Ember POV
When I woke up, my first thought was that the afterlife was much darker than I expected.
My second thought was that the afterlife smelled damp.
It took me a few moments to realize I was not dead.
I was lying on cold stone inside a cave, my body aching, my head heavy, and my injured wing wrapped tightly against my side. The pain was still there, but it was no longer the unbearable, burning agony from before.
I breathed out slowly.
Alive.
Somehow, I was still alive.
Then I tried to move my wing.
“Stop!”
The sharp voice made me freeze.
My head snapped up.
The hyuman was sitting nearby, one hand stretched toward me, his eyes wide with panic.
“Don’t move that,” he said quickly. “Your wing is badly hurt. If you force it open, you could make the break worse. Maybe even permanent.”
I stared at him.
He spoke quickly, but there was no hatred in his voice. No greed. No disgust. Only worry.
Strangely enough, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
So I lowered my wing back onto the cave floor.
The hyuman blinked.
“Do you understand me?”
“Of course I understand you,” I answered. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He did not react to my words.
Instead, he frowned slightly.
“Alright, I don’t understand you. So if you understand me, blink once. Or tap your tail. Something like that.”
That was interesting.
Very interesting.
I could understand him, but he could not understand me.
I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out what kind of hyuman he was. He did not smell like the ones my mother had warned me about. He did not look at me like treasure, prey, or a threat.
He looked at me like I was hurt.
Like that mattered.
So I blinked once, slow and clear.
His expression changed immediately.
Before he could say anything else, he suddenly froze and stared at empty air.
I watched him carefully.
His eyes moved as if he was reading something I could not see. Then, after a short while, his face lit up with such pure joy that I forgot my pain for a moment.
He started talking to himself about a dream coming true.
I did not understand most of it.
But his smile…
His smile was strange.
Warm.
Bright.
Completely unguarded.
I had never seen anything like it.
Dragons did not smile that way. Not my mother. Not the professor. Not the young male dragons she sometimes brought to the mountain. Dragons showed pride, amusement, hunger, irritation, victory.
Not this.
Not open happiness.
I found myself staring.
Since I could not fly anyway, I decided there was no harm in satisfying my curiosity. Slowly, carefully, I began moving toward him.
The closer I got, the stranger I felt.
His scent reached me first.
It was difficult to explain.
He smelled safe.
That should have been impossible. Hyumans were supposed to smell like danger, smoke, metal, and greed. This one did not. His scent reminded me of warmth, clean rain, and the soft feeling of curling up somewhere protected.
Before I realized what I was doing, I pressed my face against his leg and rubbed against him.
I only meant to smell him once.
Maybe twice.
Then he placed his hand on my head.
I sprang backward instantly.
My heart slammed against my chest.
The hyuman looked startled too. A faint red color spread across his face, and he seemed embarrassed.
For some reason, that made my heart beat even faster.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I stared at him.
How was I supposed to answer a question like that if he could not understand me?
Thankfully, he figured it out quickly.
“Oh, duh.” He slapped a hand against his own forehead. “Why don’t you shake your head side to side for no and nod up and down for yes?”
I nodded.
It felt a little silly.
But he looked satisfied, so I decided I had done well.
“Well then, is anything wrong? Are you in pain? Do you need anything?”
I shook my head.
That was not entirely true.
My wing hurt. My body hurt. My pride hurt most of all.
But I did not want to admit that.
He sighed.
“You know, I can’t help you if you don’t help me help you.”
I hesitated.
Then I slowly walked back over to him.
This time, I tried very hard not to lose control of myself. He began checking my injuries with careful hands, inspecting the wrappings around my body and wing.
It was strange.
Dragons did not allow others to touch them easily. Even among our own kind, touch was rare and meaningful. A dragon’s body was pride, power, and territory all at once. Letting someone touch you meant trust.
I would not have let the professor touch my wing.
I barely let my mother touch me.
And yet, here I was, letting a strange hyuman examine my injuries.
Worse, I did not hate it.
His hands were gentle.
Careful.
Warm.
A strange comfort spread through me, and I had to fight the urge to lean into his touch.
“You seem to be fine, other than an increased heart rate,” he said. “But that could be nothing. I’ll continue to check your condition until you’re ready to leave, if that’s alright.”
I nodded and rolled back onto my stomach.
I was only slightly disappointed when he stopped touching me.
Only slightly.
Then he asked, “Do you have a name?”
I tilted my head.
A name?
I knew the word, but I had never thought of it as something that belonged to me.
“Oh, you probably don’t know what that word means, huh,” he said. “It’s something people call each other so they know who they’re talking to. For example, my name is Kai.”
Kai.
The word settled in my mind.
Kai.
His name was Kai.
“Do you have anyone who calls you something to address you?” he asked.
I thought about it.
Mother called me child.
The professor called me girl.
Others had called me hatchling, foolish one, little flame, troublesome daughter.
But none of those were mine.
In dragon culture, names were not given at birth. A dragon earned a name through greatness, disgrace, valor, or sin. A name was a mark placed upon your existence by the world.
I had not earned one.
Until that moment, I had never cared.
But sitting in front of Kai, a creature with a name of his own, I suddenly felt the emptiness of not having one.
So I shook my head.
His expression softened.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by asking.”
He looked guilty.
That bothered me.
I did not want him to look that way.
“Well,” he continued, “I’ll need to call you something. I don’t like just saying ‘you’ or ‘dragon.’ So do you mind if I give you a name? It doesn’t have to be permanent. Just something I can call you.”
For a moment, I could not move.
He wanted to give me a name.
Not because I had conquered an enemy.
Not because I had committed some terrible sin.
Not because the world had judged me worthy or unworthy.
Simply because he wanted to call me something.
Because to him, I was not an object.
Not a beast.
Not just a dragon.
I nodded as fast as I could.
Kai laughed.
“Alright, alright. Geez. Settle down, will you?”
I tried.
Barely.
He looked at me for a while, studying my scales, my claws, my tail, my eyes. His gaze was not greedy or fearful. It was thoughtful.
Careful.
Then he smiled.
“How does Ember sound?”
Ember.
The word struck something deep inside me.
It was warm.
Small, but alive.
A flame that had not yet become an inferno.
A beginning.
My name.
Ember.
I stared at him.
For a long moment, everything else disappeared.
The cave.
The pain.
The blood.
The fear.
There was only Kai, his voice, and the name he had given me.
My heart thundered in my chest.
I did not understand what was happening to me. Dragons were possessive by nature. We guarded what mattered to us, whether that was treasure, territory, family, pride, or memory.
But this was different.
This was not gold.
This was not a cave.
This was not something I wanted to own.
It was something I wanted to stay near.
Something I wanted to protect.
Something I wanted to never lose.
Kai had saved me.
Kai had held me.
Kai had given me a name.
The feeling built inside me too quickly, too fiercely, like fire filling my lungs.
I leapt at him.
He yelped as I knocked him onto his back.
I rubbed against him, pressing my head to his chest, his shoulder, his neck, trying to surround myself with his scent. I did not want to frighten him, so I held myself back as much as I could.
Hyumans were supposed to fear dragons.
I did not want Kai to fear me.
If he feared me, he might leave.
No.
No, that thought was unbearable.
Kai would not leave.
My Kai would not leave.
The words appeared in my mind before I could stop them.
My Kai.
I pressed my head against his chest and heard it.
His heartbeat.
Steady.
Warm.
Alive.
The sound wrapped around me like safety.
My eyes grew heavy, but this time I was not afraid of closing them.
The last thought I had before sinking into that warm, wonderful feeling was simple.
Nobody would take my Kai from me.