Dragon's Dawn: First Light (Book 1)

Chapter 3: Reynar, The Jade Demon Slayer

Chapter Three: Reynar, The Jade Demon Slayer

Some people you seek out. Others, you find your way back to — the way water finds the sea, without needing to think about the route.

Reynar Tokyoheim was the second kind.

The streets of Shuratown were doing what they always did: everything, simultaneously, without coordination, yet somehow producing a result that was lively rather than chaotic. Vendors called across stalls; children wove between adult legs with the fluid confidence of people who had never once been the largest thing in a room. The scent of salt from the harbor mixed with the savory grease of street food—a combination Max had long ago stopped noticing because it was simply what home smelled like.

Skyye, walking beside him, was noticing everything. She took in the layered stone buildings climbing the hillside, the network of piers visible between market stalls, and the sheer density of human life occupying space in every direction.

Max caught her expression. "Something on your mind?"

She blinked. "It just never stops surprising me. How much bigger this place is than Guerrinville."

"You get used to it."

"You say that like it's obvious."

"It is. I grew up here."

Skyye gave him the look of someone who didn't find his reasoning particularly compelling. Max just shrugged, enjoying the odd, slow pace. The morning had contained a demon army, a zeppelin, a daring escape, and the revelation that they could all fly. Now, they were walking with the aimless grace of people who had nowhere they urgently needed to be. The urgency had burned itself out, replaced by the heavy, pleasant exhaustion that follows a crisis.

It was Mist who noticed Skyye had gone quiet. She drifted over, matching her pace. "Something wrong? You seem a bit down."

Skyye offered a smile—sincere about the gratitude, honest about the sadness beneath. "I’m just worried. We got away. But did my family? Did the people on the island? I haven't heard anything."

Mist didn't offer hollow reassurances. "I think they're safe. But I know that me saying so doesn't make it certain. I just... I trust that Elohim is watching over them. That He hasn't forgotten them just because we can't see them."

Skyye paused. "Elohim."

"You don't believe in Him."

"I don't know what I believe. I never really thought about it." She hesitated. "No offense."

"None taken," Mist said easily. "It sounds strange from the outside—believing in someone you can't see."

Skyye turned this over in her mind. Her parents had believed, in their quiet way. They’d had so little in the material sense, yet they were genuinely content. She’d never understood it, but for the first time, she wasn't sure she wanted to dismiss it, either.

Mist pulled her into a sudden, warm hug. Skyye stood in it for a moment, surprised, then returned it, feeling the last of the tension bleed away.

"We like your smile better," Mist said, pulling back.

"Significantly preferable," Hoko added, in the tone of an objective analyst.

Skyye laughed, a genuine, unguarded sound. She looked at the group—seven of them now—and realized with a start that she had walked into the Blacksmith home that morning knowing one person, and was leaving with a family.

The Tokyoheim home was warm, well-lit, and smelled of cinnamon. It wasn't the imposing, high-security fortress Skyye had subconsciously expected; it felt like a house where people actually lived.