The Breath Between.

In the space between breaths, Kisa felt Tamberon die.

One moment, she was devouring the human caught between her claws, the heat of battle roaring through her veins. The next, a bolt of pain seared through her chest.

Her roar twisted into an agonized scream. Her wings faltered. The sky tilted.

She was falling.

She hit the ground hard, dirt erupting around her. Claws ripping, tail lashing. Shock tore through her like a blade, with the abrupt transformation.

Scales compressed into skin with a sickening crackle. Bones shrank, folding like parchment. The heat in her chambers vanished, replaced by nausea.

Her stomach convulsed. Half-digested flesh surged upward, bile and blood spilling onto the ground. She retched. Her throat burned.

She collapsed, human, into the gore of her victims, curling inward.

Her limbs trembled. Her skin felt wrong. Too soft. Too exposed.

The sigil on her chest pulsed once then stilled.

Tamberon was dead.

And she was free.

The world spun. Shouting rang in the distance, boots, steel, commands, muffled sounds.

After four years, Tamberon’s control was gone. The binding snapped, silencing the constant hum of his presence, the tether around her will gone.

In its place: Thrill. Confusion. A strange hollowness.

She didn’t morn Tamberon’s death. His end was, obviously, violent. He had deserved violence. He had carved obedience into the unwilling and innocent.

Yet, the absence of his voice left her staggering. She had forgotten how silence felt.

Absently, she rubbed at the sigil etched between her bare breasts were an amulet bone once rested.

She had been born with it. A shard of bone, unique to her people, nestled just beneath the sternum. At fourteen, when the bone matured, it gave her the power to shift.

Then they took it.

The ritual was brutal. Her chest split open, the bone carved out while she screamed. That day, the Emperor’s wizards had bound her family. Each dragon tethered to a sigil. Each bone worn like jewelry.

Tokens of domination.

From that moment on, Kisa had flown only when commanded. Burned only when ordered.

Until now.

Baston was confused.

One moment, the dragon called AshWing had soared above them, slicing through their ranks, her roar shaking the marrow of every soldier. Then, nothing. No dragon. Just silence.

The small troop stood frozen, weapons half-raised, eyes scanning the sky. Ash drifted in the air. Where had the dragon gone?

The silence was unnerving. Like breath held.

Baston’s boots crunched over scorched earth. He could still smell smoke and blood and something older, something wild. But the sky was empty.

Then he saw her.

A young girl knelt in a pile of gore and filth. Naked. Her skin stark white against the blood and slime; her long, wild hair matted with the stuff.

She looked born out of a myth, risen from the battlefield, bloody, her presence both fanciful and macabre

She regarded the small troop of armed men. Baston saw her slender hands tremble as she pulled at her hair, trying to cover herself with the tresses. The gesture fragile.

Something twisted in his chest.

She was young. And yet, there was something in her posture that unsettled him.

The men behind him shifted uneasily, blades lowered but not sheathed.

Baston didn’t answer. He stepped forward, slowly, voice low. “Are you hurt?”

The girl blinked once. Her lips parted, but no sound came. Her eyes flicked to the sky, then back to him.

And Baston felt it again, that strange pressure in the air, like heat before lightning.

He ventured closer, and she gave him a wary look. Her locks now crossed to cover her chest, dangling down against her pale thighs.

He swallowed. “We mean no harm,” he said gently. “AshWing’s gone. How do you come to be here?”

The men behind him shifted again. One muttered, “Leave her, Baston, she stinks of death.” Another raised his blade. “Could be, she is death.”

“She’s just a girl,” Baston snapped.

“I know nothing.” Her voice was hoarse, barely more than breath. “I fell.”

Baston blinked. “Fell?”

She nodded once, slow and deliberate. Her fingers tightened in her hair. “I was flying. Then I was falling.”

“What do you mean?” Baston asked.

She dropped her gaze. “I don’t remember.”

It was a lie. He could feel it.

