THE DRAGON'S RETURN

The Taste of Ash

One heartbeat belonged to a dying man, and the next belonged to a dying god.

Chen Lan clutched the edge of the wooden table as a white-hot spike pierced his brain. The noise of the crowded tavern faded into a dull roar. Around him, miners and merchants shouted over their drinks, completely unaware of the pressure building in the air. The smell of cheap ale and roasted meat filled the room, but Chen Lan could only taste ash.

"Are you alright, friend?" the tavern keeper asked, leaning over the counter. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

Chen Lan could not answer. A fresh wave of agony hit him, coming from a place deep inside his chest. It was a psychic scream, raw and feral, echoing from a thousand miles away. Long Ye was suffering. The great black dragon was being hunted, and because of their broken connection, Chen Lan felt every single strike against the beast. His muscles locked. His chair rattled against the floorboards as his body went rigid.

"Hey, look at him!" a miner shouted, pointing a dirty finger. "Something is wrong with his face!"

Chen Lan tried to pull his hood down, but his hands refused to move. The physical seizure twisted his features. His left eye flew open, no longer dark and human, but a brilliant, glowing slit of gold. The room went dead silent. The clinking of glasses stopped instantly.

"He is a monster!" a woman screamed, dropping her cup. "Look at his eye! He is Dragonbound!"

"Get back from him!" the tavern keeper yelled, reaching under the counter for a heavy iron club. "Someone call the guards!"

Chen Lan rolled off the bench, hitting the dirt floor hard. He dragged himself toward the back door, his boots kicking up dust. The golden eye burned like a coal in the dim light of the tavern. He could feel the eyes of every person in the room locking onto him with pure terror. In Shenzhou, his kind were worse than criminals. They were abominations.

"Stand right there, filth," a booming voice called out from the entrance.

The heavy wooden doors of the tavern flew open, slamming against the stone walls. A tall man dressed in silver imperial armor stepped through the threshold. He wore a matching iron helm that hid his face, but the heavy crossbow in his hands was aimed directly at Chen Lan. Three more soldiers pushed in behind him, their iron boots crunching on the loose gravel. The leader held a small bronze compass in his left hand. The needle was spinning wildly before pointing straight at Chen Lan's chest.

"We found him," the leader said, his voice echoing inside his helmet. "The tracker is locking onto the residue. Secure the target. Do not let him speak his incantations."

Chen Lan struggled to his feet, leaning heavily against a wooden pillar. His left arm felt heavy, a dull heat beginning to throb beneath his sleeve. He looked at the soldiers, then at the back exit just ten feet away.

"I do not want to hurt anyone," Chen Lan said, his voice raspy and thick with pain. "Just let me pass."

"You do not have a choice, rebel," the imperial soldier replied, stepping forward. "Your life was forfeit the moment your bond broke. Drop to your knees or we will take your legs off."

The tavern patrons scrambled over tables and chairs, desperate to get away from the coming fight. Someone shattered a window in the back, diving out into the dirt street. The air in the room grew suffocatingly hot.

Chen Lan shook his head slowly. "I cannot do that."

"Shoot him!" the leader commanded.

The front soldier pulled the trigger of his crossbow. A heavy iron bolt hissed through the air, aimed directly at Chen Lan’s throat.

Chen Lan did not think. He reacted on pure instinct, throwing his left hand upward. He tore his sleeve away, revealing thick, overlapping obsidian scales that coated his arm down to the knuckles. His fingers elongated into sharp, black talons. With a sharp grunt, he unleashed a burst of kinetic heat. The air in front of him rippled like a desert mirage. The iron bolt hit the invisible wall of heat, melted into a harmless lump of red metal in a split second, and dropped to the floor.

"He is channeling!" the second soldier yelled, drawing a broadsword. "Move in!"

The three soldiers rushed forward, their swords raised. Chen Lan swung his scaled arm in a wide arc. A wave of blue fire erupted from his claws, smashing into the frontline fighters. The impact threw them backward into the tables, splintering the heavy wood into kindling. The heat was so intense that the alcohol on the bar ignited, sending a wall of flame toward the ceiling.

Chen Lan gasped, clutching his chest as he stumbled backward toward the exit. The skin on his right hand, his human hand, was wrinkling. Deep lines appeared around his knuckles, and a sudden weakness washed over his limbs. He had aged years in a single moment. The cost of using the dragon's fire without a proper bond was eating him alive. He knew he had to run, and he had to run now.

He threw himself through the back door, bursting out into the blinding, stormy air of the Ash Marches. The sky above was a dark, bruised purple, and the wind howled through the canyons, carrying a thick choke of grey soot. He could barely see five feet in front of him. Behind him, the tavern was fully engulfed in flames, a bright orange beacon in the dark storm.

"Keep moving," Chen Lan muttered to himself, his voice sounding older, weaker. "You cannot stop here."

A sharp, whistling sound cut through the howling wind. Chen Lan ducked his head just as a massive boulder crashed into the earth right beside him, exploding into a thousand sharp fragments. The impact threw him off his feet, sending him rolling down a steep gravel slope. He hit the bottom hard, his breath leaving his lungs in a painful gasp.

He looked up through the swirling ash. High above the canyon walls, a figure was floating effortlessly in the sky, unaffected by the raging gale. The man wore the white robes of an Inquisitor, and a pale light glowed around his extended hands.

It was Wei Lun.

"You run well for a dying abomination," Wei Lun called down, his voice carrying perfectly over the storm. "But your path ends in this valley, Chen Lan."

Chen Lan struggled to his knees, his scaled arm digging into the loose dirt for balance. The golden eye glared up at the floating executioner.

"I am not your prisoner yet, Inquisitor," Chen Lan shouted back, coughing as the ash filled his throat.

Wei Lun raised a single hand, and the air around Chen Lan suddenly grew ten times heavier. The ground beneath his knees began to crack under an invisible, crushing weight. Chen Lan could feel his bones groaning under the pressure.

"Your dragon is fading, and so are you," Wei Lun said coldly, pressing his hand downward. "Yield to the empire, and I will grant you a swift death. Resist, and I will let the gravity tear you apart piece by piece."

Chen Lan tried to lift his arm, but the heavy pressure pinned him flat against the earth. His vision began to blur as the weight increased, pressing the breath from his chest. He could feel Long Ye’s distant heartbeat slowing down, matching his own failing pulse. This was the end. He was going to die in the dirt, a thousand miles away from the beast he was bound to save.

Suddenly, a sharp metallic click echoed through the canyon walls, distinct against the roaring wind. A long steel cable sliced through the ash storm from a high ledge above them. A heavy iron grappling hook thudded into the stone face right next to Chen Lan's head, its mechanisms locking deep into the rock.

Before Wei Lun could react, a dark figure dropped from the higher cliffs, swinging down on the wire like a predatory bird. A pair of strong hands grabbed Chen Lan by his collar, ripping him out of the gravity trap just as the ground beneath him shattered completely.

"Hold on tight, old man," a sharp, female voice hissed in his ear.

Chen Lan felt himself being hoisted into the air, flying blindly through the choking grey clouds toward the high cliffs. Below them, Wei Lun unleashed a furious roar as a massive shockwave of gravity missed them by inches, pulverizing the canyon floor into dust. Chen Lan blinked against the wind, looking at the masked face of his savior as she dragged him into the darkness of a narrow cave opening.