The Dragon who called me king

The Price of Treason

The impact knocked the breath right out of my lungs. I rolled across the cold floor of the secret laboratory, coughing as stone dust filled the air. Beside me, Zane groaned, his bronze lantern clattering against the floor and going completely dark.

My heart froze. I slowly looked up through the settling dust.

Standing just five feet away, Headmaster Vance loomed over us. His pristine white robes did not have a single speck of dust on them. His face was perfectly calm, but his dark eyes held a terrifying, freezing stillness. Next to him, Lyra Voss had already drawn a short, silver dagger. Her sapphire sky-cutter dragon shifted on her shoulder, its tiny scales hissing with blue electricity.

"Well, well," Headmaster Vance said, his voice smooth and terrifyingly soft. "It seems we have some uninvited guests in the lower levels."

I scrambled to my knees, keeping my arms crossed over my chest to hide the burning royal mark beneath my shirt. Zane was trembling beside me, his hands flat against the floor as he stared at the ground in absolute terror.

"Please, Headmaster!" I cried out, making my voice sound as weak and desperate as possible. "We didn't mean to come here! The floor in our dorm collapsed. A monster attacked us from the dark and we ran into the first tunnel we could find. We just got lost!"

Lyra stepped forward, the tip of her dagger pointing directly at my throat. Her cold blue eyes searched my face, looking for any sign of a lie. "You expect us to believe you just happened to fall through the walls of the forbidden sector, Ashford?"

"It is the truth!" Zane stammered, his voice cracking with genuine fear. "The stone in the Discard Dorms is old and rotten. Look at my hands, they are covered in dirt from the crawlspace!"

Headmaster Vance walked around us in a slow, deliberate circle. The sound of his leather boots snapping against the stone floor felt like a ticking clock counting down to our execution. He stopped right behind me and I felt a sudden powerful wave of magical energy wash over my back. He was testing my aura. He was trying to feel if I carried any high-tier magical power.

Inside my mind, Erebos spoke in a tiny, compressed whisper. “Do not move, Kael. I am suppressing my presence entirely. If he senses even a spark of my dragon soul, he will vaporize you instantly.”

I forced my muscles to relax, letting my body mimic the energy of a completely normal, magicless human.

After a long suffocating moment, Headmaster Vance let out a low sigh. The heavy pressure on my back vanished. He looked up at Lyra and gave a slight shake of his head. "The boy tells the truth, Lyra. His magical core is completely empty. He is just a commoner who wandered into the wrong dark hallway."

Lyra lowered her dagger slightly, but the suspicion did not leave her eyes. "Even so, Headmaster, they heard us speaking. They know about the lower chambers. They know about the boy in the core."

"They know nothing," Vance replied coldly, turning his back on us as if we were nothing more than insects. "A peasant boy from a border village cannot understand the high politics of this kingdom. However, rules are rules. No student is permitted in the forbidden section."

He glanced back over his shoulder at me. "Kael Ashford, your father was a traitor who tried to tear down these very walls. I allowed you to enter this academy out of mercy but it seems your bad blood naturally draws you toward darkness and crime."

"I was only trying to survive the creature under the floor," I said, keeping my head bowed to hide the hot flash of anger in my eyes.

"Survival is a privilege earned by the strong, not given to the weak," Vance said. He raised his hand and a glowing purple rune appeared in the palm of his hand. "Commandant Cole will handle your punishment for trespassing. You will spend the next three days in the heavy iron labor fields without food. If you survive, you may return to your classes."

Before I could answer, the Headmaster waved his hand. A large burst of purple wind hit Zane and me, lifting us off the floor and throwing us backward through a dark portal that suddenly opened in the wall.

The world spun violently. The next thing I knew, I crashed face-first onto a hard muddy field under the pouring rain. The dark portal snapped shut above us.

I sat up, wiping wet mud from my eyes. We were outside the main academy walls, surrounded by a high iron fence. Dozens of other low-ranked students were dragging large, glowing black stones across the mud under the watchful eyes of armed guards.

"We survived," Zane whispered, collapsing into the mud next to me, weeping tears of pure relief. "I thought he was going to kill us right there."

"He wanted to," I muttered, gripping a fistful of mud.

“He is an absolute fool,” Erebos rumbled proudly in my mind, his voice finally returning to its full strength. “He thinks you are weak because he cannot see my power. But while you were lying on that floor, I managed to siphon a piece of his laboratory's magic. Look at your hand, Kael.”

I opened my muddy palm. Resting in the center of my skin was a small, glowing silver key that had not been there a moment ago. It was the key to the lower prison.

But before I could even celebrate, a shadow fell over me. I looked up and saw Commandant Cole standing over me, a heavy leather whip resting in her hand. She smiled cruelly, her eyes locked on my chest. With a sudden violent movement, she reached down and ripped my shirt open, exposing the glowing royal mark directly to the night sky.