The Enchanted Warriors (Dragon Riders AU)

89🖤

⚠️Hello everyone, please read this chapter carefully and with caution. Some scenes may feel heavy or emotionally disturbing.⚠️

Tori moved like a ghost through the dark, her footsteps barely making a sound against the cold stone. The long coat hung heavy on her frame, pulled tight around her as if she were trying to hold herself together-piece by fragile piece. The night bit into her skin, but it was nothing compared to the ache spreading through her chest, deep and relentless. It wasn't just pain. It was something older. Something that refused to heal. She clutched the fabric closer, as if it might keep her heart warm-if not whole.

Kai had told her to meet him at the back of the north wing, near the last gate.

But now that she was here, the path was empty.

No Kai.

No voices.

No movement

except the silver beast.

The silver dragon stood ahead, its massive form half-shadowed by the stone walls. Its eyes lifted the moment it sensed her, glowing softly as recognition flickered through them.

It did not attack.

It only watched.

Tori's breath faltered.

Her hands felt heavy-wrong.

For a second, she swore she could feel it again... something warm, No matter how many times she blinked, no matter how hard she pressed her hands into herself-curling her fingers until her bones ached-it wouldn't

leave.

The red stayed.

Not on her skin-no.

Deeper.

It clung to her like a curse, like something that had found its way beneath flesh and refused to be torn out. Hanbin's blood-she could see it, feel it-coating her hands, seeping into the lines of her palms, sinking past skin, past veins, into the very marrow of her bones.

It wasn't something she could wash away.

It had stained her mind.

Her heart.

Her soul.

And no matter how still she stood, no matter how much she tried to become nothing it followed.

Her chest drew tight, painfully, like something inside her was clawing its way out-too loud, too sharp, too alive to be buried.

A name she refused to let herself hear-

yet felt in every broken beat of her hear

the dragon was still there.

Watching her.

Not with hunger.

Not with anger.

Like it could see everything she was trying so desperately to hide.

And for the first time that night-

Tori felt exposed. The musk is slipping away.

Not to the darkness.

But to the truth she was trying to outrun.

Tori moved toward the silver dragon.

Then the night turned hot.

A low growl rolled through the courtyard, deep enough to rattle her bones.

Before she could reach the gate, a red dragon dropped from the darkness above, landing between her and the silver beast with enough force to split the stone beneath his claws.