Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

Raizen fell.

Wind slammed into his face, hot and cold at the same time. The Sky Domain rushed upward past him. The curve of the giant trunk blurred at the edge of his vision, then slipped out of sight.

Ukai dropped away.

Huge platforms turned into small circles. Bridges thinned into lines. Lanterns became tiny, shaking sparks against the greenery. The dragon and the black cloak were way above him, four wings beating, slipping into open air.

The only thing he could see was a smear of blue and green in the distance, and the grey sky above him.

Suddenly, something pierced the air beside him.

Something that looked like a line.

Thin, bright red, humming in the air like a string let loose. It came from somewhere above and ahead - from the cloaked figure.

It snapped around his waist in one clean loop.

The impact jerked the breath out of him. For a second, his body folded in half from the force. The fall stopped. The rush of air changed direction.

The line pulled.

He shot upward, dragged through the sky like a hooked fish. The ground still spun far below, but now the dragon's tail rushed closer again - black scales, red embers under them, tail fins flared.

Raizen's hands moved before his brain caught up.

His fingers closed around a ridge just above the tail fins. The Eon thread loosened a fraction, giving him space to grab properly. The pressure around his waist eased. Then the line flicked away from his body and vanished, sinking back toward the cloaked figure's hand.

He hung there for a second, teeth clenched, boots kicking at empty air.

The dragon didn't slow down.

The four wings beat in a steady, powerful rhythm. Each stroke sent a low hum through its body - a sound Raizen felt more in his chest than in his ears. The air around the beast vibrated with it, a quiet, constant note.

He pulled himself up.

Hand over hand along the ridges of scale, using the tail like a thick rope. His arms burned, but the motion was simple. Climb or fall.

The wind pulled at his clothes, tugging hair into his face. He squinted through it, jaw set.

One breath.

Another.

His hand reached the thicker base of the tail. Then the beast's back broadened under him, a slope of black plates with narrow seams glowing the same faint, slow red.

Raizen swung a leg up and threw himself forward.

He almost overshot, momentum trying to roll him off the other side. His fingers scraped hard scale, slipped, then caught on a raised seam.

He froze, pressed flat against the dragon's back, chest to armor, every muscle tight.

The beast held its path.

The wind settled into a new pattern around him. Less like falling, more like riding inside some invisible current.

Slowly, carefully, Raizen shifted his weight and pushed himself up until he was sitting.

He found a spot where the plates dipped just a little, forming a shallow curve near the base of the neck. Not a saddle, but something that almost worked like one. His knees pressed against warm back. The glow under the surface pulsed with each breath the dragon took.

In front of him, the cloak sat still.

No words. No gesture. No looking back.

Just fabric and a spine that seemed perfectly at ease on the moving beast.

Raizen didn't say anything.

He couldn't have found words even if he had wanted to.

Ukai was behind them now.

From here, the city looked unreal. The great central tree bore platforms like small rings, bridges like veins, lanterns like scattered stars. Smaller trees clustered around it, each one huge on its own, now reduced to a forest of toothpicks.

And all of it was shrinking.

The dragon tilted them gently. The four wings angled, changing the hum, and the whole view slid to the side.

Ahead, the world opened.

Green. Not just forest. A sea of it, rolling over hills and cliffs, broken by flashes of white and silver where water fell.

The rainforest waited under them.

They glided toward it.

As they left Ukai's immediate airspace, the air changed. It tasted wetter. Heavier. Full of plant breath. Mist. The wind was warmer here, carrying faint smells of earth and leaves and something sweet he couldn't name.

Below, the trees were enormous.

Not like the ones around his village. These were giants, their crowns layered, branches woven together in living bridges. Some of them rose even higher than Ukai's outer platforms, reaching toward the sky with thick arms grown fat with age.

Between them, rivers cut bright paths, catching the light as they twisted through the green.

Waterfalls were everywhere.

Some spilled from cliff edges, falling into hidden pools below in white bursts. Others slid down slopes, clean and graceful, like ribbons of glass.

Mist clung to the air around them.

In that mist, color broke.

He saw the first rainbow as a full arc, simple and clean, all colors present, hanging over a gorge.

