The smell of smoke was the first warning.

It crept beneath the doorframe, faint at first but sharp enough to claw its way into Kieran’s lungs. 

He jolted awake, his heart hammering as distant screams of terror reached him. 

The air was heavy, thick with an oppressive heat, and flickers of orange light danced along the edges of his room.

“Kieran!” His mother’s frantic voice tore through the chaos.

He leapt from the bed, his bare feet hitting floorboards already warm beneath them. The heat was wrong, unnatural, and a sense of dread clawed at his chest. 

Throwing the door open, he froze.

His house was on fire! Thick, unnatural flames of gold engulfed the hallway.

The walls, once sturdy and comforting, groaned under the weight of the fire. Wooden beams cracked and splintered as the inferno crawled higher, spitting embers into the smoke-choked air. 

Through the haze, he saw his mother standing at the far end of the hallway. 

Her soot stricken face was twisted into an expression of pure terror.

“Come!!” she screamed, her voice cracking. She waved him forward, her arms outstretched. “Run, Kieran!”

He didn’t move. 

His legs felt like lead, his gaze locked on the window beyond her. 

Outside, the night sky had turned apocalyptic, the stars blotted out by massive wings. 

Dragons circled above the village, their silhouettes monstrous against the blaze. Roars shook the ground, blending with the screams of neighbors and the crackle of fire as torrents of flame rained down, consuming everything.

“Kieran!” she screamed again as she sprinted forward to grab him.

Kieran bolted toward her, the searing heat licking at his skin as he ran. 

His mother grabbed his arm, her grip firm despite the trembling in her fingers. She dragged him into the kitchen, where his father stood by the back door, flinging it open. 

The cool night air rushed in, but it carried no comfort. Outside, the fields were a sea of ash and fire, the crops they had tended for years turned to ruin.

His father turned to face them, his face grim, his jaw set. “Take him to the woods,” he said, shoving a satchel into his wife’s hands. “Now. Go.”

“What about you?” Kieran’s voice cracked, his chest tight with fear.

“I-I’ll hold them off,” his father said with a trembling voice. 

He was terrified, but he was also determined to buy time for his wife and son to escape!

He grabbed the axe that hung by the door, his knuckles white around the handle. The weapon looked pitifully small in his hands, but his eyes burned with resolve. “I won’t let them follow.”

“No!” Kieran lunged for him, but his mother yanked him back, her grip like iron.

“Your father knows what he’s doing,” she whispered, her voice trembling but steady.

She pulled him out into the night, her steps hurried and her breathing labored. 

Around them, the world burned. 

The air was alive with heat and ash, the sky a chaotic tapestry of wings and fire. She pushed him forward, toward the treeline, her fingers digging into his arm as if she feared he would vanish if she let go.

They had barely reached the edge of the woods when a roar split the air, so loud it seemed to shatter the world. 

Kieran turned just in time to see a massive shadow descend on their house. The dragon’s scales gleamed like molten gold, its jaws opening wide.

“Over here!” his father’s voice bellowed, cutting through the chaos.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Kieran’s heart twisted as he saw his father sprinting toward the burning fields, axe in hand. The dragon’s head snapped toward the movement, its glowing eyes narrowing. “Come on, you bastard!” his father shouted, waving his arms wildly to draw its attention.

The beast roared, its massive wings beating once before it turned away from the house. It launched after him, its molten breath scorching the ground where his father had been moments before.

“Dad!” Kieran screamed, his voice breaking as he watched the dragon chase his father into the inferno. 

For a fleeting moment, he thought his father might escape. But the dragon’s roar drowned out all hope as it vanished into the flames, leaving only smoke and destruction in its wake.

His mother froze, her body trembling as her eyes remained fixed in the direction her beloved husband had gone.

Her grip on Kieran tightened, and she pulled him further into the forest. “Don’t look back,” she whispered, though her voice trembled as if she didn’t believe her own words. “Just keep running.”

But Kieran couldn’t obey. 

His eyes stayed locked on the dragon as it emerged from the direction his father had fled, its molten-gold scales glowing ominously in the firelight.

