Kiran woke up because his stomach was making sounds like a dying frog.
He sat up on the bed of dry leaves, blinking against the green glow of the giant mushrooms.
The air was cool and smelled of wet wood and damp dirt.
Beside him, Vaelgor was still dead to the world.
The massive grey drake was sprawled on his side, his broken horn digging a shallow groove into the dirt floor.
Every breath the dragon took sounded like a heavy shovel scraping across gravel.
The black scab over his wing was solid, but a faint, sour smell of dried blood still hung around his scales.
Kiran stretched his arms over his head.
He stopped, surprised.
Usually, after sleeping on cold dirt with no blanket, his lower back would ache for an hour.
His neck should have felt stiff as a board.
But when he rolled his shoulders, the joints popped cleanly.
There was no soreness.
His arms felt solid, and when he tapped his knuckles against his shin, the bone felt hard and dense, like tapping an oak table.
[JYOTI]
Host Status: Rested.
Iron Breath (First Stanza): 4.2%
Physical Condition: Stable.
Immediate Threat: Starvation.
Nutritional deficit reached critical threshold.
You don’t need to tell me that, Kiran thought, pressing his hands against his hollow belly.
I feel like I could eat my sneakers.
[JYOTI]
Sneakers are made of synthetic rubber and scorched denim.
Digestion impossible.
Recommendation: Find edible biomass near the water source.
Edible biomass.
You mean food.
[JYOTI]
Yes.
Kiran stood up, shaking the dry leaves off his pants.
He reached down and checked his waistband.
The heavy steel wrench was still tucked securely against his hip, hidden beneath the hem of his torn shirt.
He looked down at Vaelgor.
The dragon didn’t stir.
He looked like an old boulder sitting in the shadow of the colossal root.
“I’ll be right back,” Kiran whispered, though he knew the dragon couldn’t hear him.
He stepped out from beneath the shelter and walked toward the center of the valley.
The Outcast Hollow was quiet in the morning, if this place even had a morning.
The green mist hung low over the ground, swirling around the fat stalks of glowing ferns.
A few dragons were already awake.
Over by a pile of rotting logs, a thin, yellow-scaled drake with a torn ear was lazily chewing on a thick strip of dried bark, tearing off long grey splinters with its back teeth.
Down by a muddy pool, two young dragons—no bigger than cows—were playfully wrestling in the muck, hissing and snapping their blunt snouts at each other’s tails.
None of them paid Kiran any mind.
To them, he was just another little creature scurrying through the dirt, no different from the pale lizards crawling along the roots.
Kiran reached the bank of the wide, slow-moving stream.
The water was dark, almost black, but faint green swirls of glowing foam drifted along the surface, lighting up the shallow edges.
The bottom was lined with smooth, dark river pebbles and thick patches of black weed that swayed like wet hair in the slow current.
Kiran knelt by the water, cupping his hands to take a drink.
The water was freezing cold, with a sharp mineral bite that tasted like iron and wet stones.
It washed the dry taste of sleep from his mouth, but it did nothing for the hollow ache in his ribs.
Then he saw a ripple.
Three feet from the bank, hovering just above a patch of dark weed, was a fish.
It was about two feet long, thick-bodied, with heavy, silver-grey scales that looked like little iron coins.
It had no eyes—just two small pits on the side of its head—and four long, pale whiskers trailing from its lower jaw.
It sat nearly motionless in the slow current, its tail fin waving gently back and forth.
Kiran’s mouth instantly watered.
Can I eat that?
he asked silently.
[JYOTI]
Target: Iron-Scale River Carp.
Meat: Dense, high in fat and trace mineral energy.
Toxicity: None.
Scales: Hard.
Teeth are sharp.
Good enough for me.
Kiran slowly pulled off his soaked, cloth-wrapped shoes and set them on a dry rock.
He rolled up the bottoms of his jeans, wincing slightly as his bare feet touched the icy mud at the water’s edge.
He stepped into the shallows.
The water rose to his calves.
The current was slow, but it was cold enough to make his skin prickle.
He took a slow breath, dropping the air deep into his belly like Vaelgor had taught him.
The small knot of heat behind his ribs woke up, sending warmth down into his cold toes.
He crept forward, inch by inch, keeping his shadow behind him.
The blind fish didn’t move.
Its pale whiskers twitched, tasting the water.
Back home, catching a fish with your bare hands was something only survival experts on TV could pull off.
A normal kid would just slip on a wet rock and splash around like an idiot.
Kiran raised his hands over the dark water.
He waited until the fish drifted slightly closer to the bank, turning its fat silver flank toward him. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Now.
Kiran lunged.
His hands shot into the freezing water.
