The Dragon who called me king

The Mirror Trap

The heavy sewer air felt thick and frozen. My own stolen hand trembled in front of my face, holding the sharp iron dagger directly against Lyra’s throat. I fought with every ounce of my mind, screaming at my muscles to stop, but the symmetrical link was total absolute perfection. Whatever my twin brother did with my original body twenty feet away, my new royal body copied it flawlessly.

"Look at you," my twin brother taunted, his voice sounding so strange coming out of my true chest. He tilted his head, a smooth, mocking gesture that forced my royal neck to tilt in the exact same direction. "A crown prince who cannot even control his own fingers. You are a passenger in that expensive skin, Kael."

Beside him, Headmaster Vance stood with his arms crossed inside his spotless white robes. The faint green scales beneath his jaw rippled once more under the dim green light of Zane’s brass lantern, proving his true, beastly nature. "End this setup, boy. The girl has become an active hazard to our arrangement, and the boy from the dorms knows too much."

"No!" Zane yelled. He tried to lung forward, but a sharp wave of green energy from Vance's palm blasted him backward, sending his body splashing into the foul water of the sewer line. The brass lantern tumbled from his grip, rolling onto a wet stone ledge and casting long, dancing shadows across the curved ceiling.

Lyra did not flinch, even as the cold metal of her own dagger pressed into her skin. Her blue eyes stayed locked onto my foreign, royal face. She could see the sheer agony in my expression, the raw panic of a brother forced to become an executioner. "Fight it, Kael," she whispered, her voice remarkably steady despite the danger. "He is using the dagger's residual tracking magic to pull your strings. Do not let him in."

*“I am trying!”* I wanted to scream, but when I opened my mouth, only a choked, breathless gasp came out. The link didn't just control my limbs; it was locking down my vocal cords, turning me into a silent puppet.

Deep inside the frozen void of my mind, I searched for any spark of warmth. Erebos was still completely silent, buried under the heavy suppression seal inside my old chest. But as my twin brother took another slow step forward, making my royal legs mimic his advance, I felt a tiny, strange vibration through the link. It wasn't magic. It was the biological rhythm of our shared bloodline. We were identical twins, born from the exact same royal origin.

If he could send his commands across the gap to pilot me, then the bridge worked both ways.

My twin smiled, raising my original hand higher to force my royal arm to press the dagger harder against Lyra. "Goodbye, daughter of the General. Your father sends his regards."

Instead of fighting the pulling force this time, I completely let go. I stopped resisting his movements and shoved my own consciousness directly down the magical bridge connecting our hearts. I didn't try to stop my royal arm. Instead, I forced a sudden, violent thought of my own pain directly into his mind. I remembered the exact feeling of the hot, blistering burn from the labor field stones.

My twin’s eyes suddenly widened in shock. He stumbled backward, clutching his own chest as if a phantom coal had just scorched his skin.

Because of the perfect mirror connection, my royal body instantly mirrored his stumble, veering away from Lyra. The sharp dagger sliced through nothing but empty air, missing her neck by a fraction of an inch.

"You trickster!" my twin hissed, shaking his head to clear the sudden mental blast.

"Lyra, run!" I managed to shout, my vocal cords unlocking for a brief, beautiful second as the link frayed from the feedback.

Lyra didn't hesitate. She grabbed the collar of my velvet tunic and hauled me backward, while Zane scrambled out of the water and grabbed the brass lantern. We sprinted down the dark, intersecting pipe, the sounds of Vance’s furious shouts echoing behind us. We turned left, then right, scrambling through a narrow overflow tube until the sounds of pursuit finally faded into the background.

We collapsed inside a dry, brick-lined junction box beneath the northern district. Zane set the flickering lantern down, his teeth chattering from the freezing sewer water. "That was too close. Kael, how did you do that?"

"I used our shared blood to push back," I panted, leaning my royal head against the cold bricks. "But it won't work a second time. He knows I can fight back through the bridge now."

Lyra knelt beside me, her expression grim as she checked her bandage. "We have less than twelve hours before the public coronation. If we don't break that suppression seal on your true body before he steps onto the royal balcony, the link will become permanent. Your soul will bake inside this prince forever."

"Then we strike the academy tonight," I said, my new voice hardening.

Before Lyra could answer, a strange, rhythmic clicking sound echoed from the dark pipe directly above our heads. It wasn't the sound of boots. It sounded like small, metallic claws tapping against the stone.

We froze, staring up into the dark opening.

A tiny, sapphire shape dropped out of the pipe, landing softly in the mud. It was Lyra's sky-cutter dragon. Its scales were still dull, and its eyes were no longer solid black, but a strange, cloudy gray. It let out a weak, pathetic whine, crawling toward Lyra on trembling legs.

"My baby," Lyra whispered, her cold expression melting as she reached out to scoop the tiny creature into her arms.

But as her fingers touched the sapphire scales, the dragon’s mouth split open into a wide, horrific human grin. A sudden, violet blast of energy erupted from the creature's chest, instantly forming a heavy, glowing cage around Lyra, Zane, and me. From the darkness of the upper pipe, Commandant Cole dropped down, a golden key twisting between her fingers as she smiled. "The Headmaster knew you would run here, Prince Alden. Or should I say... Kael Ashford?"