The ground trembled.
Darian clawed at the shattered remnants of the seal, his blackened fingers scraping against stone gone suddenly hot. The air itself warped, thickening with the scent of ozone and something older—something that smelled of burning stars and primordial depths.
From the abyss below, a sound like a thousand bones cracking echoed upward.
Then—silence.
Sumner stood frozen above him, his void-filled eyes wide. The dragon's massive chest heaved, his wings twitching as if caught in an unseen storm.
"No..." Sumner's voice was a fractured thing, the ancient chorus within him splintering. "I... see... you..."
The words weren't for Darian. They were for what lay beneath.
Then the First Dragon spoke.
"LITTLE THIEF."
The voice was not sound. It was pressure—a force that slammed into Darian's skull and sent him sprawling. Blood trickled from his nose, his ears. The corruption in his arm seethed, writhing like a living thing, both terrified and reverent.
The cavern trembled again. The cracks in the stone seal widened, glowing veins of molten gold splitting apart as something pushed against the other side.
Darian tried to stand. His legs wouldn't obey.
Sumner let out a choked roar, his body shuddering violently. The void in his eyes flickered—gold bleeding through, then swallowed again by darkness.
"Darian—!"
It was him. For a single, searing moment, Sumner's true voice broke through.
Then the ground exploded.
A claw the size of a warship erupted from the abyss, black scales gleaming with the faintest sheen of emerald. Each talon was a curved blade, sharper than any mortal forge could craft. The sheer wrongness of it made Darian's vision swim. This was not a creature meant for this world.
The First Dragon was rising.
And Sumner—his body no longer his own—turned toward Darian with slow, deliberate steps.
"The Devourer hungers," the ancient chorus spoke through him. "And you will feed him, Dragon King."
Darian's breath came in ragged gasps. The corruption in his arm pulsed in time with the First Dragon's movements, as if they were tied together. He could feel it now—the Devourer's mind, vast and insatiable, pressing against his own.
But beneath it...
A flicker. A spark.
Sumner.
Still fighting. Still there.
Darian clenched his blackened fist. The pain was excruciating, but it grounded him.
If the bond was inverted, then the corruption wasn't just in him—it was in Sumner too. And if the Devourer was using that to control the dragon...
Then maybe I can too.
The First Dragon's colossal head emerged from the abyss, jaws parting in a silent laugh.
Darian closed his eyes—and pushed back.