The Dragon who called me king

The Puppet Crown

The sight of General Voss standing in the doorway froze the blood in my veins. The history books, the academy teachers and even Lyra had said he was dead. Yet here he was, standing tall in a dark iron uniform, his face completely devoid of any human warmth.

Beside me, Lyra let out a choked gasp. She tried to push herself up against the dusty storage crates, her fingers trembling as she stared at the man who was supposed to be a memory. "Father? No... you died in the western border wars. I saw the grave."

General Voss did not look at her with the love of a parent. His hard eyes simply scanned her bleeding shoulder, evaluating the dark purple veins spreading across her skin with total detachment. "The grave was a necessary theater, Lyra. High politics require deep shadows. You were never meant to dig this deep."

"You lied to me," she whispered, a tear finally breaking through her cold mask and cutting a clean path through the dust on her cheek. "You killed Arthur Ashford not for treason but to steal his children. You helped Vance build this nightmare."

Headmaster Vance let out a low, clicking chuckle from the shadows of the doorway. The skin around his jaw rippled slightly, a brief flash of green scales showing under the dim torchlight before settling back into a human shape. "Do not be so dramatic, young lady. Your father helped secure the future of this entire kingdom. Without the Ashford bloodline fueling the core, the barriers would fall. The dragons would lose their minds. The illusion of peace requires a steady harvest."

I stood up slowly, putting my body between the mages and my friends. Zane was pressed against the back wall, his eyes darting frantically toward the hidden panel behind the wooden crate but three guard mages already had their glowing staves pointed directly at his chest.

"You call torturing my brother a harvest?" I spat, my fists clenching so hard my fingernails bit into my palms. The royal crest on my chest throbbed with a slow, angry heat, but I kept my arms crossed to hide any stray sparks of violet light.

“Kael, do not strike yet,” Erebos warned, his voice a tense, vibrating rumble in the back of my mind. “The guard mages are channeling a suppression web. If you release my fire now, the ambient magic in this small room will detonate, killing everyone inside.”

"Your brother was an unstable vessel," Vance said, stepping into the dusty room. His white robes seemed to gleam in the dark, completely out of place among the mold and filth of the Discard Dorms. "He absorbed too much of the ancient core's raw, unrefined wrath. He became a monster. But you, Kael... you grew up in a quiet village. Your soul is clean. Your blood is pure, stable and perfectly ripe."

General Voss drew a long silver dagger from his belt. The metal didn't reflect the torchlight, instead, it seemed to drink the light around it, humming with a sickening, heavy vacuum energy. "The twin in the cage is spent. His blood is turning black and corrupt. We needed the true key to unlock the deeper chambers of the core, and you brought it right to our door."

"I am not going into any cage," I said, backing up until my heels hit the edge of Lyra's boots.

"You don't have a choice, boy," General Voss said, raising his hand.

The ten guard mages stepped forward in perfect unison. Their staves ignited with a blinding, pale yellow light. Instantly, a heavy, invisible weight crashed down on my shoulders, forcing me to my knees. It felt like a solid block of iron was pressing against my spine. Beside me, Zane collapsed to the floor with a painful groan, and Lyra cried out as the magical pressure agitated her dragon-bite wound.

I fought against the pressure, my muscles shaking violently as I forced my head up to look at Vance. "If you kill me, the black dragon's soul dies with me. You will never get the true crown."

Vance’s smile widened, revealing teeth that were slightly too sharp, slightly too straight to be human. "Who said anything about killing you? We are simply going to transplant your consciousness into a much more cooperative container."

Before I could process his words, Vance waved his hand. The guard mages maintained the heavy suppression web, keeping us pinned to the stone floor, while General Voss stepped forward and drove the silver dagger straight into the center of my shadow.

I didn't feel a physical blade pierce my flesh but a horrific, unnatural coldness suddenly sliced through my very soul. My vision blurred into a chaotic sea of gray and black. The connection between my mind and Erebos’s voice was instantly severed, leaving behind a terrifying, hollow silence.

The world spun violently and for a second, I felt completely weightless, drifting through a dark, endless void.

When my eyes finally snapped open, the cold rain was no longer falling and the dusty storage room was gone. I was standing in a grand, pristine bedroom filled with golden silks and high stained-glass windows overlooking a magnificent royal courtyard.

I looked down at my hands. They were smooth, unblemished and clad in the expensive, embroidered velvet robes of a high prince.

"You're finally awake, Your Highness," a polite voice called out from the doorway.

I spun around, my heart pounding in a completely unfamiliar chest. Standing by the door was a royal servant, bowing low to the floor. But it wasn't the servant that made my blood run cold. Hanging on the massive golden wall behind him was a giant polished mirror.

I rushed toward the glass, staring at the reflection in absolute horror.

The face staring back at me was not mine. It was the face of the young crown prince of the kingdom,the very boy who was supposed to inherit the throne next week. My original commoner body was gone and as a single tear rolled down my new royal cheek, a familiar distorted voice chuckled from the dark corners of the luxurious room.