The Weight of a Dragon

Two days had passed since Joey had awakened with the power of the first dragon burning beneath his skin.

He had spent most of the first day convinced he was dying.

By the second, he had narrowed the possibilities down to three: he was dying, he was going insane, or the ancient dragon magic inside him was having a spectacularly bad time adjusting to its new home.

Behemoth favored the third explanation.

Cassandra favored the first two, depending on how much trouble Joey caused before breakfast.

And Joey himself was beginning to suspect all three could be true.

“Stop doing that,” Cassandra said.

Joey looked up from the rock he had been staring at.

“Doing what?”

“Staring at things like you're expecting them to confess their sins.”

“I wasn't.”

“You were glaring at that rock.”

“It's a suspicious rock.”

Behemoth, walking several paces ahead of them, turned his golden-haired head. “It is a rock.”

“That's exactly what it wants us to think.”

Cassandra closed her eyes briefly. “I have lived for more than six hundred years, and somehow this is the company I keep.”

“I seem to remember you chose me too...” Joey reminded her.

“Yes. And I have been questioning that decision since approximately the third day.”

“Third day?”

“You were charming on the first two.”

“I'm still charming.”

“Of course, darling.”

The way she said it made him suspect she was humoring him.

Which was unfair, because he was handling this whole ancient-power business remarkably well, considering he had spent the previous day accidentally setting a fallen tree on fire merely by touching it.

He hadn't even been trying to set it on fire.

He had wanted to move it.

The distinction seemed important to Joey.

Behemoth had explained that the energy of the first dragons was not simply a weapon. It was a remnant of something older than the supernatural world as most creatures understood it—a primal force that had helped shape the foundations of magic itself. Joey's body and spirit had somehow survived receiving a portion of it, but survival was not the same thing as mastery.

That was why they were taking their time returning to the manor.

The Dragon's Graveyard was dangerous enough before Joey became a walking magical catastrophe.

Now, every step required consideration.

They traveled along a narrow shelf of dark stone that wound between towering ridges of fossilized bone. The remains of ancient dragons rose from the earth in enormous arches and broken spines. Pale mist drifted through the ravines below, occasionally glowing blue where it passed over concentrations of old magic.

The Dragon's Grave Bloom rested in its stasis reliquary, secured to Cassandra's belt. Its faint light continued to point toward the strongest traces of the first dragons' power, which so far had been Joey himself.

They were heading away from the deepest part of the graveyard and toward the outer regions, where the terrain became more familiar and the concentration of magic gradually weakened.

If nothing went wrong, Behemoth estimated they could reach the manor in another day or two.

Joey had decided not to ask how often things went wrong in the Dragon's Graveyard.

He had a feeling the answer would be depressing.

“Tell me again why we're not teleporting out of here,” he said.

Cassandra stepped over a crack in the stone. “Because I cannot shadow-travel us across an area like this normally because of all of the competing magic. If we add in your new powers to the mix who knows what could happen.”

“Right.”

“I know you are worried about the others Joey, but if I tried it could send us half way across the world, or suck us into a hole in the ground and kill us all.”

“sounds unpleasant.”

“And because Behemoth has informed us that some of the old wards surrounding the graveyard might interpret sudden long-distance travel as an attempt to steal more of the first dragons' power.”

Joey nodded. “So we're walking because the magical graveyard might eat us, or blow us up if we try to take a shortcut.”

“Precisely.”

“Just wanted to make sure I wasn't over reacting.”

“The graveyard doesn't care about your opinion.” said Behemoth not in a rude way, just matter of factly.

“Most graveyards don't.” Joey chuckled.

Behemoth made a quiet sound that might have been amusement.

Joey glanced at him. “You know, for someone who has been alive long enough to remember the first dragons, you aren't especially reassuring.”

“I could tell you that the graveyard is safe.”

“Would that be true?”

“No.”

“Then I am glad you are not sugar coating it.”

“An excellent beginning to wisdom,” Behemoth replied.

Cassandra gave Joey a fond look. “You're learning.”

