Draven Ashborne's Arc

Chapter 4 of 17

The change tore through Draven at the cave mouth. Scales sheeted over his arms. His spine bent. His sword rang on the stone as his hand grew too large to hold it. Seraphina kept both palms on his neck, dragging the cold down. But the green vapor poured thicker from the passage now. It coiled up his legs, into his mouth, and pushed his blood the other way. The thing inside him woke hungry. He felt his own thoughts thin out, like water spread too wide. "Draven." Her voice reached him from far off. "Stay. Look at me." He looked. He saw her white hair. He saw her blue eyes. For a breath he knew her name. Then the vapor surged, and the knowing slid loose. His new claws flexed. Somewhere under the heat, a want rose up that had no words but her shape. Kill it. Kill the small warm thing holding you down. He turned toward her. A growl climbed his throat. She was no longer a person to him. She was heat, and he wanted it gone. Seraphina did not run. She saw his eyes empty and made her choice. She let go of his neck. She reached up instead and pulled his lowered head down to hers. Then she kissed him. Her mouth was cold. Her hands were cold on his jaw. But under the cold there was something the vapor could not copy. It was steady. It did not push or pull. It only held. Draven's growl died in his chest. The kill-want cracked. In its place came one clear thing: he knew this. He knew her. Her name broke back through the fog. Seraphina. The woman who had cooled him in the yard. The woman he loved. He was not the dragon. He was a man wearing its shape, and he had chosen to wear it. He pulled back. His eyes were red again, but his own. The scales stayed. The horns stayed. He stood full in the change and did not fall to it. He held it, the way she had shown him, cold laced through fire. "You came back," she said. Flat, like always. But her hands shook on his face. "You brought me." His voice came out low and rough, half a roar. He flexed one clawed hand and watched it obey. "I can hold it now. As long as you're near." That was the catch, and they both heard it. He turned toward the passage. The corrupted vapor bled thicker from the deep dark, and past it the dragon's lair waited, jagged and ember-lit. He bent and lifted his sword. In his changed grip the two-handed blade felt light. Frost crept up one edge of the steel while the other glowed hot, ice and fire meeting down the middle. "He's close," Draven said. "Stay behind me." He stepped into the fog.