The second was wrong.

It curved over another fall, but only three colors showed.

Red.

Yellow.

Blue.

The other stripes were missing. The spray caught the light differently there, reflecting back only those threads.

Raizen's mouth was slightly open.

No words. Just breath.

Another waterfall slid past under them. The pool it fed was a deep, impossible green, almost glowing. Tiny dots of color flew over it.

Birds.

Not quite.

One of them swooped close enough that he could see its shape.

It had a parrot's wings, wide and strong, feathers bright with orange and teal. But its head was not a parrot's. It belonged to something else - a chameleon, eyes big and rolling, skin shifting tone as it turned.

Farther off, a shape glided between trunks.

A squirrel at first glance. Big, too big, its body stretched long. Then the membrane along its sides caught the wind and billowed out. It flew like a glider, tail long and feathered at the end, fanning out like a bird's.

The dragon flew on, barely slowing down.

With each small correction of its wings, the view tilted, offering another slice of the forest.

A narrow ravine with water rushing at the bottom, walls covered in hanging vines.

A cluster of trees with blue flowers exploding from their crowns.

A series of smaller waterfalls stepping down a mossy rock face, each level its own pool, some with little rainbows sitting in their spray.

One of those rainbows was only violet and pink.

He had never seen anything like it.

The dragon began to descend.

Not sharply. Just slowly lowering, angles flattening. The wind softened against his face, less sharp now, more like a constant, warm pressure.

They dropped under a layer of mist.

Everything felt closer.

Leaves passed not too far below, broad and shiny, some as long as a small boat. Branches thicker than streets crossed under them. The sound rose to meet them - water, distant and near, frogs, hidden things calling to each other.

Tiny flecks of light drifted in the air in some pockets, like dust made of Eon.

Raizen's hands rested on the dragon's scales, fingers spread.

Who are you? he wanted to ask the cloak in front of him. What are you?

But he said nothing. He kept watching the miracles before him.

To his left several waterfalls converged. They fell in different directions, some straight, some angled, meeting in a churning basin wrapped in rock and hanging plants.

Something moved through it.

Wings. Not the dragon's. Much smaller.

An eagle came out of the fog.

It was not enormous. Maybe twice the size of normal ones Raizen had seen in pictures, but nothing like the dragon or Ukai's beasts.

Its feathers were white where light hit them, clean and bright. Along the tips and in patterns on its wings, dark gold traced lines, catching the sun. It looked natural and not at the same time.

It glided on a current of air, barely moving its wings at first. Then, with a few precise beats, it drew closer.

The dragon tilted its path a little, allowing the eagle to close the last stretch of air between them.

Raizen held his breath without meaning to.

The eagle rose, then dropped gently toward the cloaked figure.

Its talons did not reach for flesh.

They caught fabric.

Cleanly, almost politely, the bird's claws gripped the edge of the black cloak near the shoulder. Its wings spread wide to hold its position, then it pulled.

The cloak slid back.

Not ripped off. Not torn.

Just pulled away in one smooth motion, like this had been rehearsed more than once.

The hood fell first, and dark red hair spilled out.

It was long enough to brush the woman's hips, straight with a few waves, catching the fragmented light that slipped between clouds and mist.

Underneath, the clothes were simple.

A short, fitted top, white and practical, leaving her midriff bare. Straps crossed over her shoulders and back, clinging trousers built for movement, tucked into black boots. Nothing heavy. Nothing ceremonial.

All of it cut to move with the dragon, not fight against it.

She sat with the ease of someone who had spent more time in the sky than on the ground.

The eagle drifted off to one side, circling them once more before banking away with the cloak.

Raizen sat there, behind her, staring.

She didn't look back at him right away.

Her head was turned slightly to the side, watching the world ahead - the falling water, the impossible trees, the strange color-sliced rainbows blooming in the mist.

He had chased a cloak.

Jumped out of a window.

Hung off a dragon's tail.

Now he rode in silence through a sky that felt like it belonged to her.

As if sensing his eyes on her, the woman finally lifted her chin a fraction.

"Nice to meet you…"

"…Raizen"