The Dragon who called me king

The Master of Dragons

Lyra let out a sharp cry of pain as her sapphire sky-cutter dragon sank its teeth into her shoulder. The beast she had bonded with, the creature that was supposed to be her loyal lifelong companion, slammed her body hard against the cold stone wall. Blue sparks of electricity flickered weakly from its scales but its golden eyes were completely gone, replaced by a terrifying hollow blackness.

"Stop!" I yelled, pushing myself up from the dusty floor. My muscles screamed in protest, still drained from the magical bridge that had just shattered.

The duplicate boy ignored me. He stood outside the ruined cage, his arms spread wide as if he were enjoying the cool breeze of freedom. The dark veins on his face pulsed with an eerie light and his pitch-black eyes fixed on Lyra's struggling form.

"A beautiful bond," the boy mocked, his voice echoing through the chamber. "But all dragons are born from my stolen energy. They do not belong to the nobles of this academy. They belong to me."

"Lyra!" Zane called out. He was sitting near the broken iron door, nursing a bruised shoulder from the previous explosion. He tried to scramble toward her, but the shadow energy radiating from the duplicate boy threw him back down to the ground.

“Kael, we have to move now,” Erebos urged inside my head. The ancient dragon's voice was getting stronger, fueled by the residual power left in the air. “His control over her dragon is absolute because the sky-cutter is a young beast. But he cannot control me. Use my fire to break his hold on her.”

I reached inside my shirt, pressing my palm flat against the hidden royal crest on my chest. I didn't care who saw it anymore. If I didn't act, Lyra would be crushed by her own dragon and Zane and I would be next.

"Erebos, give me everything!" I shouted aloud.

A large wave of violet fire exploded from my chest. The bright flames did not burn my skin or my clothes. Instead, they swirled around my arms like twin serpents. I lunged forward, throwing my hands out toward Lyra's sapphire dragon. A stream of violet fire blasted across the room, striking the beast's wings.

The dragon roared in pain, the solid black color in its eyes flickering violently. The violet fire did not burn the creature's flesh but it acted like a shock to its system, disrupting the duplicate boy's dark command. The sky-cutter released its grip on Lyra's shoulder, crashing heavily to the stone floor as it fought to regain its own senses.

Lyra slid down the wall, gasping for breath. She clutched her bleeding shoulder, her pale face completely shocked as she looked from the duplicate boy to the violet flames still dancing on my fingers.

"You..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "The black dragon... its soul is inside you."

"We need to leave! Now!" I yelled, rushing over to grab her uninjured arm. I pulled her to her feet, while Zane quickly scrambled up and grabbed her other side to support her weight.

The duplicate boy let out a low, angry hiss. He stepped forward, his bare feet making no sound against the stone. "You cannot run from yourself, Kael. We are two halves of the same broken crown. You will return to me!"

He raised his hand to summon another wave of darkness but the heavy exertion of breaking the cage seemed to catch up to him. He stumbled, his black eyes widening slightly as he coughed up a thick dark fluid. The shadow energy around him flickered and died.

"Go!" I told Zane.

Together, we dragged Lyra out of the secret chamber, sprinting through the broken iron doorway and back into the narrow maintenance tunnels. Behind us, the duplicate boy did not follow but his chilling laughter echoed through the dark tunnels, chasing us like a ghost.

We ran blindly through the pitch-black passages for what felt like hours. Lyra was growing heavier with every step, her breathing shallow as the dark energy from the dragon bite seeped into her skin. Finally, we saw a faint light ahead. We burst through a hidden panel in the wall and collapsed onto the floor of an empty, dusty storage room in the basement of the Discard Dorms.

Zane quickly shut the panel, sliding a heavy wooden crate in front of it. He slumped against the wall, panting hard. "We made it. We actually made it out alive."

I knelt beside Lyra, carefully pulling her hand away from her bleeding shoulder. The wound was deep, and dark purple lines were spreading out from the bite marks.

"Why did you follow us down there, Lyra?" I asked softly, using a clean piece of my torn shirt to press against the bleeding.

She looked up at me, her cold blue eyes filled with a mixture of pain and a sudden strange realization. "Because my father left a journal before he died. He didn't execute your father because of treason, Kael. He executed him because your father refused to let Headmaster Vance breed the true royal bloodline like cattle."

She swallowed hard, wincing as I tightened the cloth bandage. "The boy in the cage... he isn't just a duplicate. He is your twin brother, hidden away from birth to be used as a magical battery."

My world shattered for the second time. I had a brother. A twin who had been tortured for seventeen years.

Before I could process the truth, the storage room door was kicked open with a violent crash.

Headmaster Vance stood in the doorway, surrounded by ten fully armed guard mages. His face was a mask of pure, absolute fury. But as he looked at the three of us, he didn't draw a weapon. Instead, he smiled a horrific clicking sound echoing from his throat.

"Thank you for finding the key, Kael," Vance said. He stepped aside, and behind him stood General Voss,Lyra's father, who was supposed to be dead. General Voss looked at Lyra with a cold, uncaring expression and said, "The harvest can finally begin."