Gabriel pushed himself up slowly. His arms shook with the effort, and Mera moved to help him, but he waved her off. He needed to do this himself.

"What did you see?" Mera asked again, her voice quieter now.

Gabriel didn't answer. His eyes remained fixed on the book, on the red script that covered the page where his blood had fallen. The pull was stronger now, almost painful in its intensity. It felt like something was tugging at his chest from the inside, demanding he come closer.

He reached for the book.

"Gabriel, wait." Mera's hand moved to stop him, but she hesitated. "You just had a seizure. You need to rest."

"I need to understand." His fingers closed around the leather cover, and the moment he touched it, the pull lessened. Not gone, but manageable. Like the book was satisfied he'd made contact.

He pulled it toward him and sat back against the wall, the book resting in his lap. The red writing stared up at him, elegant and flowing. He recognised the script from the temple in Blackhaven, the same ancient language that had appeared before.

But he couldn't read it. The symbols made sense individually, like he should know what they meant, but when he tried to string them together, the meaning slipped away.

"Can you read it?" Mera leaned closer, studying the page over his shoulder.

"No." Gabriel's jaw tightened. "I recognise the script, but I can't understand the words."

"Then what good is it?"

Gabriel stared at the writing. The longer he looked, the more the symbols seemed to shift and blur. Not moving, exactly, but changing in a way his eyes couldn't quite track. Like they were alive.

"I don't know," he said.

His finger moved without thinking, tracing the first line of text. The moment his skin made contact with the ink, heat flared across his hand.

The farmhouse vanished.

He was standing on a mountainside. Wind tore at his clothes and hair, so cold it burned his exposed skin. Snow covered everything, thick and pristine, stretching endlessly in every direction. Above him, peaks rose like jagged teeth against a sky so blue it hurt to look at.

Something moved in that sky.

Gabriel's head tilted back, and his breath caught.

A wyvern soared between the peaks, massive beyond anything he'd imagined. Its scales were pure white, catching the sunlight and throwing it back in shards of brilliance. Each wingbeat sent gusts of wind rolling down the mountainside, and when it turned, the motion was fluid and precise.

It was magnificent. And deadly.

The wyvern's eyes glowed like molten gold, scanning the slopes below with an intelligence that felt almost human. Its tail cut through the air behind it, longer than three horses end to end, tipped with a barbed spine that gleamed like polished bone.

Gabriel watched it circle once, twice, then dive toward something he couldn't see. The speed was impossible. One moment it was high above, the next it was a white blur plummeting toward the earth.

The vision shifted.

The wyvern lay on its side in the snow. Dead. Its chest rose and fell no more, and its eyes stared sightlessly at the sky. Blood pooled beneath it, staining the white ground red.

Figures moved around the body. Six of them, dressed in armour, Gabriel didn't recognise. They worked with precision, cutting through scale and flesh with tools that looked more surgical than violent. One of them knelt beside the wyvern's chest and began carving.

He was locked in place, forced to watch as the figure reached into the wyvern's chest cavity and pulled out its heart.

The organ was massive, easily the size of a man's head. And it glowed. Soft red light pulsed from within, like embers buried deep in ash. Even removed from the body, it radiated heat that Gabriel could feel from where he stood.

The figure placed the heart carefully in a silver container and sealed it. The others finished their work, harvesting scales and bone with the same methodical care, then they gathered their prizes and left. The wyvern's body remained, slowly being buried by fresh snow.

The vision shifted again.

Gabriel was in a stone chamber lit by torches. The walls were carved with symbols he recognised now, the same script from the book. A figure stood at the centre, pouring liquid from the silver container into a chalice. The wyvern's heart floated inside, still glowing, its light reflecting off the metal.

Other ingredients followed. Powders and oils, liquids that hissed when they mixed. The figure chanted in that ancient language, and the mixture began to bubble and steam.

When the chant finished, the figure lifted the chalice and drank.

Gabriel saw the face clearly now. Black hair fell past sharp features, and red eyes stared ahead with absolute focus. A Dracamerian, ancient and proud.

The effect was immediate.

The figure's body convulsed, and flame erupted from their skin. Not burning them but pouring out of them like they'd become a vessel too small to contain what was inside. Fire poured from their hands, their eyes, their mouth. It spilled across the floor and climbed the walls, turning the stone red with heat.

But the figure didn't burn. They stood in the centre of the inferno, arms spread wide, and laughed.

The flames grew brighter, hotter, until Gabriel had to look away. When he looked back, the figure was changed. Their eyes glowed brighter than before. The fire had settled into them, becoming part of them.

The vision pulled back, and Gabriel saw more figures like the first. Dozens of them, all standing in similar chambers, all drinking from similar chalices. All erupting with flame. All becoming something more than they had been.

Then the vision shattered.

Gabriel gasped and jerked forward, nearly dropping the book. His hands shook as he gripped it tighter, and sweat ran down his temples despite the cold morning air.

"Gabriel!" Mera's voice cut through the fog. "What happened?"

He couldn't speak. Not yet. His eyes dropped to the book, expecting to see the red writing still there.

It was gone.

The page was blank again, clean parchment with no trace of the script that had covered it moments before. But something else had appeared in its place.

An image. Drawn in black ink with precise, careful lines.

A mountain. Steep and jagged, rising above a sea of clouds. At its peak was a structure, small but distinct. A temple or fortress, carved directly into the rock face.

Gabriel stared at it, his breathing slowly returning to normal.

"The trial," he said quietly.

Mera leaned over his shoulder, her eyes widening when she saw the drawing. "What is that?"

"Where I need to go." Gabriel's finger traced the outline of the mountain. "To complete the trial."

"The wyvern," Gabriel said slowly. "That's what I saw? The trial requires hunting a wyvern."

His throat felt tight.

"And drinking its heart," he said. "To awaken the blood completely."

The words hung in the air between them.

Mera stared at the drawing, then at Gabriel. "That's insane. Wyverns are apex predators. Hunting one would require an army."

"Or someone desperate enough to try alone."

"You can't be serious."

Gabriel looked at her, his expression flat. "The voice won't stop until I complete this. And if I don't, the incomplete awakening will tear me apart." He glanced back at the drawing. "At least this gives me a direction."

Mera opened her mouth, then closed it. She did not argue.

Gabriel closed the book carefully, and the pull lessened once more. But it didn't disappear. It never would, not until he finished what the Order had started.

He looked at the mountain drawn on the page one last time before the book closed.

Somewhere, that peak existed. And on it, a wyvern waited.

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