Power. The word itself carries weight, doesn't it? Some call it a curse, others a blessing. Philosophers have debated its nature for centuries—whether it corrupts absolutely or simply reveals who we truly are beneath our carefully constructed masks.
But it's something different. Power doesn't choose sides. It doesn't care about your moral compass or your noble intentions. It flows to those bold enough to seize it, those desperate enough to pay any price for it. In the end, power belongs to whoever refuses to let go.
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Consciousness returned slowly, like surfacing from deep, dark water.
Darian's eyes fluttered open to absolute nothingness. Not the darkness of a moonless night, but something far more profound—a void so complete it seemed to swallow light itself. Yet somehow, impossibly, he could see.
"Where..." His voice cracked, barely more than a whisper. "Where am I?"
The emptiness stretched endlessly in every direction. No up, no down, no reference point except the terrible certainty that he was utterly alone. His heart hammered against his ribs as fragments of memory began to surface.
The attack. The screaming. His mother's terrified face.
"Mom!" The word tore from his throat, raw with panic. "Verael! What happened to them? What happened to—"
"Silence."
The voice cut through the void like a blade, ancient and terrible. It didn't come from any particular direction, It simply 'was', pressing against Darian's mind with the weight of millennia.
"Do not disturb what little peace remains to me, mortal."
Darian's blood turned to ice. Without knowing why, he turned toward a specific point in the darkness, as if pulled by invisible strings. When he looked up, his breath caught in his throat.
Two crimson orbs burned in the black—eyes the size of cathedral windows, glowing with an inner fire that seemed to pierce straight through his soul. They weren't just looking at him; they were dissecting him, weighing every thought, every fear, every secret shame.
His legs locked. His lungs forgot how to draw breath. This wasn't ordinary fear—this was something primal, something that reached into the deepest part of his brain and whispered that he was prey. The kind of terror that could literally stop a heart.
Every instinct screamed at him to run, to curl up in a ball, to do anything but stand there meeting that terrible gaze. But his legs wouldn't move. Couldn't move. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the endless cold of the void.
"W-who..." He forced the words past his constricted throat. "Who are you?"
Silence stretched between them, heavy with judgment. Then, with what might have been surprise, the voice spoke again.
"Interesting. You still stand."
Before Darian could process those words, the darkness began to shift. Something vast emerged from the void—first a snout longer than a warship, then a skull that could have housed a small town. Horns twisted skyward like black spears, each one large enough to impale a building. Scales the color of dried blood caught the light of those burning eyes, and when the creature's lips pulled back, rows of teeth gleamed like obsidian daggers.
Dragon. The word formed in Darian's mind, but it felt inadequate. This wasn't the dragons from children's stories or tavern songs. This was something older, something that had existed when the world was young and unnamed.
"Most mortals collapse within moments of glimpsing even a fragment of my true form," the dragon mused, its voice like distant thunder. "Yet you remain upright. Your predecessor spoke truly about your potential."
Predecessor? Darian's mind reeled, but he forced himself to focus. "What do you want with me?"
"You are too weak to comprehend what I am, child. But perhaps..." The massive head tilted, considering. "Perhaps there is hope for you yet."
"Hope for what? Where is this place? How did I get here?" The questions tumbled out, fear giving way to desperate confusion.
"This realm exists between moments, between breaths. As for how you arrived..." The dragon's eyes narrowed. "I brought you here. There is a ritual to be performed—a bonding that will determine your fate. And mine."
Bonding. The word sent a chill down Darian's spine. But a bonding could only be formed by a god. He wondered..was he standing before a god? But before he could finish his thoughts the beast spoke.
"I far predate your imaginations boy" It spoke with a rather prideful tone.
"I should warn you," the dragon continued with what sounded almost like amusement, "the ritual has a rather high mortality rate. Many who attempt it simply... cease to exist. Their souls burn away like paper in a forge."
"You're talking about killing me." It wasn't a question.
"I am talking about transformation. Whether you survive it depends entirely on your strength of will." The dragon's tone grew colder. "Of course, I could simply return you to your world as you are. But I wonder....what would you return to?"
The question hit like a physical blow. Darian's legs nearly gave out as the implications sank in.