“I've learned that every supernatural being I've met thinks cryptic answers are the only type that exist.”

“They often are,” Behemoth said.

“See? That's what I'm talking about.” Joey sighed rolling his eyes.

For a moment, the road was almost peaceful.

Then Joey stumbled.

It wasn't a particularly dramatic stumble. His boot caught on a ridge of stone, and he reached out to steady himself against the wall

His palm touched the rock.

A thin line of blue-white light raced outward from his fingers.

Joey snatched his hand back.

The light vanished.

All three of them froze.

“Did you do that?” Cassandra asked.

Behemoth approached the wall, studying the stone where the light had spread. He crouched and held his hand near it without making contact.

“Old dragon magic,” he said. “Dormant, until you touched it.”

“I didn't mean to.”

“Intent is not always required. Your power is still learning to distinguish between your will and your instincts.”

Joey looked at his hand.

There was no visible change in it. No scales. No claws. No glowing veins, at least not at the moment. He looked like the same underpaid, underqualified man who had once thought his biggest problem was getting through a shift at Burger Chef without having to clean the grease traps by himself.

Except now he carried something inside him that had existed before most of the world's oldest monsters.

And he still couldn't reliably touch a rock.

“What happens if I lose control?” he asked the golden haired ally.

Behemoth didn't answer immediately.

That worried Joey more than any of the previous explanations.

“Your power responds to your instincts, right now” Behemoth said at last. “It may protect you before you consciously understand the danger. Then it responds to your emotions, and finally, hopfully with practice and training, it will respond to your will ”

“That's supposed to make me feel better?”

“No.”

“I'm beginning to appreciate your honesty.”

Cassandra slipped her hand into Joey's. “You aren't alone in this. If something happens, we'll help you.”

He squeezed her hand.

“And if I accidentally turn you into a pile of ash?”

“Then I'll be very annoyed.”

“Cassandra!”

“Darling, I have survived worse than your incompetence.”

“That's comforting.”

“It wasn't intended to be.”

She kissed his cheek before letting him go.

For a few steps, Joey felt better.

Then he noticed Behemoth watching him.

“What?”

“You must be careful when we encounter anything hostile,” Behemoth said. “The creatures of this place may sense the change in you. Some will flee. Others might try to challenge it.”

“Great. So I'm either a walking warning sign or a one man army.”

“An imperfect comparison.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Army's are less likely to destroy the surrounding landscape.”

Cassandra patted Joey's arm. “Try to be the warning sign.”

“I'll do my best.”

It was not a promise any of them found particularly reassuring.

They encountered the first signs of pursuit shortly after midday.

Behemoth noticed them before the others did. He stopped beside a cluster of enormous ribs jutting from the ground and lifted his head.

“Quiet.”

Cassandra's expression changed instantly. The humor disappeared from her face, replaced by the cold alertness Joey had seen when she faced Silas and the other hunters.

Joey listened.

At first, he heard only the faint wind moving through the bones.

Then came a scrape.

A distant clatter.

Something heavy shifting across stone.

Behemoth pointed toward a narrow passage between two ridges.

“Three creatures. Perhaps four. They are attempting to remain downwind of us.”

“Can you tell what they are?” Joey whispered.

“Not precisely.”

“Are they friendly?”

“No.”

“You didn't even think about that one.”

“Would you prefer I lie?”

“No, but a little hesitation might help me feel better.”

Cassandra drew a narrow blade from beneath her coat. Joey's own weapon—the cursed machete Greta had helped him acquire—hung at his hip. He wrapped his fingers around its grip.

The weapon felt familiar.

The energy inside him did not.

It was there all the time now, a deep pressure beneath his ribs. Sometimes it felt like heat. Sometimes like a second heartbeat. Occasionally it seemed to reach beyond his body, brushing against the world around him as if the world were a surface he could feel with his fingertips.

He didn't know how to make it stop.

He didn't know how to make it do anything useful, either.

The scraping grew louder.

A creature emerged from between the bones.