Kisa looked at the soldier walking beside her, eyes lowered.

Baston.

She was in the middle of the troop now, surrounded not in chains, but in protection. A ring of steel meant to shield her from danger.

Baston was young. His mail shirt was plain, patched at the shoulder. His eyes flicked toward her often, lingering with concern. And distrust.

Kisa kept her gaze low, her steps slow. Someone had found her a cloak.

They thought she was a victim.

They didn’t know she was the wrath.

That was best. For now.

The shock of the battle had begun to fade, Kisa could think more clearly. The men around her were oddly comforting.

Her amulet bone had to still be on Tamberon’s corpse.

She needed to find it.

Before someone else did.

The signs of battle began to fade as they moved further on. The small troop halted by a clear stream, untouched by blood or ash. The men knelt to drink, their voices low, their weapons slack.

Kisa gathered the cloak around her and leaned over the cooling waters. She drank deeply, before sitting back with a sigh, eyes closed.

The call came.

It rang through her like a bell. Pure, piercing, undeniable.

Kisa opened her eyes.

The world had shifted.

The sky was a brighter, the grass a grosser brown, the stream a ribbon of white. The men around her shimmered, their edges glossy with light.

And there, off to the right, beyond the bend in the stream, pulsing like a heartbeat.

A bright yellow beacon.

Her amulet bone.

“Are you alright?” Baston’s voice snapped her vision back to normal.

She turned toward the bend. The light had faded. “What is that way?” she asked gesturing.

“Our camp. We’re are footman, under command of Douran Rou.”

The name meant nothing to her.

“Is it far?” she asked.

“Half a mile, maybe. Be there before the sun tips.”

She nodded, feigning calm. Inside her thoughts raced.

Someone could have found the amulet and brought it to camp, she had to find it before someone recognized it for what it was.

She had little sense of what she would do once it was in her possession.

It had been ripped from her before she could grasp its meaning, receiving only the basics of training before the bone had solidified into the beautiful raised curvature between her budding breasts.

She knew nothing of the ritual Tamberon had used to carve it out, nothing of the binding sigils. She didn’t know how to reattach it.

Would she be whole?

She didn’t know.

But she knew she had to find it.

And they were heading straight toward it.

Baston had been right, the camp appeared just as the sun tipped westward. The troop’s arrival was expected. But no alarm was raised. No challenge was issued.

Inside the camp proper, Baston felt the slow exhale of men who had survived the day. The scent of roasted grain and boiled meat drifted through the air, mingling with smoke and sweat

The camp was bustling. The banners of the army fluttered overhead, bearing the sigil of a clenched fist wrapped in flame.

Kisa walked quietly among them, the cloak drawn close, gaze low.

Baston guided her gently toward the healer’s tent, the canvas flaps stirring in the breeze. The scent of crushed herbs drifted from within. The girl’s eyes flicked toward the center of camp, then lowered again.

He still didn’t know what to make of her.

Her words had been few. Her skin pale as milk. She looked small and fragile.

The healer looked up as they approached. Her eyes narrowed.

“She doesn’t seem wounded,” Baston said. “But she was found in the thick of it. Covered in blood. Might be in shock.”

“In the middle of battle? Where did she come from? Never mind. Sit her down. I’ll look at her in a moment.”

Kisa moved onto a cot at the back of the tent, posture curled and small. Quiet.

Baston lingered at the entrance, unsure whether to stay or go. He felt responsible. But he also felt something else.

Distrust.

Could no one else see this?

Kisa was relieved to be shielded from the blinding, pulsing light. It shimmered like a beacon bright, alive. It glowed like the sun had settled in the fold of a small tent in the center of the camp.

Kisa squinted against the pulsing light. She saw silhouettes moving in and out, their forms cutting through the glare like shadows. They passed through it, untouched, unseeing.

The same pulse she’d seen at the stream.

Her amulet bone was inside.

And no one else saw it.

