Chapter 1: The Scientist and the Dragon

The stars above were silent.

Eirlys adjusted her telescope, searching for order in the chaos. She was a scientist searching for a star maybe because it reminded her of her parents. Galaxies spun in spirals of fire. Nebulae bloomed like wounds across the heavens. She listened to the equations whispering in her mind, steady and precise. Numbers never betrayed her. Numbers gave shape to the void.

But tonight, something broke..

A light tore through the sky too erratic for a comet, too alive for a star.

It pulsed. Throbbed. Each flicker seemed to echo inside her chest, like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.

The observatory windows shivered. Metal strained. The air cracked with a soundless scream.

And then it appeared.

A blue-green dragon.

It didn’t descend from the sky. It was the sky, ripped free, shaped into a body that should not exist. Its scales glimmered like shards of broken moonlight. Its eyes glowed with shifting colors no human tongue could name. Blue, silver, black yet something deeper than all three.

Eirlys’s heart froze.

She had mapped galaxies. She had stared into the abyss through glass and mathematics. She had devoted her life to science, to the beauty of proof and fact. Yet this creature burned those beliefs to ash with its very presence.

The dragon’s voice was not sound. It was pressure. Vibration. A weight inside her bones.

“You are Eirlys.”

“You will help me.”

Her lips curled into a bitter smile. She forced defiance into her voice, though her knees trembled.

“Help? You shatter physics, tear open my sky, and dare to command me?”

Its gaze did not blink. Did not waver. It was patience carved into flesh.

“My master’s son is dying. A gem exists. Only you can find it.”

The words felt heavy, sinking into her skin. She barked out a laugh, sharp and cold, like broken glass.

“I’m a scientist, not your savior. Find another fool to chase fairy tales.”

The dragon’s eyes deepened. Shadows swirled inside them like storm clouds.

“If you refuse, your planet falls. Your people perish. All you love will turn to ash and shall receive a horrible death.”

Her throat tightened. Fear stabbed her chest, but rage rose with it, bitter and sharp.

“Threats,” she spat. “That’s all you have? Empty threats?”

Outside, the stars seemed to burn brighter, cruel and distant, as though mocking her disbelief.

The silence stretched. It pressed against her skull until her thoughts splintered. And in that silence, a truth carved itself into her chest: no choice was hers. Not really.

This was not a discovery.

This was ruin disguised as fate.

Her hands shook as she reached for the telescope again, though she knew it was useless now. The universe she once trusted had betrayed her.

And though she didn’t know it yet, her soul was already shackled. The dragon’s arrival was not a request. It was a chain.

The Etherverse had claimed her.

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