Episode 15: “The First Time We Choose”
682 Words
The Wardens had the square surrounded.
Ten of them, blades raised, sigils glowing on their chests. Behind them, Brindlemark’s people—hidden in doorways, watching from windows, too scared to breathe.
I stepped out with Vaelric on my right and Nyxar on my left. The cuff burned. The bond thrummed. My legs shook, but my hands were steady.
“Stand down, abomination,” the lead Warden called. His mask hid his face, but his voice was cold. “Release the dragons and we’ll let you live.”
Vaelric growled low in his throat. “She’s not yours to command.”
“She’s not yours either,” Nyxar said quietly. “She’s her own.”
The Warden raised his blade. “Then she dies with you.”
Light exploded from the Wardens’ weapons.
And we moved.
Vaelric went up, shifting mid-leap, fire pouring from his mouth. He took three Wardens with one pass, wings beating back the rest.
Nyxar went through them. Not over, not around—through. Frost cracked the stones under his feet. Where he touched, Wardens froze solid and shattered.
And me—I ran straight for the lead Warden.
“Lyra, no!” Mara shouted from the doorway.
Too late.
The Warden swung. I didn’t dodge. I grabbed his blade with both hands.
The metal seared my palms. But the cuff took it. Red-gold drank the fire. Ash-black swallowed the light. And the copper vein between pulsed.
I pulled.
The Warden’s mask cracked. Behind it, an old man’s face, eyes wide with fear.
“You don’t know what she is,” he whispered.
“Then tell me,” I said.
“She’s the key,” he said. “The First Fire—”
Vaelric’s tail knocked him aside before he could finish. The Warden hit the ground hard and didn’t get up.
Silence fell. The other Wardens were down. Some dead. Some running. Some frozen solid.
Brindlemark was quiet.
Vaelric landed in front of me, shifting back. Blood on his jaw, scales still fading from his arms. He looked at me, then at Nyxar, then at the broken Warden on the ground.
“Did you hear that?” he asked. “The First Fire.”
“I heard,” Nyxar said. His voice was tight.
I looked down at my hands. The burns were already healing. The cuff glowed steady now—three colors, braided.
The lead Warden coughed. “Kill her,” he rasped. “Before she burns the world.”
Vaelric knelt beside him. “No,” he said. “She’s going to save it.”
He stood and came to me. Took my face in his hands. Fire-hot, careful.
“I choose you,” he said. Not a claim. A choice. “Not the bond. Not the fire. You.”
Nyxar stepped in on my other side. His hands covered mine where they still held the Warden’s broken blade. Cold, solid.
“I choose you too,” he said. “Not because I’m fading. Because I’m not.”
The bond surged. Not pain. Not war. Just… right.
I looked at both of them—dragon and ash, fire and frost, rage and control.
“I choose you both,” I said.
The cuff flared one last time, bright enough to hurt. Red-gold, ash-black, and copper, spinning together until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
When the light faded, the Wardens were gone. Brindlemark was still standing. And I was standing between two dragons who’d just chosen me out loud.
Mara came out then, knife still in hand. She looked at the wreckage, at us, at the cuff.
“Well,” she said. “Guess we’re not hiding anymore.”
Vaelric’s mouth curved. “No. We’re not.”
Nyxar nodded. “Let them come.”
I took both their hands. The bond settled, warm and cold and steady.
Book 1 wasn’t over yet. We had 45 episodes to go.
But this—that moment in the square, with fire and ash and me in the middle—that was where we stopped running.
- Writer
