m with.
Still, it was a start.
Braeden kept watching until twilight had turned into darkness, the mountain before him nothing but a spot of blackness against the dark sky.
Then, very carefully, he rose and moved closer.
As the new master of the element of fire, he could cloak himself in flames. He would appear just like any other fire dragon—or so he hoped. Still, just in case, he made sure to use the bushes and trees as cover, continually sending his dragon’s senses out.
There was a distant thread of fire calling out to him—that had to be the elaborate system of caves and tunnels hidden underground where they’d made their home.
But when he reached out to the mountain in front of him, feeling for where the opening had been, he couldn’t sense any remnant of the living flame that burned inside his soul.
There was a taste of cold ashes in his mouth, a sensation of darkness and old, stale air. It made his mind want to move on, to leave this place of old rocks and shadows behind—but instead of giving in to that urge, he forced himself to focus.
It was a trick. Some sort of defense mechanism put in place by a fire dragon far stronger than Braeden had been.
But that had changed. Braeden had been chosen by the element of fire as its new champion.
He set his senses against the shadows that wanted to distract his mind. He could have burned straight through the defenses—but he wanted to avoid alerting anyone of his presence.
He had been set a clear task: find and disable Steele, the leader of the fire dragons.
Braeden didn’t even know if this was where Steele had gone into hiding. There were secret lairs all over the place. He himself knew of at least six locations and wouldn’t be surprised if there were two times as many.
But this place was a start. And perhaps, once he was inside, he’d be able to find information on Steele, even if the dangerous shifter wasn’t here.
Everything was silent when Braeden finally reached the side of the mountain.
He placed a hand against the rock, feeling for the opening he’d seen earlier.
And there was the hint of fire magic he’d looked for, running like a wire-thin thread of heat through this part of the rock.
Braeden called out to the dancing flame in his heart, and the thread began to vibrate.
A moment later, an opening appeared in the rock before him. It revealed the dark tunnel hidden beneath, large enough that a shifted dragon could fit through.
Braeden remained in his human form as he stepped inside. After he’d taken several steps forward, the rock rumbled, and the opening behind him disappeared.
For a moment, it felt as if darkness had swallowed him.
Patiently, Braeden waited. After a moment, his human eyes grew used to the sudden darkness. He began to pick out the subtle, red glow in the distance that beckoned him onward, calling out to both his human need for light and to the fire within him.
It was silent inside the mountain. He walked for perhaps half an hour—it would have been faster to travel in his dragon form, but he wasn’t certain whether that might alert them to his presence.
If he was very lucky, the dragons of this lair hadn’t heard about how he’d betrayed their kin. Still, better not to chance it.
Furthermore, he wasn’t quite sure if his new-found power as the master of fire might not give him away. He'd been working hard to keep the flame within him contained, but he was still new to it.
Before, he'd been strong. He'd been one of the fighters sent out to the surface for that first direct attack against one of the dragons of the council of elements.
But he'd never been filled with such power before. He could feel it coursing through his veins even now.
The element of fire had chosen him.
Now he just had to prove that he was worthy of the fire inside his heart—and worthy of a seat on the council.
He made his way forward through a maze of tunnels. Everything was still silent and dark, except for the torches that burned here and there, each of them lit by dragon fire, so that they would burn for days without fuel.