It was roughly humanoid, though the resemblance ended at its shape. Its body was covered in dark, overlapping plates, and its elongated skull had a narrow jaw filled with teeth. Four arms hung from its shoulders, each ending in hooked claws. Blue-green veins glimmered beneath its armor.

Two more followed.

The last one was larger than the others, with a thick armored chest and a long, bladed tail that dragged across the stone.

Joey had never seen these creatures before.

Behemoth had.

“Gravebound sentinels,” he murmured. “They were once guardians of the outer burial grounds. Leviathan has corrupted them.”

“Can we uncorrupt them?” Joey asked.

“Not while they are trying to kill us.”

“Worth asking.”

The largest sentinel tilted its head.

A wet clicking sound came from its throat.

Then it spoke.

“Bearer.”

The word echoed through the passage.

Joey felt the ancient power stir inside him.

Not a surge. Not yet.

More like a sleeping animal opening one eye.

The sentinel's gaze shifted to Cassandra, then Behemoth.

“The old power has chosen a vessel,” it rasped. “It is no matter, once you are dead it will choose a new master.”

“Leviathan,” Behemoth said.

The sentinel's jaws parted in something resembling a smile.

“You cannot stop him.” the creature looked amused.

Cassandra moved in front of Joey.

“Then tell your master he can come and collect his disappointment in person.”

The sentinel shrieked.

All three creatures charged.

Behemoth moved first.

Golden light erupted around him, and for an instant his humanoid form seemed to blur beneath the outline of the celestial kirin. He struck the first creature with a sweeping burst of energy, sending it crashing sideways into a mound of bone.

Cassandra vanished into a fold of darkness.

The second sentinel lunged toward Joey.

He drew his machete.

The creature's four arms came down in a flurry of strikes. Joey blocked the first with the flat of his blade, ducked the second, and barely twisted away from the third. The fourth caught his shoulder and threw him against the stone.

Pain exploded through his arm.

“Joey!” Cassandra shouted.

He pushed himself upright.

The sentinel advanced, claws scraping sparks from the rock.

Joey's shoulder throbbed. His breathing came fast. The creature was stronger than him—or at least, it should have been.

He remembered the dragon's trial.

The endless darkness.

The blows that had broken him again and again.

The voice that had demanded he rise.

He forced himself to stand.

“Okay,” Joey muttered. “I'm up. You can stop hitting me now.”

The sentinel lunged for Joey.

Joey raised his free hand.

He meant to shield himself.

Nothing more.

He didn't think about the power. He didn't summon it. He didn't even know how.

He simply wanted the creature to stop.

The ancient dragon magic answered.

For one impossible instant, the entire world went silent.

A blue-white ring flashed beneath Joey's boots. Lines of light raced through the stone, branching outward like cracks in glass. The air grew heavy, pressing against the sentinel as if the weight of a mountain had settled upon it.

The creature halted mid-lunge.

Its claws trembled inches from Joey's face.

Joey stared at it.

“Oh,” he said.

The sentinel tried to move.

The magic tightened.

Its armored body began to glow from within.

“Joey!” Behemoth shouted. “Release it!”

“I don't know how!”

The creature screamed.

Joey panicked.

That was the mistake.

He tried to push the magic away, to make it stop hurting the sentinel, to make the glowing lines disappear.

Instead, the power surged forward.

The blue-white ring expanded in a blinding flash.

Stone shattered.

The air cracked like thunder.

The sentinel vanished inside a column of ancient light.

For a fraction of a second, its silhouette remained visible—a towering shape with four arms spread wide.

Then the column collapsed inward.

The creature was gone.

Not thrown aside.

Not wounded.

Gone.

Where it had stood, the stone had been transformed into a shallow, perfectly smooth depression. Fine blue sparks drifted through the air and faded before reaching the ground.

The other two sentinels stopped dead.

Cassandra reappeared beside Joey, her blade raised, but even she seemed momentarily unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

Behemoth's golden light dimmed.

No one moved.

“Did I…”

He swallowed.

“Did I kill it?”

Behemoth looked at the empty patch of stone.

