The first scream barely registers.

Dragon stables are loud places. 

Riders argue. 

Stablehands curse. 

Young dragons snap at one another across iron-barred enclosures. 

Most days, the cavernous structure beneath the royal aerie echoes with enough noise to drown out a single shout.

Lyra continues polishing the saddle, working oil into the worn leather with practiced movements.

 The stable around her hums with its usual chaos. Riders argue over training schedules.

 Stablehands haul feed sacks between stalls. Somewhere deeper in the cavernous structure, a young dragon rattles the bars of its enclosure in protest.

Only when a second scream tears through the stable does she look up.

This one is different.

Not the irritated shout of a rider thrown from a saddle.

Not the curse of a stablehand kicked by an impatient horse.

Terrified.

The kind of scream that comes from someone who has just seen death rushing toward them.
Conversations falter.

A bucket slips from someone’s hands and clatters against the stone floor.

For one strange heartbeat, the entire stable seems to hold its breath.

Then the eastern wall explodes.

Stone erupts inward in a violent spray of shattered rock and dust. A blast of heat slams through the stable hard enough to sting Lyra’s face. Horses rear in their stalls. Iron chains snap. Wooden beams groan under the sudden impact.

Something enormous crashes through three reinforced dragon stalls as though they were made of paper.

The floor shudders beneath Lyra’s boots.

A support pillar splinters.

Dust rains from the ceiling.

People scatter instantly.

A rider drops his spear and runs.

Another abandons the dragon he had been preparing for flight.

A stablehand dives beneath a feed cart as debris crashes across the aisle.

Smoke begins pouring through the ruined wall, thick and dark, carrying the unmistakable scent of fire.

And through the haze, something massive moves.

Another abandons a young dragon he had been preparing for flight.

Smoke floods the stable, thick and choking, turning the air into a haze of ash and drifting embers.

 The sharp scent of burning hay fills Lyra’s lungs, mixing with the smell of scorched wood and dragonfire. Her stomach drops before she even sees the creature moving through the destruction.
Because she already knows which dragon is powerful enough to tear through a royal stable built to withstand dragon attacks.

Nox.

The legendary black dragon.

The Dragon King’s dragon.

Stories about him travel farther than armies and linger longer than wars. Children whisper his name around campfires and dare one another to say it after dark. Merchants crossing the eastern seas claim he once reduced an entire fortress to molten stone in a single night. Sailors swear they’ve seen his shadow pass across the moon. Riders speak of him in lowered voices, always careful to glance around first, as though the dragon himself might be listening.

Most people spend their entire lives hearing stories about Nox without ever laying eyes on him.
Lyra certainly never expected to find herself standing less than twenty yards away while he tears through stone walls like an approaching storm.

He emerges from the smoke, vast and terrifying, his scales black as midnight and edged with the faint shimmer of firelight. Broken chains drag behind him across the stone floor. His wings scrape the shattered remains of the stalls as he moves, and every step sends vibrations through the stable beneath Lyra’s feet.

Then he lifts his head.

Golden eyes burn through the smoke, bright and unnatural against the chaos surrounding him.

Then he opens his jaws.

Fire erupts from his throat.

Not the bright orange flames Lyra has seen from ordinary dragons during training exercises. This fire is different. The center burns almost white, so hot it hurts to look at, while the edges glow gold and blue. The blast roars across the stable like a living thing, swallowing an entire row of empty stalls in an instant.

Wood blackens.

Iron buckles.

Stone cracks.

The nearest stall simply disappears beneath the inferno.

Heat slams into Lyra like a physical blow. She throws an arm across her face as scorching air washes over her, stealing the breath from her lungs. Sweat beads instantly along her skin. The exposed side of her face feels as though it has been shoved too close to a forge.

Run.

Every instinct she possesses screams the same command.

Run now.

Around her, everyone else already has.

Riders abandon their equipment. Stablehands scramble over one another in their desperation to reach the exits. Horses shriek and kick against their stalls. Somewhere behind her, someone is praying. Somewhere else, someone is screaming.

The stable has become pure panic.

Lyra’s feet tense to move.

Then she hears a cry.

“Lyra!”

The voice cuts through the chaos.

Small.

Panicked.

Desperate.

And painfully familiar.

Her head snaps toward the sound.

Through the smoke and drifting embers, she spots a small figure on the ground near one of the collapsed support beams.

Tomas.

One of the youngest stable boys.

No more than ten years old, with permanently messy brown hair and a talent for finding trouble even on quiet days. Half the stable spent their time yelling at him to slow down before he got himself hurt.

Today, it looks like they were right.

A heavy support timber had crashed across Tomas’s leg, pinning him beneath a tangle of broken boards, shattered stall doors, and burning debris. Flames licked along the edges of the wreckage, feeding on scattered straw and dry wood while thick smoke curled around him in dark, choking waves.

Tears carved clean tracks through the soot smeared across his face. His small hands clawed desperately at the beam trapping him, but it didn’t budge. Panic filled his wide brown eyes as he looked around at the destruction closing in from every direction.

“Lyra!”

His voice cracked on her name.

He stretched one trembling hand toward her as another section of the ceiling groaned overhead, showering sparks and dust onto the stable floor.

And despite the dragon tearing the building apart around them, despite the heat, the fire, and the very real possibility that they were all about to die, the first thought that flashed through Lyra’s mind was:

Of course it’s Tomas.

The boy had a remarkable talent for finding trouble.

He tripped over his own feet at least twice a week. He once managed to fall into a water trough while standing completely still. Last month, he’d somehow gotten stuck inside an empty feed barrel and had needed three stablehands to pull him back out.

If disaster was looking for a victim, Tomas always seemed determined to volunteer first.

Normally, the thought would have made her laugh.

Right now, it only made her heart sink.

Because this wasn’t another harmless accident.

The fire was spreading.

The roof was coming down.

And if she didn’t reach him soon, Tomas wasn’t walking out of this stable alive.