"Everything you knew, everyone you loved—they are gone, child. Your mother, your sister, your entire village. The holy order made certain of that. Ashes and blood, nothing more."
"No." The word came out broken, barely audible. "They might have escaped, they might have..."
"They are dead." The dragon's voice was merciless. "You know this. You felt it when the flames began, when the screaming started. You could have acted, could have tried to save them. But you froze. You let fear rule you, and now they are gone. I wouldn't have chosen you, a weak and fearful coward. But then again, the cycle must go on."
Tears burned Darian's eyes. The dragon was right. In those final moments, when the soldiers had broken down their door, he'd stood paralyzed while his mother shoved Verael behind her. He'd watched, helpless, as the woman in white had raised her hand and—
"But you have a choice now," the dragon continued, its voice softening slightly. "Return to that ruined world with nothing but grief and regret. Live knowing you were too weak to save those you loved. Or..." Its eyes flared brighter. "Accept power. Accept the strength to hunt down those who wronged you. To make them pay in blood for what they took."
The silence stretched as Darian wrestled with the choice. Part of him wanted to believe there was another way, that he could return and somehow find his family alive. But he knew better. The look in that holy woman's eyes had been one of absolute certainty. She'd enjoyed their terror.
"If I accept this power," he said slowly, tasting each word, "will I be able to kill them? All of them?"
"That depends on how far you are willing to go. How much you are willing to sacrifice. How deep your hunger for vengeance burns." The dragon leaned closer, its breath hot against Darian's face. "Power demands payment, child. Always."
Darian closed his eyes, seeing his mother's face one last time. Her gentle smile, the way she'd hummed while cooking, how she'd always believed he would grow up to be something special. That woman—that monster—had snuffed out her light without a second thought.
When he opened his eyes again, they burned with cold fire.
"I'll do it. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost...I'll pay it. I want them to burn."
The dragon's lips curved in what might have been a smile. "Very well then. Let's see what you are truly made of."
Crimson flames erupted around Darian, and he screamed as they seared through flesh and bone, remaking him on a level deeper than the physical. Pain beyond description consumed him, but underneath it, something else grew—something dark and hungry and utterly without mercy.
---
The next thing Darian knew, he was staring at a severed head.
He jerked backward, heart hammering, before the full scope of the carnage hit him. Bodies everywhere—men, women, children, all twisted in positions of final agony. The metallic stench of blood hung thick in the air, mixed with smoke and the lingering scent of burned flesh.
His village. His home. Reduced to a charnel house.
Darian struggled to his feet, his body aching in ways that felt fundamentally different than before. Something had changed during the bonding—he could feel it in his bones, in the way the air tasted, in the strange lightness of his movements.
He picked his way through the corpses, searching faces he'd known all his life. Mrs. Hendrick, who'd sold him sweet bread. Young Tom, who'd dreamed of becoming a knight. The baker's wife, the blacksmith's daughter—all gone, all staring at nothing with glassy eyes.
He found his mother near the well, her body crumpled against the stone. A neat hole had been burned through her forehead.
For a moment he couldn't move. He wanted too, but he couldn't, seeing the lifeless corpse of his mother on the crimson stained ground.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, gathering her into his arms. She felt so small, so fragile. "I'm so sorry, Mom. I should have saved you. I should have been braver."
He searched for Verael next, but found only her hair ribbon caught on a piece of debris. The silver clip their mother had given her for her sixteenth birthday, now stained with blood and soot.
Darian pressed the ribbon to his chest, feeling something crack inside him. Not break. This was something else, something final. The last piece of who he'd been crumbling away.
"I promise you," he said to his mother's still form, to the memory of his sister's laugh, to the ghost of his former life. "I'll find them. Every last one of them. And I'll make them pay."
As the words left his lips, he felt the change complete itself. His hair, once brown as earth, had turned white as bone—except for the tips, which burned crimson like fresh blood.
---
Miles away, in the shadow of Noxvale's cathedral, a woman in black leather paused in her evening patrol. She tilted her head toward the distant ruins, a slow smile spreading across her scarred face.
"So," she murmured to the night wind, "the next one has finally awakened. How perfect."
She turned away from the window, her cloak billowing behind her like dark wings.