The skies above Stormreach bled crimson, the air thick with ash and the metallic tang of blood. Darian leaned heavily against Sumner's scaled flank, his armor scorched and his hands trembling. The siege had left the city a skeletal husk, its once-proud towers reduced to smoldering rubble. Yet the enemy banners still fluttered on the horizon—a sea of black and gold, relentless as the tide.
"They're regrouping," murmured Lira, the Sorceress, her voice frayed. Her fingers glowed faintly with spent magic. "Whatever they've brought… it's not human."
Darian followed her gaze. Beyond the shattered gates, shadows coalesced into a hulking mass—a war machine forged of obsidian and writhing, unnatural flames. At its helm stood a figure cloaked in void-black armor, their face obscured by a helm shaped like a snarling wolf. The air around them rippled, wrongness seeping into the earth.
Sumner's growl vibrated through Darian's bones. The dragon's golden eyes narrowed, pupils slit with rage. "Darkfire," Sumner hissed into Darian's mind, the voice a storm of fury and fear. "They've harnessed the Old Flames. It will consume everything."
Darian clenched his jaw. "We stop it here. Now."
But the enemy moved first. The machine roared to life, its core pulsing like a diseased heart. A beam of blackened fire lanced across the battlefield, carving through stone and soldier alike. Where it struck, the earth rotted, crumbling into ash.
"Sumner—!" Darian barely had time to shout before the dragon surged skyward, wings beating against the poisoned air. The bond between them flared white-hot, Darian's veins burning with borrowed power. Arrows and spells glanced off Sumner's scales as they dove, but the darkfire beam swung upward, grazing the dragon's wing. Sumner screamed, a sound that split the heavens.
Darian tasted blood. Through the bond, he felt the dragon's agony—the darkfire was alive, gnawing at Sumner's essence like a rabid beast. Below, the enemy commander raised a blade forged of the same void-stuff, laughing as Stormreach's survivors fled in terror.
"Enough."
Sumner's voice was no longer a whisper but a quake. The dragon's body blazed suddenly, incandescent, as if the sun itself had been caged beneath his scales. Darian's vision whited out—but he did not need to see. He felt it: the moment Sumner severed the fragile leash on his power.
The world exploded.
Fire rained in pillars, golden and pure, scouring the battlefield. The war machine melted like wax, its darkfire snuffed out in an instant. Enemy soldiers vanished mid-scream, their ashes swept away on a sudden wind. The dragon's wrath was a force of nature, unyielding, beautiful—and when the light faded, only silence remained.
Darian slumped in the saddle, gasping. Below, the land was a glassy crater. No bodies. No blood. Only the faint wail of the wind, as though the earth itself mourned.
Sumner landed heavily, his breath ragged. The golden fire had dimmed, his scales dulled to ashen gray. "I… could not hold back," the dragon said, the words tinged with shame.
Darian dismounted, boots crunching on charred soil. His hands found Sumner's massive jaw, trembling not from fear, but grief. "You saved us," he whispered. "But at what cost?"
Lira approached, her face pale. "The darkfire… it corrupted him. Didn't it?"
Darian didn't answer. He didn't need to. The proof was in Sumner's flickering gaze, in the way the dragon's fire now left frost in its wake.
A horn blared in the distance. From the north, new banners emerged—crimson, emblazoned with a phoenix. At their head rode a warrior queen clad in silver, her gaze sharp as a blade.
"Valtor's queen," Lira said, wary. "She's no ally of ours."
The queen reined her horse to a halt, studying the devastation. When she spoke, her voice carried the weight of judgment. "You wield a sword that cuts both ways, Dragon King. Today, you saved your city. But who will save you from what you've unleashed?"
Darian turned back to Sumner. The dragon's eyes were half-closed, his breath labored. Somewhere, deep in the bond, Darian felt it—a splinter of darkness, growing.
The wrath of a dragon had bought them victory.
But the war for Sumner's soul had only just begun.