Chapter 2
Echoes of Dragon Blood
Valerius reveals Elara's latent ability to sense dragon magic. He begins her training in the dangerous dragon blood magic, a process that leaves her physically drained and marked.
The air in the cave was thick with the scent of damp earth and something else, something ancient and sharp, like ozone after a lightning strike. Elara, her heart still thrumming a wild rhythm against her ribs, followed Master Valerius deeper into the earth’s embrace. He moved with a surprising grace for a man whose frame was stooped with age and perhaps, she now suspected, with secrets. His hand, gnarled like an ancient root, gestured towards a shallow alcove where a single, rough-hewn stone pedestal stood. Upon it rested nothing, yet Elara felt a pull, a faint, humming resonance that vibrated deep within her bones.
“This is where it begins,” Valerius’s voice, a low rumble, seemed to echo from the very stones. “You feel it, don’t you? The echo. The latent power that stirs within your blood.”
Elara nodded, her throat tight. She *did* feel it. It was a strange sensation, like a phantom limb, a presence just beyond her grasp. It made the hairs on her arms prickle, and a warmth, unfamiliar and potent, spread through her chest. She’d always been sensitive, noticing the subtle shifts in the wind, the moods of the forest, but this was different. This was a thrumming, a living pulse that seemed to call