In that single second, Kiran felt something strange happen.
His eyes tracked the fish’s sudden dart with total clarity.
His arms didn’t feel slow or heavy in the water.
His fingers clamped shut around the fish’s tail and gill plates with a grip that was shockingly fast and tight.
The fish thrashed violently, slapping a wall of cold spray straight into Kiran’s face.
Its hard scales felt like wet coins, and its tail hit his forearm with the force of a wooden club.
A day ago, it would have ripped right out of his grip.
Today, Kiran’s fingers didn’t slip.
His grip held like an iron clamp.
He dug his heels into the river mud, spun around, and heaved the thrashing beast completely out of the water, throwing it hard onto the grassy bank.
The fish hit the dirt with a heavy, wet thud, flopping and slapping against the mud.
Kiran scrambled out of the river, pulled the steel wrench from his waist, and brought the heavy metal end down hard between the fish’s pale whiskers.
Crack.
The fish twitched once, its silver fins flaring, and then lay still.
Kiran fell back onto his rear on the riverbank, panting for breath, wiping water and mud from his eyes with his sleeve.
[JYOTI]
Catch confirmed.
Reaction speed: +18% compared to Earth baseline.
Grip force: Marginally reinforced by Iron Breath circulation.
Note: You look ridiculous, but you have breakfast.
Kiran gave a breathless, quiet laugh.
“Nobody asked you for fashion advice.”
He picked up the heavy fish by the gills.
It weighed at least ten or twelve pounds, thick and solid.
There was only one problem: he didn’t have a fire.
Eating raw, muddy river fish sounded like a great way to spend the next three days throwing up behind a root.
He looked back toward the shelters, wondering if he could borrow an ember from one of the dragon fire pits, but the thought of walking up to an unfamiliar, bad-tempered beast with an empty stomach made him hesitate.
“What are you holding, ape?”
Kiran jumped, nearly dropping the fish.
Standing on the muddy bank ten feet away was a young dragon.
It was about the size of a big pony, with skinny legs and dusty green scales that were peeling in places like dry paint.
One of its front horns was curved properly, but the other was crooked, growing sideways over its left eye like a broken branch.
It had a long, narrow snout and curious, bright orange eyes that were staring directly at the silver carp in Kiran’s hands.
Kiran instinctively pulled the fish closer to his chest, taking a half-step back toward the water.
“It’s a fish.”
The young dragon took two quick, awkward steps forward, its claws sinking into the mud.
It tilted its crooked head, sniffing loudly.
“Iron-carp,” the young dragon said, its voice high and scratchy, like a teenager whose voice was breaking.
“The big ones hide in the deep weeds.
Only the river drakes can dive deep enough to catch them.
How did a hairless thing grab one from the shore?”
“With my hands,” Kiran said warily.
“Are you going to try and take it?”
The young dragon snorted, a tiny puff of grey smoke curling from its crooked nostril.
“I don’t eat raw carp.
The scales stick between my teeth and make my gums bleed.
My name is Ignis.
Well…
my clutch-name was Ignis.
Now the old ones just call me Crooked-Horn.”
Kiran looked at the sideways horn blocking the young dragon’s eye.
“I’m Kiran.”
“Kiran,” the young drake repeated, taking another step closer, smelling the dead fish again.
“You belong to the big one who crawled in last night?
The one with the broken horn and the torn wing?”
“We travel together,” Kiran said.
“I don’t belong to him.”
Crooked-Horn gave a sharp, clicking laugh that sounded like dry river stones rattling in a cup.
“A human who doesn’t belong to anyone?
That’s funny.
If the guards on the upper rim caught you without a brand on your shoulder, they’d feed you to the hunting hounds in pieces.”
“Well, we’re not on the upper rim,” Kiran said.
He looked down at the cold, slimy fish, then looked back at the young dragon.
“Hey.
Can you make fire?”
Crooked-Horn puffed out his skinny chest proudly, his grey neck plates expanding.
“Of course I can make fire.
I am a drake of the Ember-Spire blood!
Even if they kicked me out for having a twisted head, my spark is pure!”
“Prove it,” Kiran said, pointing to a small circle of dry stones near the bank.
“Light a fire on those dry sticks over there, and I’ll give you half the fish.”
The young dragon’s orange eyes went wide.
He looked at the fat, silver carp, his stomach letting out a loud, hollow rumble that sounded suspiciously like Kiran’s had five minutes ago.
“Half?” Crooked-Horn asked, his voice suddenly very eager. The source of this chapter is g.com.
“You’ll cut the scales off?”
“I’ll gut it, scale it, and roast it on a spit,” Kiran said, pulling his wrench out and showing the flat, sharp edge of the handle.