Kisa watched Baston go with relief. He’d hesitated, casting one last glance over his shoulder, but duty pulled him away.

His eyes were too curious. Curiosity was dangerous.

She sat still on the cot.

Through the open tent flaps, she spotted another woman with a yoke across her shoulder, balancing two buckets with ease.

The familiarity of the camp unsettled her. it felt like every other war camp she’d been dragged through under Tamberon’s watch. War, blood. Iron and steel.

The healer was still busy with her patients. No one was looking.

Kisa rose from the cot, head bowed, slipping quietly from the tent. She bent for an empty bucket toward the tent. No one noticed just another girl with a task.

The small tent loomed ahead, the light pulsed from inside, like a heartbeat. Weaving through crates and fire pits, she reached the edge and paused.

The tent was open to the elements. From the light of a small camp lantern, hanging close by, she spied a table, a small camp stool, some casks and crates. The back was in shadows, but no people. No movement.

Kisa moved. Head bent low, the buckets easy in her grip, she stepped inside.

The air changed instantly.

Kisa’s breath caught.

Her amulet bone lay on the table, not enshrined, not guarded, discarded among scrolls, quills, and curling maps. The amulet bone lay its pulse faint. Her legacy mistaken for trinket.

The bucket slip from her fingers as Kisa moved closer, the cloak brushing the edge of the table. The bone shimmered softly, golden veins flickering beneath its surface. It was smaller than she remembered. Her chest ached with recognition.

She reached out, fingers trembling.

She touched it.

And the pulse surged.

Not through the bone.

Through her.

From the shadows a hand whipped forward, seizing her wrist, and a man emerged from the shadows.

“Hello, little dragon.” He said, grinning. “I didn’t expect you so soon.”

Kisa jerked back, but the man’s grip was firm. His touch hummed with power.

Wizard!

He was younger than Tamberon had been, with sharp cheekbones and eyes that gleamed with calculation. Now, in the light, Kisa could see his ceremonial robes.

He looked from her to the amulet bone inches from her fingertips.

The wizard picked up her amulet, turning in his long fingers.

Kisa moaned in despair.

“Just a piece of bone, like a chicken’s wishbone.” He mused, and smiled. “We know better, don’t we?”

Another figure entered the tent, broad-shouldered, silver-streaked, his armor marked with the sigil of flame-wrapped fist. Douran Rou.

“Well done,” he said. “You set the trap perfectly. She came straight to it.”

“She was drawn. They always are. The bond never truly breaks.” Said the wizard.

Kisa’s breath caught.

Trap.

The Commander turned to her. “You’ve done us a great favor, girl. Now we can bind you properly. The Emperor will be pleased.”

“You’ll be a weapon again,” Douran Rou continued. “But this time, you’ll be fighting for the right side.”

Kisa gasped and struggled.

“The Emperor is moving toward the battlefield,” the commander said. “He brings two dragons with him. “

Her heart pounded.

Kisa had not come this far to be bound again.

Not to another voice.

Not to another leash.

The cage was iron-wrought. It sat at the edge of camp. Kisa crouched inside, cloak wrapped tight. The guards had left her alone. No one wanted to be near the dragon girl.

Except Baston.

He appeared at dusk, his expression unreadable. He stood for a long moment before speaking.

“You were the dragon,” he said quietly. “AshWing. The one who tore through our lines.”

Kisa didn’t look up. “I was controlled.”

“By a wizard?”

She nodded. “Tamberon bound me. Like he did my family. All of us marked. All of us enslaved.”

Baston stepped closer. “And now they want to bind you again.”

“To a new wizard,” she whispered. “They think I’ll fight for them. But what if they send me against my own kin? What if I’m made to burn the people I love?”

Baston’s face twisted with disbelief. “You think you could?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know I could kill strangers either. Until I did.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and raw.

Then Baston spoke. “You seem stronger than you think you are.”

Kisa finally looked up.

