Prologue

*"Initial reports of subterranean activity dismissed as seismic aftershocks. Civilian testimony regarding winged entities attributed to radiation exposure and mass hysteria."* — RC3 Emergency Response

**216 Years Before**

 

The sky burned.

 

Kira Vaughn had seen fire before. House fires. Wildfires. Controlled burns in the agricultural zones outside Denver. She'd seen smoke thick enough to choke on, flames hot enough to peel paint off metal.

 

This was different.

 

The horizon blazed orange and red, shot through with columns of black smoke that climbed until they merged with the clouds. The mushroom cloud over Colorado Springs had stopped growing an hour ago, but the fires it spawned still raged. Smaller detonations bloomed to the north. Fort Collins, maybe. Cheyenne. The radio had gone dead before she could confirm.

 

Kira stood on the ridge above her grandfather's ranch and watched the world end.

 

Her hands shook. She'd stopped trying to hold them still. Shock, probably. Or radiation poisoning. She'd read somewhere that tremors were an early symptom. Or maybe it was just the cold. October in the Rockies, and she'd run out of the house wearing jeans and a thermal shirt. No jacket. No gloves.

 

No point planning for tomorrow when tomorrow might not come.

 

The ranch house sat dark behind her. Grandfather was inside, in his chair by the window, shotgun across his lap. Waiting. He'd told her to go down to the cellar, to the old Cold War bunker he'd spent thirty years stocking with canned food and bottled water and ammunition. She'd refused.

 

If the world was ending, she wanted to see it.

 

Movement in the valley below caught her eye.

 

Deer, probably. Or elk. The animals had been running west all afternoon, away from the fires. Some instinct deeper than thought driving them toward the mountains, toward water, toward anything that smelled like safety.

 

Kira raised the binoculars. Focused.

 

Not deer.

 

People.

 

A line of them, stumbling through the scrub brush, silhouettes against the burning sky. Refugees from the suburbs, maybe. Or survivors from one of the smaller towns. They moved slowly. Some limped. One figure collapsed, was hauled upright by two others, dragged forward.

 

Kira lowered the binoculars.

 

She should tell Grandfather. Should go inside and lock the doors and let the strangers pass. The bunker had supplies for two people. Maybe three if they rationed. Not enough for a dozen desperate refugees who'd strip the place clean and leave them to starve.

 

She should.

 

She didn't move.

 

The ground trembled.

 

Kira's first thought: aftershock. Secondary detonation. Something structural giving way in the burning cities.

 

The tremor came again. Stronger. A vibration that climbed through the soles of her boots and rattled her teeth. The air itself shivered, a subsonic hum that pressed against her eardrums.

 

The refugees in the valley stopped. Turned. Looked back toward Denver.

 

Kira raised the binoculars again.

 

The earth split open.

 

Not slowly. Not gradually. The ground tore apart like paper, a chasm ripping through the valley floor in a spray of dirt and stone. Kira watched a highway buckle, asphalt cracking into fragments. Watched a power line tower topple sideways into the widening gap.

 

Watched something crawl out.

 

Too far away to see clearly. A shape, massive and dark, pulling itself up from the depths. Wings unfolding. A head rising on a serpentine neck.

 

Kira's hands went numb. The binoculars slipped. She caught them, barely, raised them again with fingers that wouldn't quite close.

 

The dragon shook itself. Dust and debris cascaded off scales that gleamed dull red in the firelight. It stood on four legs, each one thick as a redwood, claws scoring deep furrows in the broken earth. The wings stretched wider. Wider. Blotting out the burning horizon.

 

It opened its mouth and screamed.

 

The sound hit like a physical blow. Kira staggered back, hands clamped over her ears. The scream went on and on, a shriek that scraped down her spine and hollowed out her chest. Rage and hunger and something else. Something that sounded like recognition.

 

The dragon lunged forward.

 

The refugees ran.

 

They didn't make it far.

 

Kira stood frozen on the ridge and watched the dragon tear through them. Watched fire bloom from its jaws and engulf three people in an instant. Watched a man try to shield a child and get crushed under one massive claw. Watched the survivors scatter in every direction and get hunted down one by one.

 

She should run. Should go inside. Should hide in the bunker and pray the dragon didn't notice the ranch.