“Yes.”

Joey stared at the depression. Then at the remaining creatures, they turned to flee, joey remembered they would tell Leviathan about what they saw.

Joey reached out only to stop them, but the gesture bought near instant action, the other two creatures were instantly crushed flat to the ground as if a giant had stepped on them, a sickening crunch and wet sound was all that Joey heard.

“How badly did I..?”

Cassandra turned to him.

“Darling.”

“I know what you're going to say.”

“Do you?”

“I shouldn't have done that.”

“That is an excellent start.”

“I was trying to stop them. I wasn't trying to—” He gestured helplessly toward the flattened enemies. “Whatever that was.”

The remaining sentinel made a low, chittering noise.

Then it ran.

It scrambled over the dragon bones on all fours, its claws striking sparks as it fled.

Behemoth watched it go but made no attempt to pursue.

Joey stood very still.

His hand was still glowing. This time he willed that the creature needed to be stopped. Similar to the first creature this one lit up between its armor but instead of ceasing to exist, or being crushed, this ones fate was more cruel. It violently burst into flames like it was made of dragons fire. Within seconds everything organic on that creature was ash.

The pressure beneath his ribs had receded, leaving behind an awful emptiness, as though something enormous had stirred and then settled back into sleep.

He looked at Cassandra.

“Am I dangerous?”

She lowered her blade.

“Yes,” she said honestly. “At the moment, you are.”

"Are you afraid of me?" Joey asked.

As soon as he saw her face, Joey flinched.

Cassandra immediately took his face between her hands.

“But that doesn't mean you're evil, and it doesn't mean you can't learn to control it. You were frightened. You reacted. The creature was attacking you.”

“I didn't even know I could do any of that.”

“Which is why we need to be more careful.”

“The power of the first dragons does not simply burn or crush,” he said. “It can impose its will upon the substance of the world. For a brief moment, you may have forced the creature's physical form to unravel beneath the pressure of the magic.”

Joey stared at him. "I erased him, then horrifically killed the rest and all I did was think that I wanted them to stop."

"You need to learn to control what you are thinking, this was just a taste of the power of the first dragons." Behemoth said holding Joey's gaze.

“Can you say that in a way that doesn't make me feel like a gun somebody forgot to put a safety on?”

“You are a gun somebody forgot to put a safety on.”

“Behemoth!” Cassandra shouted.

“I am trying to not "sugar coat it.”

Cassandra pressed her forehead against Joey's.

“You are not going to solve this by hating yourself for what happened.”

He closed his eyes.

“I don't hate myself.”

“Joey..." Cassandra started to say.

“I'd like to speak to the manager of ancient dragon magic.” Joey said

“I suspect the manager is dead.” behemoth chuckled.

“Then I want his supervisor. This ancient dragon magic isnt acting right. ”

For the first time since the creature had vanished, Cassandra smiled.

It was small, but it helped.

Joey opened his eyes and looked at the ruined bodys again.

“I need to learn how to stop before that happens.”

“Yes,” Behemoth said. “And you will. But we must assume that Leviathan's forces now know something about what you can do.”

Joey's stomach tightened.

“when these guys dont come back it will be big ” Joey sighed.

“Most likely. They may have been sent to test your strength, or they may have encountered us by chance, either way these were powerful creatures."

“And Leviathan will want to destroy it..”

“He already wanted it,” Behemoth replied. “Now he has reason to fear it.”

Joey wasn't sure which part of that statement he liked less.

He looked down at his hands.

They seemed so ordinary.

That was the worst part.

He had spent most of his life wishing he were stronger. Wishing he could stand up for himself without his voice shaking. Wishing that, when danger came, he wouldn't be the person everyone else had to protect.

Now he had power enough to erase a monster from existence.

And he had nearly done it by accident.

“I'm not going to use that on people,” he said quietly.

Behemoth looked at him.

“Not unless I have to. Not unless there's absolutely no other choice.”

“Then remember that when you are afraid,” Behemoth said. “Power does not make the decision for you. But fear can make the decision before you realize you have made it.”