“You’re not just a weapon,” he said. “You’re a person. A girl. A dragon. And you get to choose what you become.”

Kisa stared at him, an ache in her chest.

The ritual was quieter than she expected.

The wizard’s hands were steady, his voice low as he traced the sigil into her breastbone. Tamberon’s mark was first erased, scrubbed from her flesh with a burning salve. Then came the etching. Not with blade, but with spell. The pain was sharp, but it didn’t tear her apart like before.

Still, it hurt.

Kisa clenched her teeth, refusing to cry out. She watched everything, every gesture, the way the sigil flared before settling into her skin. She memorized it. Every word. Every rune. Every flick of his wrist.

She would not be ignorant again.

When it was done, they left her with her pain in the cage.

She curled into herself, the new sigil still burning beneath her skin. Kaigeth was the wizard’s name. It was part of her now. For Now.

Then Baston came.

“They left you like this. No medicine? No healer? Nothing?””

Kisa shook her head, slowly.

Baston’s fists clenched. “You’re in pain. You just underwent a binding ritual, then they tossed you in a cage like an animal.”

“I am an animal,” she said. “To them.”

“No,” he snapped. “You’re a person. A girl who’s been through hell and still stands.”

Kisa looked up, eyes rimmed with pain. “Kaigeth is new. The King wants a dragon fighter. I’m the first.”

“I heard what the commander said,” Baston continued. “About the Emperor’s dragons. About sending you against them.”

Kisa nodded. “They might be my family.”

Baston stared at her, stunned. “You think you could harm them?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “That’s what terrifies me.”

The battlefield shimmered with heat and tension. Dust curled around boots and banners, and the air was thick with the scent of steel and sweat. Kisa stood beside Kaigeth, still aching from the binding. She could feel them before she saw the two dragons circling above the Emperor’s line, and her heart dropped. One moved with a rhythm she knew by heart. Her brother Manus. The other, slower, heavier. Her Father, Nal.

Kaigeth’s voice echoed in her mind, commanding. Kisa, fly. Strike the Emperor’s line.

She transformed.

Scales rippled across her skin; wings unfurled with a roar that shook the sky. She rose, Kaigeth’s voice tugging at her thoughts.

But she did not obey.

Instead, she circled back.

Kaigeth shouted in her head, confused, panicked. But Kisa landed hard, claws digging into the earth beside him. Before he could react, she lunged, her talons closing around the amulet at his throat. She tore it free, and with a single breath of flame, ended him.

The binding snapped.

She took to the sky again; the amulet clutched in her claws. Hovering above the battlefield, she turned her fire inward, searing Kaigeth’s sigil from her breast, clawing away the last trace of control. Over it, she etched the rune she knew from childhood. Kisa.

She welded the amulet over it with flame, sealing it to her body.

She was free.

Turning toward the Emperor’s line, saw the Emperor on his great warhorse. She dove, fire pouring from her throat, and consumed the line of warriors. Next, she turned to the two wizards. They were easy to spot in their bright robes.

Kisa landed in the wreckage, her claws sifting through ash and bone until she found them: two amulets, still warm, still pulsing. She carried them skyward.

Above, Mangus and Nal hovered, uncertain.

She offered the amulets.

They took them.

And the bindings broke.

Three dragons wheeled above the battlefield, wings stretched wide. They made one pass over each camp, before turning toward the horizon.

Together.

Free.

As Kisa soared above the battlefield, the wind roaring past her, she scanned the ground below, searching.

The camps blurred beneath her, tents and banners rippling in the wake of her flight. But then, near the edge of the field, just beyond the reach of flame and fury, she saw it.

A flash of red.

A cloak, bright against the dust and steel. Baston.

He stood apart from the others, his troops held back as she’d asked. His posture was firm, his gaze lifted, unafraid. Kisa circled once. She could see his face beneath the helm.

She dipped her wings in silent thanks.

Then turned toward the horizon, her family rising behind her, three dragons cutting through the sky.

Free. And seen.