 

She couldn't move.

 

The dragon fed quickly. Efficiently. When the valley was empty, it raised its head and looked north. Paused. Tilted its head as if listening to something Kira couldn't hear.

 

Then it spread its wings and launched skyward.

 

Kira tracked it through the binoculars until it disappeared into the smoke. Her hands still shook. Her pulse hammered in her throat.

 

Behind her, the ranch house door creaked open.

 

"You see it?" Grandfather's voice. Rough. Calm.

 

"Yes."

 

"More coming. Felt it in the ground."

 

Kira turned. Grandfather stood in the doorway, shotgun in one hand, a duffel bag in the other. He'd changed into his old military fatigues. Combat boots laced tight.

 

"We can't fight that," Kira said.

 

"No."

 

"The bunker�""

 

"Won't matter." Grandfather tossed her the duffel. "Dragons are old. Older than the cities. Older than us. They've been sleeping under the world since before we learned to make fire. The bombs woke them up."

 

Kira caught the bag. It was heavy. Supplies, probably. Ammunition. "How do you know?"

 

"Because I've seen things the government said didn't exist." Grandfather stepped off the porch. "Magic. Creatures. Places that don't show up on maps. I thought we'd buried it all deep enough that it couldn't come back."

 

He looked at the burning horizon.

 

"I was wrong."

 

Another tremor. This one stronger. The ranch house groaned. A window cracked.

 

"We're leaving," Grandfather said. "North. Into the mountains. Find a cave, hole up, wait for the initial chaos to settle. Then we figure out what's left."

 

"And if there's nothing left?"

 

Grandfather smiled. It wasn't comforting.

 

"Then we make something new."

 

---

 

The second dragon surfaced three miles north of the ranch.

 

Kira and Grandfather were on the road when it happened. An old logging trail that switchbacked up into the high country. Kira drove. Grandfather rode shotgun, literally, the twelve-gauge across his lap and a rifle propped between the seats.

 

The truck's headlights carved a tunnel through the dark. Smoke blotted out the stars. The fires behind them painted the rearview mirror orange.

 

The road heaved.

 

Kira slammed the brakes. The truck fishtailed, tires screaming. She wrestled it to a stop inches from the edge where the road dropped off into nothing.

 

"Out," Grandfather barked. "Now."

 

Kira killed the engine and grabbed her pack. Grandfather was already moving, boots hitting the dirt. Kira followed.

 

The dragon rose ahead of them.

 

Smaller than the one in the valley. Black scales instead of red. Wings folded tight against its back as it pulled itself up through a fissure that hadn't existed ten seconds ago.

 

It saw them.

 

Kira froze.

 

The dragon's eyes were gold. Molten. Intelligent.

 

It didn't attack.

 

It watched.

 

Kira felt the weight of that gaze like a hand pressing down on her chest. The dragon's head tilted. Nostrils flared. It was scenting them. Learning them.

 

Deciding.

 

Grandfather raised the shotgun.

 

"Don't," Kira whispered.

 

"It's going to kill us."

 

"No." Kira didn't know how she knew. She just did. "It's waiting."

 

"For what?"

 

The dragon's mouth opened. Not a roar. A sound like stones grinding together. Like a mountain shifting in its sleep.

 

Words.

 

Not English. Not any language Kira recognized. But she understood them anyway. The meaning settled into her bones.

 

*Child of ash. You are marked.*

 

The dragon's gaze fixed on her. Only her.

 

*She sees you. She has always seen you.*

 

"Who?" Kira's voice cracked. "Who sees me?"

 

The dragon didn't answer. It turned, wings snapping open, and launched into the smoke-choked sky.

 

Kira stood in the middle of the ruined road and watched it go.

 

"What the hell was that?" Grandfather lowered the shotgun. His hands were steady. Kira's were still shaking.

 

"I don't know."

 

But she did.

 

Deep in her chest, behind her ribs, something had woken up. A warmth that hadn't been there before. A pressure. Like a hand reaching through her skin and touching something vital.

 

Magic.

 

She knew the word the way she'd known the dragon's speech. Instinct. Certainty.

 

She was marked.

 

And somewhere in the burning world, something ancient was watching.