Joey nodded, though he wasn't certain he would remember those words when something with four arms and a mouth full of knives was trying to tear his face off.

Cassandra slid her hand into his.

“Come on,” she said. “Let's get you away from the place where you accidentally discovered you can delete things.”

“That's one way to describe it.” Joey shrugged.

“I thought it was rather accurate.” Behemoth stated.

“I preferred ‘unfortunate magical incident.’” Cassandra said openly. She snacks after your night game somwthing

She kissed him once, gently, and then stepped back.

“Are you hurt?”

“My shoulder.”

She examined it, her expression tightening as she found the bruising beneath his clothes. Her fingers were cool against his skin.

“Nothing broken,” she said. “But we'll keep an eye on it.”

“Good. Because I'd hate to be injured while walking through a place full of things that want to eat me.”

“Your timing is impeccable.” Cassandra said

“It's one of my gifts.” Joey mumbled

“Not the one we need to work on.” she quipped back.

They made camp that evening in the hollow of a vast dragon skull, its lower jaw half-buried in black earth.

It was not comfortable, but it provided cover on three sides and a clear view of the narrow approach. Behemoth checked the surrounding ground for traces of hostile magic. Cassandra established a perimeter of shadows that would alert her if anything crossed into their camp.

Joey was given the simple task of collecting dry branches.

He approached the first one with great care.

He picked it up.

Nothing happened.

He placed it in a pile.

Nothing happened.

He found another branch and carried it back.

Still nothing.

By the time he returned with his fifth armful, he was almost proud of himself.

Then he accidentally snapped a branch in half by gripping it too tightly.

He stared at the pieces.

Cassandra, sitting near the skull's entrance, looked up from sharpening her blade.

“Did you just win a fight with a stick?”

“No.” Joey said looking at the two pieces of wood.

“Because it appears the stick has been defeated.”

“I'm trying to learn my own strength.”

“Perhaps start with something less fragile than dry timber.” Cassandra laughed a bit.

Joey dropped the remaining branches beside the others.

“I am never going to live this down.”

“No,” Cassandra said cheerfully. “Probably not.”

Behemoth returned from his inspection and settled near the fire. “Your control is improving.”

Joey brightened. “Really?”

“You carried the branches without damaging the ground, igniting them, or causing them to levitate.”

Joey waited.

“That is progress,” Behemoth concluded.

“I'm setting a very low bar for myself.”

“An appropriate one, given the circumstances.” Behemoth said

Cassandra laughed softly.

The sound made the place feel less hostile.

They ate what little food remained in their packs. The fire burned low, casting long shadows across the skull's curved interior. Beyond it, the graveyard stretched into darkness, filled with the silhouettes of bones and broken stone.

For a while, nobody spoke.

Joey watched the fire and thought about the sentinel.

He had wanted to survive. He had wanted to protect himself and the people beside him. He hadn't wanted to destroy anything.

But the power inside him hadn't cared about the difference.

Not yet.

“What if I do that again?” he asked.

Cassandra set aside her blade.

“Then we deal with it.”

“What if I hurt one of you?”

“You won't.”

“You can't know that.”

“No,” she admitted. “I can't. But I know you. I know you would rather die than deliberately hurt one of us.”

“That doesn't mean I couldn't lose control.”

“No. It means we'll help you learn how not to.” Cassandra said squeezing his hand and laying her head on his shoulder.

Behemoth gazed into the fire.

“Your trial did not make you a master of the power,” he said. “It made you capable of carrying it. Mastery will require patience, discipline, and a willingness to admit when you do not understand something.”

Joey gave him a tired look.

“So, basically, I'm going to spend the rest of my life learning how not to blow things up?”

“Among other things.” Behemoth said

“Fantastic.”

“You may find that the power responds more readily to calm intention than to force. Tomorrow, we will begin with small exercises. You will learn to sense it without releasing it, then direct it without allowing it to expand beyond your intention.”

“And if I accidentally erase a mountain?”