Blood dripped from its jaws, glistening crimson against its gleaming fangs. Kieran’s stomach twisted as a horrible thought clawed at his mind. 

Was it his father’s? 

Its head turned, its glowing, predatory eyes fixing on them. 

For one terrifying moment, it felt as though the creature had marked him, its gaze burning into his very soul.

His mother shoved him hard, her hands shaking as she sent him stumbling into the trees.

“Go!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Please, Kieran. Live!”

She turned, her frail body trembling as she bent to pick up a fallen branch. 

It wobbled in her unsteady grip, useless against the monstrous beast. 

Tears streamed down her soot-streaked face, but her eyes stayed on the dragon, her love stronger than her fear.

“I’ll stop it,” she whispered, the words barely audible, more to herself than him. And then she stood there, small and fragile, between her son and the dragon.

“No!” Kieran screamed, trying to run back, but his feet refused to move. Another deafening roar tore through the air, and the dragon descended. 

The last thing Kieran saw was his mother standing tall, silhouetted against the blaze as the fire consumed her.

Kieran didn’t remember how long he ran after that. 

The forest blurred around him, the world reduced to heat, smoke, and the distant cries of destruction. Branches tore at his arms and legs, but he barely felt them. He stumbled over roots, his knees slamming into the dirt, but he couldn’t stop. 

The screams in his mind wouldn’t let him.

When he finally fell, his body gave out completely. 

He hit the ground hard, the cold earth jarring him.

As he stumbled to his knees, his fingers brushed against something buried beneath the dirt—a faint, golden glow. It was a small, smooth object etched with shifting runes. 

The moment his hand collapsed around it, a searing pain shot up his arm as the object melted into his palm, leaving behind a glowing mark that pulsed with an otherworldly warmth. 

The pain quickly faded, replaced by a strange energy coursing through him, steady and unrelenting.

But Kieran was in too much pain to give that strange occurrence much thought.

His chest heaved with sobs, each one raw and jagged, like shards of glass tearing through his throat.

The flames still burned in his mind, vivid and unrelenting. 

His father, standing tall with his axe. His mother’s determined face as she turned to confront the dragon. Their laughter from a time long gone, cruelly juxtaposed with their screams. 

He pressed his hands to his head, his fingers digging into his scalp as if he could claw the memories out. 

But they wouldn’t leave. 

They only grew sharper, cutting deeper until they consumed him entirely.

For what felt like hours, Kieran drowned in the echoes of their loss. 

Flashes of their faces, laughing and alive, were overlaid with the sight of them engulfed in fire. The smell of smoke, the unbearable heat, the sound of his own cries—all of it surged back, relentless and unforgiving.

And then, something shifted.

The weight in his chest, so heavy it had threatened to crush him, began to twist and churn. The sorrow that had paralyzed him cracked, splintering apart like glass under pressure. 

What rushed to fill the void wasn’t relief—it was fury. 

Hot, searing, uncontainable fury.

His tears burned, no longer of grief but of something sharper. His fists clenched, trembling as raw anger surged through him, drowning out the pain. 

Fury at the dragons who had taken everything. 

Fury at his own helplessness. 

Fury at the world for standing by and letting it happen.

Kieran rose unsteadily, his breaths ragged, his body trembling but resolute. His scar throbbed, as though the flames that had marked him still lingered beneath his skin, searing his very soul. 

He raised his head, his voice breaking the silence of the forest, low and hoarse but brimming with unshakable resolve.

“I’ll make them pay,” he rasped, the words cutting through the night like a blade. “Every last one of them.”

As the vow left his lips, the mark on his right hand began to glow, faint at first, then brightening into a golden radiance. 

Heat surged through his palm, spreading up his arm like fire, but it didn’t burn—it pulsed with power, ancient and unyielding. 

Kieran clenched his fist, the light seeping between his fingers as the Celestial Crest awakened, responding to the fury that now consumed him.

The trees swayed around him, their branches whispering in the wind, as if carrying his vow to the heavens. 

And somewhere, far above, the sky burned.