THUD—THUD—THUD!!

Maybe it was a bad habit of his. He loved to announce himself, like a drum in an empty valley.

Half-crippled or not, Cang still stomped with ceremony. Each step punched a crater into the dust, a rhythm that tried to sound like glory.

He flared his presence as he walked, a hot tide rolling off scale and bone. Ling felt it prickle her skin. Mongrel dragons wouldn’t dare cross that wave.

Quiet came with it, like snow smothering a campfire. Alicia didn’t like the quiet at all.

She’d been kneading a huge fireball since his first step, a little sun spinning in her palm. She’d wanted target practice—range, precision, power.

But no dragon came close. They bolted from hundreds of meters out, tails tucked like smoke. Her fireball couldn’t fly that far.

Annoyance flared first, like sparks biting the tongue. She slapped the fireball onto Cang’s back.

His scales hissed. He flinched and glanced back at her, eyes bright with tears, grievance shining like dew on glass.

After a dozen such unjust suns, the poor azure lug finally brought them to the Dragonfolk’s grounds—then stopped a hundred meters short.

“Uh… bosses, the spot’s a few hundred meters ahead,” he muttered, voice small as ash. “Mind hopping off? I… you know how it is?”

Of course it was him. Out there he’d already been a mess; back home he still clung to face, hugging pride like a threadbare cloak.

Most dragons lust or hoard. Purebloods stack mates or gold. Him? He hoarded face. He made even purebloods lose face by comparison.

Still, he had brought them here. And neither Alicia nor Ling planned to ride a silly dragon into a crowd like circus monkeys for dragon bros to gawk at.

They dismounted at once.

They started toward the so-called Dragonfolk domain. After a few steps, the thudding stopped. The air felt hollow, like a drumskin gone slack.

Alicia looked back. Cang stood where he was, watching them with a hunted look, roots growing under his claws.

“Got business to handle?”

He blanked, like a cloud losing its shadow. Then he realized she meant him.

“Ah—no, no. You go on. I’ll catch up.”

Alicia frowned at the panic in him. The feeling was a wrinkle between her brows. “Weirdo,” she said, and tugged Ling forward.

They entered the Dragonfolk’s grounds. The books had promised brawls inside the nest. Instead, they found peace—no, a stillness too tight to breathe.

It wasn’t that the dragons were hiding. Quite the opposite. They’d all gathered, row upon row, like dark pines on a ridge.

They stood in order. They watched Alicia and Ling pass. Calm eyes. No one lunged. No one tried to teach these intruders a lesson.

Until—

“Hey! Look! Cang’s back!”

The shout came from behind, voice bright as a thrown pebble. No laurel in it—only the gleam of someone pointing at a clown.

Others answered, laughter snapping like dry twigs. It spread quick, a brushfire of snickers.

Alicia stopped walking. No dragon looked her way anymore. Her pause vanished like rain in sand.

“Hahaha—hic—haha! Look at Cang! His wings are busted!”

“Not just that! Check his belly! Scraped clean! Did he fall from the sky and skid like a plow? That’s killing me!”

“Hey, don’t laugh at him! How can you mock your own? We should show concern! Come, little Cang, let uncle see if your little buddy got scraped raw. If it’s gone, that’s bad—root of our kind, you know!”

“You geniuses hearing yourselves? Little buddy? I bet Cang never had that thing. Why not rename him Miss Cang?”

“Miss Cang? Works for me.”

“Seconded!”

…

Alicia felt something twist, a coal rolling under the ribs. She suddenly wanted to help the little guy who’d carried them here.

She’d said she felt no guilt. The words tasted stale now. She wanted to take them back.

“Ling…”

She looked to Ling. The meaning was there, quiet as a touch. Ling didn’t fail her. She nodded.

With her little partner’s nod, Alicia had all the ground she needed. The hinge in her heart clicked open. No more hesitation.

She raised her hand. Mana rushed in like a river to a mill. A floodlight glare kindled along the ribbon on her wrist.

“This body wields fire.

This heart kneels to flame.

At this moment, I declare—

Let heartfire blaze—

Let bodies break—

[Strike, Hephaestus!]”

With each line, the ribbon flashed, a lighthouse pulsing through fog. On the last word, the light fell away, swallowed like a star at dawn.

Nothing boomed. No mountain split. It sounded like bluster, a fancy incantation for a child’s fireball.

But was it?

The laughing dragons froze. Silence dropped like a curtain. Cold sweat beaded on scales. Golden pupils widened, shutters blown open by wind.

Dragons hear what others can’t. Some beasts twitch at ultrasound; dragons listen to deeper tides.

They caught the low growl no human would, the infrasound that crawls up from faults before an earthquake.

They heard the sky’s buried thunder, a roar like a meteor shouldering through cloud.