The obsidian chamber began to groan, a deep, tectonic protest that vibrated through Kaelen's new, hyper-sensitive nerves. The shattering of the ice-spear and the dragon's sudden displacement had destabilized the localized Echo of the cavern. Dust filtered down like grey snow, and the pale blue light from Elara's fingertips flickered violently before snuffing out entirely.
"The ceiling is going!" Ria's voice cracked through the darkness, sharp and commanding. She didn't wait for an explanation for Kaelen's glowing eyes. She grabbed his unburned shoulder and hauled him toward the narrow fissure they had crawled through. "Move, or we become part of the strata!"
Kaelen stumbled, his legs feeling like leaden pillars. Inside him, the heat was no longer a comfort; it was a physical weight. The voice of Ignis was a low, vibrating growl in the back of his skull, a mental pressure that demanded he run, hunt, consume. "I can't... my head is spinning," Kaelen gasped. His right arm, the one transformed into blackened, volcanic skin, was radiating a heat so intense it began to singe the sleeve of his tunic.
"Don't you dare faint on us now," Elara hissed from his other side. She grabbed his waist, helping Ria guide him through the jagged squeeze.
As they scrambled through the narrow tunnel, the air behind them collapsed. A thunderous roar of falling stone filled the void where the dragon had lain. The shockwave hit them from behind, a wall of stale air and pulverized rock that sent them tumbling into the secondary shaft. Kaelen hit the ground hard, his chest slamming against the floor. The dragon-brand over his heart flared a brilliant, angry crimson.
"WASTE," the voice hissed. "YOU EXPEND ENERGY TO BREATHE, TO COWER. BRING ME SUSTENANCE, LITTLE ECHO."
"Shut up," Kaelen growled aloud, clutching his head.
"Kaelen?" Elara knelt beside him, her face caked in grey dust. She reached out to touch his forehead, but recoiled instantly. "You're burning up. Kaelen, your skin—it's hot enough to boil water."
Ria stood over them, her spear held loosely but her eyes scanning the dark tunnel ahead. We were three miles deep in an illegal sector. The collapse will have alerted the Wardens on the upper levels. If they find us, they'll see that mark on your chest and turn you over to the Inquisition for 'Calamity-bonding.' We need to get to the surface, and we need to do it without being seen."
"We need food," Kaelen rasped, his throat feeling like he'd swallowed glass. "Not... not bread. I'm not hungry in my stomach. I'm hungry... here." He pressed his hand against the glowing brand.
"The dragon," Elara whispered, her eyes wide. "It's a parasite."
"A partner," Kaelen corrected, though he didn't know why he defended the thing. "It saved me from the ice. But it's dying, Elara. And if it dies, it's taking my heart with it."
They began the long, grueling ascent. What usually took two hours felt like an eternity. Kaelen's body was a war zone. The "Echo" of the mountain—the heavy, crushing pressure of the stone—seemed to be pressing into him, but his body was trying to push back. He found that if he focused on the heat in his arm, he could "imitate" the dragon's innate resistance to pressure. His footsteps became heavier, more certain. He wasn't just climbing; he was conquering the incline.
By the time they reached the "Grey Tiers," the semi-inhabited level where the poorest miners lived in shanties carved into the rock, Kaelen was drenched in sweat. His vision was tunneling.
"We're almost at the tenement," Ria whispered, pulling a ragged shawl over Kaelen's glowing arm to hide the light. "Just act natural. Just another group of exhausted miners coming off a double shift."
They passed a group of Wardens—men in padded leather armor carrying glowing "Sun-Staves." Kaelen felt the energy in those staves. To his normal self, they were just lights. To his new self, they looked like delicious, glowing fruit. His mouth actually watered.
"Small... weak... but it would suffice," Ignis whispered.
No, Kaelen thought back, clenching his fist. We aren't killing guards for a snack.
They reached their "home"—a single room with three straw mats and a leaking ceiling. As soon as the door clicked shut, Kaelen collapsed. He curled into a ball on the cold stone floor, the heat from his body causing the dampness in the room to rise as steam.
"How long?" Ria asked, looking at the brand through the holes in Kaelen's shirt.
Kaelen looked at his hand. The blackened skin had reached his elbow. He could feel a countdown, a literal ticking in his pulse. "Seven days. If I don't feed it an artifact—something with a concentrated Echo—by the end of the week, the fire goes out. And then I'm just a corpse."
"Seven days," Elara repeated, her voice trembling. She looked around their miserable room. Their total wealth consisted of three copper coins and a half-eaten loaf of stale rye. "An artifact costs thousands of gold marks. Even a minor one from a low-level dungeon is more than we've made in our entire lives."
Ria sat on the edge of her mat, sharpening her spear with a whetstone. The scritch-scratch of the stone was the only sound for a long minute. "Then we don't buy one," she said, her eyes flashing in the dark. "There's a rumor of a 'Scourge-Cell' in the Whispering Crevice. A minor tomb that the Guild hasn't cleared because the mana-density is too low to be profitable for them."
"Too low for them is a fortune for us," Kaelen said, forcing himself to sit up. The movement sent a spike of heat through his chest, but he welcomed it. It was better than the cold. "If there's an Echo-relic in there, I can take it. I can feed him."
"Kaelen, you can't even stand," Elara protested.
Kaelen looked at his right hand. He concentrated, trying to recall the feeling of the dragon's heat. Suddenly, a small, flicker of orange flame licked between his fingers. It wasn't a spell. He didn't use an incantation. He simply imitated the hunger inside him.
"I have a week to live," Kaelen said, his voice dropping into a register that sounded dangerously like the dragon's. "I'm not going to spend it waiting to turn into ash. We go to the Crevice tomorrow. We find the relic. We reset the clock."
Ria nodded, a grim smile touching her lips. "Welcome back, Kaelen. I was worried the dragon had eaten your spine too."
As his friends drifted into a fitful sleep, Kaelen stayed awake, watching the orange light pulse beneath his skin. He realized he could hear the world now—the wind whistling through the cracks in the mountain, the distant chime of the mining bells, the slow, rhythmic breath of the earth itself.
He was no longer just a boy in a hole. He was a predator in a cage, and he had exactly seven days to break the bars.