When Dragons Burn

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Rayna



The radio went quiet again. I set it down and checked his pulse like I’d done a dozen times already. Fast, steady, a touch too strong for a man who’d lost as much blood as he had. My fingers rested against the inside of his wrist, and that’s when I saw it.

At first I thought it was a trick from the lamp. The shade was yellowed and threw off a weird tone. But when I moved my hand a little, it didn’t change. Faint lines under his skin—like capillaries lit from the inside—pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Not bright. Not anything you’d see from across a room. Up close, though, a soft gold came and went under the surface, traveling from his wrist toward his forearm in waves.

I blinked and made myself count. One pulse. Two. Three. The glow kept perfect pace with the rhythm under my fingertips. I rubbed my eyes with my shoulder and looked again. Still there. I told myself to stop trying to explain it and do my job.

I slid two fingers to the other wrist to compare. Same thing. The lines were faint, like threads under wax paper. They brightened on each beat, dimmed, then brightened again. I held my breath and felt dumb for doing it.

“Miron?” I said, keeping my voice even. “Can you hear me?”

He didn’t answer. His eyelids twitched the way they do when people are deep but not comfortable. The heat coming off his skin stayed high. I pulled the foil blanket down a little more to vent it and watched the gold fade back to normal skin tone. The glow never fully went away; it just settled.

The bandage across his ribs bled through in two spots I’d been watching. Not a gush. More than a seep. I needed to change it again and didn’t like how often I was saying that.

I stood to stretch and my knee popped. The storm hit the cabin at a different angle, a hard gust that rattled the thin window. I crossed to check the latch out of habit. The glass shook in its frame. For a second the rain eased, a gap between bands. Through that gap, the tree line was a dark wall. Beyond it, something moved—too big to be a bird or a branch.

I leaned closer to the glass, careful not to fog it with my breath. The shape crossed a slice of sky and was gone, but I saw enough: a wide span that caught the lightning for a blink, the suggestion of wings, a body that wasn’t built like anything I’d seen fly this close to the ground. The angle made no sense. It had to be low, in the weather. My throat did that automatic dry swallow it does at crash scenes.

“Okay,” I said to nothing, because hearing a voice in the room made me feel less like I’d slipped. “Okay.”

The next gust slammed water against the window and turned the outside back into a gray sheet. I stood there too long waiting for another break. Nothing but rain.

I went back to the cot and set my palm on Miron’s shoulder. Hot, even through the damp skin. “I’m changing this,” I told him, because I always tell people what I’m about to do even if they’re barely conscious. “Try not to move.”

I peeled the tape and lifted the top layer of gauze. It stuck and then let go with a wet sound I could feel in my teeth. The cloth underneath was dark, but when I pulled that too, I saw less rawness than I expected. Earlier, the edges of the deepest gash had looked a little sealed, like heat had run along them. Now, the difference was obvious. The line was thinner and darker at the margins, like someone had traced it with a hot needle. The oozing I’d been fighting had slowed to a shine. As I watched, the narrowest part of the split knit another millimeter and left behind an edge that looked… scorched. Not black like char. Browned, like the crust of something left too close to a burner.

“That’s not possible,” I said out loud. Saying it didn’t change the fact I was staring at it.

A clean dressing went on. New wrap. Tight, but not so tight I cut off anything I wanted to keep. His breath hitched and steadied. The gold under his skin brightened a hair during the worst of the pain and then dimmed again. I didn’t know what that meant. I kept working.

The cabin smelled like wet wool, stove smoke, and something sharper now. Not ozone. Not antiseptic. Something like a coin heated and put down on a damp cloth. I tried to place it and came up empty.

I pulled the chair close and sat with my hand back at his wrist. The pulse ran strong under my fingers. The gold kept time. I could pretend I wasn’t seeing it if I stared at a point on the wall and just felt for the beats, but the minute I looked down, there it was. Up, down. Glow, fade.

The radio crackled and gave me a few words—“slide,” “detour,” “fifteen”—and then went to static again. I thumbed the transmit and said we were stable. If I was lying, it was only by a notch. Stable enough.

Another gust hit the cabin. The window set rattled once, hard. I stood on instinct and went to it. The wind dropped for a breath like before. The trees beyond the clearing moved in that way trees move when something bigger than wind goes through them—first one, then another, a wave from left to right. The shape crossed lower this time, a sweep that could have been a pair of wings or a trick of the branches. Lightning cracked behind it and sketched a dark outline for less than a second. Whatever it was, it was not small. It was not close to the ground. And it was not anything I wanted near an injured man and a woman who is five feet tall on a good day.

I let the curtain fall and took two steps back. My heart felt too high in my chest. The part of me that lives in the rational world lined up a list—large bird, kite, drone, mental fatigue, pattern-seeking—but none of those had the correct weight. Drones don’t move trees like that. Kites don’t fly in hail. Big birds don’t look like that.

“Miron,” I said, quietly. “You said not safe for anyone. Is someone out there?”