“Deal?”
The young drake didn’t waste a second.
He scrambled over to the circle of stones, opened his narrow snout, and took a deep, wheezing breath.
A bright orange spark caught deep in his throat.
Fwhoosh!
A short, tight blast of bright yellow flame shot from his jaws, hitting the pile of dry twigs and river drift.
The wood caught instantly, crackling into a warm, cheerful little campfire.
Crooked-Horn sat back on his haunches, grinning proudly, his long tail sweeping the mud.
“See?
Pure Ember-Spire spark!”
“Not bad,” Kiran said, sitting down by the fire.
The heat felt wonderful against his damp face.
Using the flat end of his steel wrench and a sharp piece of slate he found by the water, Kiran went to work on the fish.
He scraped away the thick, coin-like scales, gutted the belly into the river, and cut the rich, pale-pink meat into thick fillets.
He skewered two massive chunks on green branches and held them over the flames.
Within minutes, the smell of sizzling fish fat and toasted meat filled the air.
It smelled rich, clean, and incredible.
Crooked-Horn was practically drooling, his long tongue slipping out the side of his mouth where his crooked horn didn’t block his view.
Kiran pulled the first cooked branch from the fire, blew on the steaming meat, and tossed it onto a flat leaf in front of the young drake.
Crooked-Horn didn’t even wait for it to cool.
He snapped his jaws shut, swallowing the hot meat and half the wooden stick in a single, noisy gulp.
“Hot,” the young dragon gasped, coughing up a tiny ring of smoke, but his orange eyes were shining with pure joy.
“Good!
Very good!
Sweet fat!”
Kiran smiled, taking a cautious bite from his own skewer.
The meat was firm, slightly sweet, and surprisingly juicy.
The moment it hit his empty stomach, an incredible wave of relief washed through him.
It wasn’t just food; there was a faint, pleasant tingling in the meat, like a mild spice that seemed to sink straight into his blood.
[JYOTI]
Nutritional intake: Optimal.
Trace elemental minerals absorbed from Iron-Carp flesh.
Iron Breath progress: 4.8%
Digestion efficiency: High.
Kiran ate in silence for a few minutes, watching the little campfire crackle between them.
“Crooked-Horn,” Kiran said between bites.
“Ignis,” the young dragon corrected, licking a smear of grease off his snout.
“Call me Ignis.
The old ones call me Crooked-Horn because they’re mean.”
“Ignis, then,” Kiran said.
“How many dragons live down here?”
“A few hundred,” Ignis said, his tail flicking lazily.
“Mostly old ones who can’t fly anymore, or young ones born with bad scales or twisted horns like me.
And some who made the King angry.
Like your big friend.”
“Why did the King kick you out?” Kiran asked gently.
Ignis looked down at his front claws, his orange eyes dimming slightly.
“My egg was laid in the high aerie of the Ember-Spire clan,” the young drake muttered.
“When I hatched, my horn was bent sideways.
The clan elders said a dragon with a crooked head brings bad luck to the war flights.
They told my mother to drop me into the gorge.”
Kiran’s jaw tightened.
“And she did?”
“No,” Ignis said quietly.
“She flew down here in the dark, left me on a bed of dry moss, and went back before the guards noticed she was gone.
I’ve lived in the roots ever since.”
Kiran looked at the skinny young beast sitting across the fire.
He thought about his own mother, packing his school lunch, yelling about the kettle, making sure he was wearing a sweater when the autumn wind blew.
“She didn’t drop you,” Kiran said softly.
“She kept you alive.”
Ignis blinked his big orange eyes, looking up at Kiran.
He seemed surprised by the thought, as if no one had ever said it to him that way before.
Before the young dragon could reply, a shadow fell across the small campfire.
The cheerful warmth vanished.
A heavy, suffocating pressure dropped onto Kiran’s chest, making his breath catch in his throat.
Standing at the edge of the riverbank, looking down at them with cold, slitted green eyes, was an enormous dragon.
It was easily fifty feet long, covered in dark, moss-covered scales that looked like ancient stone.
Around its thick neck was a heavy collar made of rusted iron links, and its broad, flat head was scarred with dozens of deep claw marks.
“Well, well,” a voice rumbled—deep, slow, and vibrating with dangerous power.
“A broken hatchling and a runaway ape sharing a fire on my riverbank.”
Ignis’s whole body went rigid with terror.
“Gorr,” the young dragon whimpered, scrambling backward until his hind legs splashed into the freezing water.
“We…
we were just cooking!”
The massive beast stepped forward, each claw sinking six inches into the mud.
He didn’t even look at Ignis.
His cold, green eyes were locked entirely on Kiran.