Aurelion didn't just go dark, it stuttered.
Streetlights guttered and failed in cascading waves, plunging districts into sudden night. Elevation lifts froze mid-air, passengers screaming behind glass cages suspended between towers. In the foundries, forge fires belched uncontrolled heat as containment glyphs collapsed. For three heartbeats, the empire held its breath.
And beneath the city, in the reactor chamber, Master Kelth fell to one knee.
Kael still clutching the ruined railing, ears ringing felt the surge pass through him like a tide reversing. It did not burn. It did not tear. It settled, heavy and vast, as though something ancient had leaned close and placed a hand at the center of his chest.
"Breathe," the presence repeated, gentler now.
He did.
The alarms cut off mid-wail.
Runes steadied, their frantic pulse slowing to a measured glow. The chains stopped screaming. The dragon's eye still half-open did not close, but it no longer strained against its bindings.
Kelth stared at the panels, disbelief breaking through his composure. "Impossible," he whispered. "The cascade should have....."
He looked up.
And saw Kael standing where no apprentice should be standing, bathed in a dim, ember-gold light that had nothing to do with the reactor's glow.
"What did you do?" Kelth demanded.
Kael opened his mouth to speak.
But before he could answer, the dragon spoke again this time not only to him.
The chamber filled with weight. Not sound. Not vibration. Meaning pressed itself into every surface, every rune, every living mind.
"Enough."
Kelth screamed.
He clutched his head, staff clattering across the gantry as he staggered backward. The word had struck him like a hammer too large, too old, too alive to fit inside a human skull.
Kael swayed but remained standing.
"He is not meant to hear you," the dragon said to him alone. "But the bindings are thinning. Pain loosens knots time cannot"
"Stop," Kael whispered. He didn't know who he was speaking to. "You're hurting him."
A pause.
Then, astonishment.
"You care."
The light around him dimmed further, settling into his skin like warmth after cold. The pressure eased. Kelth collapsed fully now, gasping, alive but shaken.
Far above, the city's lights flickered back to life uneven, unstable, but burning.
Emergency power. Backup enchantments. The Iron Concord had planned for everything except this.
Kael's knees finally gave way. He sank to the gantry, breath ragged, heart hammering against his ribs.
"What… am I?" he asked no one.
The dragon's eye focused on him fully now.
"You are a voice," it said. "And voices are dangerous."
Footsteps thundered on the upper platforms.
Armed wardens poured into the chamber, armor etched with suppressive sigils, weapons already humming with restrained dragon-fire. At their head strode a woman in black and crimson Inquisitorial colors, her presence sharp as a blade.
She took in the scene in a single glance: the fallen artificer, the damaged panel, the boy kneeling at the edge of the abyss.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Containment breach confirmed," she said, voice calm as still water. "Seal the chamber. Kill anyone not essential."
The Wardens advanced.
Kelth tried to rise. "Wait...he's just an apprentice..."
The Inquisitor raised a hand. Kelth froze mid-word, caught in a lattice of binding light.
Kael looked up at the approaching weapons and felt something coil inside him not fear, but refusal.
"Say the word," the dragon murmured. "I will answer."
"No," Kael whispered. "Not like this."
He stood.
Every sigil trained on him flared brighter.
The Inquisitor smiled faintly a thin, professional curve of lips that didn't touch her eyes. "You can hear it, can't you?"
The question hit harder than any weapon.
"You felt the city blink," she continued, stepping closer. "That only happens when a dragon's will moves unchecked. We've been watching for this for decades."
She tilted her head. "You're the anomaly."
Behind her, chains groaned as the dragon shifted just slightly.
Kael met her gaze and understood, with chilling clarity, that this moment had already been judged.
Not guilty or innocent.
Useful or dead.
"I won't let you hurt it," he said. The words surprised even him with their steadiness.
The Inquisitor's smile widened. "You don't get to choose."
The dragon's presence surged not outward, but inward again, coiling around Kael's spine like a crown of fire.
"Then let me," the dragon spoke. "Let me share the weight."
The first true pact in centuries tightened silent, unseen, irrevocable.
Kael's eyes burned gold.
For the first time since dragons were chained, a human stood between the world and its stolen power… not as a thief, not as a master, but as a bridge.
And the bridge was beginning to burn.