Where His Scales Cut Deepest

With a sound like splitting jade, Heise tore through the mirror, his serpentine body unspooling in a torrent of ink-black scales and auroral mist. Where his claws had shattered the glass, the shivers hung suspended—a thousand glinting stars caught mid-fall.

He enveloped Killian with his entire being. His long, sinuous body coiled like a mountain range made animate, shielding Killian from claw and corruption alike.

The demonic veins writhed up Killian's arms, greedy and fevered, their barbed tips sinking deeper into his flesh—until Heise breathed.

The breath of a river in deep winter carved through flesh without touching it. The veins turned to blackened cracks, then crumbled like charred paper. What remained was the ash of a thousand forgotten curses, dissolving in the dragon's swirling mist.