OLAMILEKAN:
I dreamed of fire.
But not the kind that burned. No—this fire was ancient. Alive. It moved like breath. Coiled like memory. I stood in a place that wasn't real, surrounded by endless black stone etched with glowing runes I couldn't read. At the center of it all… a massive shape, slumbering.
A dragon.
Twice the size of any building I'd ever seen. Scales darker than night, eyes closed—but even asleep, it radiated power. Raw, suffocating power. My knees buckled.
Then its eyes snapped open.
Gold. The same gold as mine.
I gasped awake, soaked in sweat.
"Same dream?" a voice asked quietly.
Ibou stood by the door of the NSDA bunker gym, arms folded, eyes sharp. He was hard to miss—tall, broad-shouldered, with skin like onyx and braided black hair that swung down his back. His right eye was cybernetic, always scanning, always cold. The other? Human—and far more dangerous. He wore a long tactical coat over loose fatigues, and he never smiled unless he meant it.
NSDA listed him as a senior combat strategist, but the whispers called him something else: the Watcher of Origins. He was more than a soldier. He was a historian of the unnatural. And since the incident in Antarctica, he'd taken a keen interest in me.
I nodded slowly. "Worse this time."
He stepped forward, his expression unreadable. "You said it opened its eyes this time?"
"Yeah." I hesitated. "And they were… mine. Exactly the same."
Ibou looked at me for a long moment before speaking.
"It's starting."
"What is?"
He didn't answer. Not directly. Just handed me a towel, then glanced at the security camera in the corner. "We should talk somewhere else."
---
Later, under the cover of night, we sat in one of the bunker's old supply tunnels—out of view, out of earshot.
Ibou lit a single lantern and faced me. "You know the name Danakah?"
I stiffened.
He noticed.
"Then you've read the debriefs."
"I lived it," I said. "Chapter one of this mess. The thing that killed Darryl's team in Antarctica."
Ibou nodded. "Most people think Danakah died in the collapse. What they don't know… is what Danakah really was."
I swallowed. "A dragon."
Ibou's eyes narrowed. "Not just a dragon. The dragon. The oldest being we've ever detected. A creature made of pure mana—formed before language, before even death."
I felt my heart pounding.
"You're saying…?"
Ibou leaned forward. "I'm saying your power isn't just unique. It's inherited."
I felt cold. "You mean I'm—?"
"A descendant. Somehow. Some way." He paused. "But if the NSDA finds out, they'll lock you away. Or worse."
Silence.
I looked at my hands. The way my magic flickered now—not just light or shadow, but something deeper. Something primal. I remembered the way I had torn through Kairin. The look in Martin's eyes when I moved through frozen time.
Power like a dragon's.
I nodded once. "We keep this between us."
Ibou smiled faintly. "Agreed."
---
JOSHUA:
If one more soldier looked at me like I was going to grow fangs and eat their face, I was going to scream.
I understood. Really. Shadow magic wasn't exactly "comforting." But I wasn't the one who tore a hole in the roof of Navil's southern bunker during sparring practice. That was Ola.
He was changing.
And I didn't mean his hair or his fighting style. I mean… his eyes would glow golden even when he wasn't using mana. His heartbeat shook the room when he got angry. Sometimes I saw his shadow moving before he did.
We hadn't talked about it.
Not yet.
Instead, we trained.
Brutal hours. Day after day. Ibou wasn't letting up, and neither were we. Ola was pushing himself harder than ever—and I could see it. The hesitation was gone. The fear too. He moved with purpose now.
But I also saw the cracks.
In his sleep. In the quiet moments when he thought I wasn't watching. He was afraid. Not of Martin. Not of losing.
Of himself.
I kept my mouth shut.
Until I didn't.
"You good?" I asked after our fourth spar that day. Blood in our mouths. Mana residue thick in the air.
Ola didn't answer right away. He sat on the mat, breathing hard, staring at the ground like it had secrets.
"I'm not sure," he said.
"You wanna talk?"
He looked up at me—eyes glowing faintly.
"No," he whispered. "But thanks."
That was enough. For now.
---
MARTIN:
They thought I ran.
Let them.
The wound Olamilekan left still ached. Shadow and light together—it should've been impossible. But that wasn't what kept me up at night. It was the way his presence twisted time. How his shadows moved during a freeze. How he looked at me—not as an enemy, but as a predator.
He was evolving.
And I had to evolve faster.
The temporal arc reactor was almost complete. I stood over it now, deep beneath the old Istanbul ruins, watching the pulses of blue light crawl through the carved symbols. We'd scavenged forbidden tech, stolen mana, corrupted sacred sites.
Time would bend to me. Permanently.
I stepped into the center circle, bloodied hand on the control rune.
Once this was active, the world wouldn't just fear us—they'd kneel. No more hiding. No more "governments" and "treaties." Just power. As it was meant to be.
But there was one problem left.
Olamilekan.
He was a variable I hadn't accounted for. Not fully.
The whispers called him something ancient now. Not harbinger. Something older.
Dragonborn.
It didn't matter.
I would erase him from the timeline if I had to.
Because this world wasn't big enough for both of us.
---
OLAMILEKAN:
I stood alone at the top of the bunker tower that night, watching stars fade into cloud. The wind was cold. My skin burned.
I felt it now—beneath everything.
The echo.
The hunger.
The dragon within.
Ibou said it would grow stronger. That I had to control it, or be consumed. But part of me wondered if it was ever really separate fro
m me at all.
Maybe I wasn't becoming something else.
Maybe I was becoming myself.
And when Martin showed his face again…
I'd be ready.
Even if it meant burning the sky.