hit me in a wave, parching my throat, searing my already sweat-slicked skin.

The female priestess barked a guttural command. My translator spat static, then a mangled phrase:“… profane … she defiles the sacrament …”

Think. Breathe.

My heel found empty air as I reeled back—the ledge of the wall behind me. Journal pages fluttered as I windmilled my arms, pain screaming through my ribs. The male’s talons missed my shoulder by millimeters, shredding my sleeve.

“Please!” I rasped, fingers scrabbling at a fissure in the rock. “I didn’t mean?—”

A chorus of shrieks answered. Warriors fanned out along the upper ledges, tails coiling to strike. The priestess mounted the dais, her claws raised high. In them glinted a curved blade forged from the same devilish light as the monoliths—a weapon that hurt to look at, its edge warping the air with the threat of pain.

Move. Now. Run.

I lunged for a narrow cleft in the cavern wall—too slow. A spiked tail wrapped my ankle, yanking me onto my back. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs, my vision blurring as scaled hands pinned my wrists. Hot drool splattered my cheek, the male’s sulfur-tinged breath scalding my face as he snarled words my translator finally deciphered:

“The defiler must die.”

Somewhere in the roaring dark, my mother’s voice whispered:Adapt.

I twisted my wrist, jabbing a rock sample pick hidden in my sleeve. The male howled as the tungsten spike found the soft junction between his thumb scales. His grip faltered—just enough to roll sideways as the priestess’s strike fell.

The sacred blade shattered the stone where my heart had been.

Warriors descended in a storm of claws and blades. I scrambled like a crab over the uneven stone, side screaming in agony, lungs burning with every gasp.

There.

A ventilation shaft—narrow, glowing faintly with the same cobalt fungi from the tunnels. I dove headfirst for the claustrophobic passage as another tail yanked at my heels.

“After the defiler!” The priestess’s cry chased me as I tried to scramble into darkness. “Let the magma cleanse her sacrilege!”

The shaft walls closed around me, sharp mineral edges tearing skin as I crawled toward faint distant light. Behind, the scrape of claws on stone multiplied.

They were faster.

They were everywhere.

They werehungry.

“Wait—I can explain—” My voice drowned in the ruckus.

A clawed hand locked around my bicep, talons piercing fabric and skin. I cried out, journal slipping from my grasp as the male yanked me forward. His breath seared my face, smelling of charred meat and bitter spice. The female stalked closer, her headdress clicking as she spat a word I didn’t need my translator to define.

“Execution.”

TWO

RATH

Thedranith’ssevered claw still smoked in my grip, its jagged edge glowing faintly with residual venom. Knees deep in the ash-choked moat of Scalvaris’s eastern gate, I sucked in air thick with the stench of scorched scales and sulfur.

Battle-lust burned through my veins like ore, my scales slick with blood that hissed where it dripped onto smoldering stone. My warriors-in-training panted behind me, their labored breaths echoing the distant wail of steam geysers. The raid had been messy, desperate—dranith weren’t usually this bold. It should’ve made me cautious.

It didn’t.

I crushed the claw to powder. “Double patrols on the lava trenches,” I growled at Voskath, my voice raw from inhaling cinders. The younger warrior’s green scales were dulled by soot, his blade notched from parrying serrated pincers. “The next swarm that tries crawling up our walls, burn their wings off before they?—”

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