CHAPTER 0 – The Dragon Who Vanished from the Sky
For a thousand years, Neftahar feared only one name.
Velderina.The Black Dragon.The Devourer of Kings.
Her wings blotted out suns. Her breath turned rivers into steam and armies into dust. Children grew up hearing her name as a warning; warriors spoke it as a curse; kings whispered it as a prayer for survival.
And then—she disappeared.
No one knew why.Some said a legendary hero slayed her.Some believed she grew tired of destruction and flew beyond the mortal realms.Others claimed she was only sleeping, waiting for the day the world angered her again.
The truth was far stranger.
Deep within the sacred mountains, under the glow of an ancient spell circle, a dragon's roar twisted into a scream—a sound no beast should have made. Scales shattered into light. Bones reshaped. Wings folded into nothingness.
And in the center of the ruins stood a girl.
Barefoot. Human. Terrified.
Velderina, the world's most feared dragon…had been cursed.
Her fire sealed.Her wings taken.Her true form locked away.
For centuries she wandered the human world, learning to walk on fragile legs, learning to speak with a human tongue, learning—against her will—to feel with a human heart.
No one recognized the monster of legend in the quiet, mysterious woman she became.
And slowly, painfully, the dragon learned to forget her past.
But peace never lasts in Neftahar.
Tonight, far beyond the capital, the ancient mountain runes trembled. The air rippled with a power that had been dormant for centuries. Hunters felt it. Sorcerers felt it. Even the winds carried the omen:
The Black Dragon lives.
And somewhere in a quiet manor, beneath golden candlelight, a young nobleman reached for the hand of his future bride—unaware that the woman smiling back at him once reduced kingdoms to ash.
The world believes Velderina is gone.The curse believes she will never return.
But the dragon inside her is waking.
And when she opens her eyes… Neftahar will learn that legends never die.
[CHAPTER ENDS]