His eyelids fluttered. His mouth twitched, the start of a word that could have been yes or no. Then he said, barely above a whisper, “Circling.” He swallowed like the word hurt. “Not ours.”

Not ours. Like there were sides. I pressed my palm to his sternum to remind his chest to rise and fall in a reasonable way. “You’re safe here,” I said. It wasn’t a promise I could keep in every universe. It was what I had right now.

I changed the topic my brain wanted to chase because I couldn’t do anything with what was outside. “Your wound is changing,” I said. “It’s sealing on its own.” I heard how flat I sounded and forced some tone back into it. “That’s good. Pain might spike as it does. Tell me if it does and I can help you ride it.”

His eyes cracked open for a second. “Sealing,” he repeated, like he was flipping the word over to see its edges. “Better than bleeding.”

“Yeah,” I said, and almost smiled. “I’ll take better than bleeding.”

I dampened a cloth again and dabbed his face and neck. Even with cool water, steam lifted where it touched him and then faded as if the air ate it. The first time it had scared me. Now I just accepted it. The skin at his throat showed the same faint gold lines pulsing, less obvious than at his wrist, but there.

I told myself to document because the part of me that goes to trial on protocols later is mean when I don’t. I pulled my phone out and took two photos of the bandage after I’d changed it, then one of his wrist with my fingers near it for scale. The images looked strange on the screen—gold didn’t show as gold, more like a warmer tone, but it was there if you knew what to look for. I set the phone face down after and felt a flash of guilt. I wasn’t going to show anyone without a reason. I also needed a record for the inevitable moment someone accused me of seeing things.

Miron

Heat wanted to run my veins like rivers. I held it where I could. The human—Rayna—pressed her fingers to the inside of my wrist and spoke. The words landed as points of light through fog. I followed the sound. Breathing took effort, not for lack of air, but because I was keeping too many doors shut at once.

The wound along my ribs tried to close in the old way—draw the edges, burn the seam, let the outer scale follow later. It’s easier in our true form. In this one, it feels like knitting a fabric with fingers that don’t belong to you. Pain comes in clean lines when I do it right. Messy when I don’t.

Outside, wings beat once against the downdraft. Not Emberflame. Not Stormfire. Shadowflame patrols fly with a slant, like they’re already falling. I tasted their ash in the rain. I kept my heat down because the Shroud picked up flares like a silver net. If they sensed me, they’d come. If the Council sensed me, they’d come too. I lay still and let the human’s cool cloth press my forehead. Steam rose and I wanted to laugh, but that would have hurt.

She said the wound was changing. I knew. The edges had that scorched edge I could smell even over my own blood. I said “better than bleeding” because humor buys seconds. She took it.

I felt her hand when she rested it on my chest. The heat warred with a calmer thing I didn’t recognize. The calm won for a breath. Then the pain dragged me back under.

Rayna

I’ve never watched a wound close itself. Not like that. Small cuts draw together. Deep ones don’t, not without help. This one did. Slow, then quicker, then slow again, like a muscle got tired and took a breath before starting up. The edges browned more at the margins. The center line that had been open narrowed to the width of a thread and then a hair. It didn’t vanish. It just became a mark instead of a hole.

I kept pressure gentle with my palm. I didn’t know if touching helped or just made me feel like I was doing something. When the worst of the tightness pulled under my hand, Miron hissed through his teeth. His fingers clenched the blanket. I counted his breaths and mine until the line softened.

The smell of hot metal got stronger for a minute, then thinned. I cracked the window an inch to let out some heat. The wind forced rain in and I shut it again before the sill puddled.

Outside, the storm moved east. The lightning took longer between flash and sound. The winged shape didn’t come back across the clearing. Maybe it was never there. Maybe it found what it was looking for and left. I didn’t believe that either, but I let the thought sit without poking it.

The radio came alive with a short burst I couldn’t catch, then: “North Ridge cabin, Ranger Two. We’ve got visual on the turnoff. Lights in two minutes. Do not open the door unless we call your name.”

“Copy,” I said. My voice sounded normal. I liked that.

I tucked the blanket back up to Miron’s shoulders. The gold at his wrists had faded to something I could pretend was a trick of the lamp if I wanted to lie to myself. The bandage stayed dry. The line under it felt firmer than an hour ago. He looked less raw around the mouth.

“Hey,” I said. “We’re almost there.”

His eyes opened a sliver. “I owe you,” he said, and shut them again.

“Add it to your tab,” I said, because banter is easier than anything that might make me cry. I wiped his face one more time, took his pulse one more time, looked at the window one more time, and made myself breathe like a person who trusts the next five minutes.

Headlights cut through the trees, bouncing with the ruts. A horn gave two short blasts. The radio crackled: “Rayna? This is Ranger Two. Coming up on the porch.”

“I’m here,” I said back. I set my hand on Miron’s wrist again, counted one more glowing beat, and let go. Then I moved to the door.