Chapter 5 – Echoes of Flame

The fire crackled softly inside the hollowed-out diner.

Once filled with laughter and clinking plates, the booths now sat torn and overgrown, vines creeping through shattered windows. Dust hung in the air like forgotten memories.

Jackie sat near the corner, hugging her knees, eyes fixed on the small fire dancing in the center of the cracked tile floor. Her tail rested beside her, twitching occasionally. She wasn't used to it yet. She wasn't used to any of this.

Across from her, the cloaked man cleaned his blade in silence, careful and methodical. His armor gleamed faintly in the firelight, marked by old battle scars.

Jackie finally spoke.

"You said I wasn't the first. The others... they became those things?"

He didn't look up. "Some did. Most never made it through the burn."

She stared into the flames. "Why did I?"

He paused, then set the sword down beside him. His voice was lower now. "Because something inside you called to the flame. And it answered."

She let that sit in the silence between them. The fire crackled. Outside, distant howls echoed across the broken city.

"Do you have a name?" she asked, voice small.

He nodded once. "Kael."

"Kael," she repeated. "So… are you, like, a teacher? Or a dragon therapist or something?"

That actually made him laugh. Just once. "No. I'm the last Warden of the Rift. My job was to stop the awakening. Or at least control it."

He looked at her. "Until the world broke."

Jackie frowned. "So you failed."

Kael didn't flinch. "Yes. And that's why I'm still here."

---

Later that night, Jackie lay curled in a booth, using her hoodie as a pillow. She couldn't sleep—not really. Every time her eyes closed, flickers of flame danced in her mind. Wings. Teeth. A roar that seemed too large to come from her throat—but somehow, had.

Eventually, exhaustion took her.

---

The dream came like fire.

She stood on a mountain of ash beneath a bleeding sky.

Dragons circled above—colossal, ancient, terrifyingly beautiful. One landed before her, its wings folding like thunderclouds. Its scales shimmered in black and gold, and its eyes pierced straight into her soul.

"You are flame-born," it said—not with words, but with thoughts. "Not of blood, but of memory. Our essence burns in you now."

Jackie couldn't move.

"What am I supposed to do?" she asked, or maybe just thought it.

The dragon lowered its massive head.

"Survive. Then rise."

Its breath washed over her—warm and endless.

Then came a whisper behind it, colder.

"She will fall like the rest."

The ash beneath her feet cracked.

She turned.

Shadow. A figure cloaked in smoke and bone. Red eyes.

A voice like rot: "You were never chosen. You were just convenient."

---

Jackie woke with a gasp, claws slicing into the table beside her. Smoke curled from her mouth.

Kael was already standing, sword halfway drawn.

"Dreams?" he asked.

She nodded slowly. "I think… something's watching me. In the Rift."

Kael's expression darkened.

"Then it's begun."