“We will reconsider the size of the exercises.”

Cassandra leaned against Joey's side, slipping an arm around his waist.

“See? A plan.”

“A plan that includes the possibility of me erasing a mountain.”

“Darling, I've known you for long enough to understand that you will find a way to make almost anything complicated.”

He rested his head against hers.

“I'm glad you have so much faith in me.”

“I have tremendous faith in you.” Cassandra said, not a hint of mockery in her tone.

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I cannot say the same for your judgement but..."

Joey chuckled despite himself.

For the first time since the sentinel had vanished, the tightness in his chest began to ease.

He wasn't safe. He wasn't ready. He didn't understand what the dragon had given him, and the road ahead was still full of unknowns and things that could kill them.

But Cassandra was beside him.

Behemoth was watching over them.

And the manor was waiting.

Greta, Valerie, Elias, Taylor, Crystal, Harold—and Malcolm, who needed the Dragon's Grave Bloom before it was too late.

Joey thought of them all, and the ancient power stirred beneath his ribs.

This time, he didn't reach for it.

He simply breathed.

The glow faded.

Behemoth noticed, but said nothing.

They broke camp early the next morning.

The terrain began to change as they moved toward the graveyard's outer reaches. The enormous skeletons became less frequent, and the strange blue-white mist thinned into ordinary fog. The ground remained treacherous, but the air no longer pressed against Joey's senses with the same overwhelming intensity.

The reliquary at Cassandra's belt continued to glow, the Dragon's Grave Bloom inside still pointing toward the strongest remnants of ancient magic: Joey .

They had what they came for.

Now they needed to get home.

Their pace was careful, but steady. Behemoth led them through the safest routes he could identify, avoiding valleys where the ground hummed with dormant power and ridges where the bones shifted beneath their weight. Cassandra watched their flanks and used her shadows sparingly. Joey concentrated on keeping his hands to himself.

By midday, he had managed to move a small stone from the path without breaking it.

He celebrated quietly.

Cassandra applauded with the solemnity of a queen attending a royal ceremony.

Behemoth informed him that the stone had been an excellent size for his first controlled exercise.

Joey decided he liked the stone better than either of them.

That afternoon, they reached a ridge from which the land sloped down toward the outer boundary of the graveyard. Far in the distance, beyond a haze of pale mist, dark mountains marked the beginning of more familiar territory.

Behemoth studied the horizon.

“If the path remains clear, we should reach the edge of the graveyard tomorrow. From there, another day's travel should bring us close to the manor.”

“Two days,” Joey said.

“Approximately.”

“Assuming no more four-armed nightmares.”

“Assuming no more four-armed nightmares,” Behemoth agreed.

Cassandra glanced at Joey. “And assuming you don't decide to practice your new talent on anything else.”

“I am not practicing on anything.”

“You were looking at that boulder.”

“It looked movable.”

“Joey.”

“I didn't touch it!”

“Yet.”

He raised both hands.

“I am officially retiring from touching things.”

“An ambitious promise,” Behemoth said.

They continued down the ridge as the light began to fade.

Behind them, the Dragon's Graveyard stood silent beneath the gathering clouds. Somewhere deep within its ancient bones, old magic stirred in response to the power Joey carried away.

And far beyond the graveyard, Leviathan's servants were already carrying word of their casuality.

The fact that the vessel had been able to dispatch four of the Gravebound means they are incredibly powerful.

The fact that there had been rumors, frustratingly unsubstantiated, but credible none the less that Leviathan's brother was traveling witn this vessel was disturbing to say the least.

Leviathan would hear the truth soon.

Joey didn't know that yet. He was too busy concentrating on his footing and trying not to accidentally vaporize the landscape.

For now, he had one goal.

Get back to the manor.

Get the bloom to Malcolm.

Find Taylor.

And learn how to control the impossible thing beating inside his chest before the next enemy gave him a reason to use it.

The manor was only a day or two away.

For the first time since the trial, home felt close enough to reach.

And that, Joey was beginning to understand, was when the world tended to become dangerous again.