The day I was taken, the sky bled fire.
The priests wrapped me in silk soaked in perfume, but no scent could mask the stench of fear. I was the twentieth girl sent in tribute to the Dragon King this year — the others had never returned.
Chains of gold, light enough for ceremony but tight enough to bind, curled around my wrists as they led me through the valley. The crowd watched in silence. No one cried for me. No one dared.
The obsidian gates loomed ahead. Beyond them, the mountain of the Dragon King — Vaerion the Black Flame, ruler of ash and blood.
I was a slave, born and branded, trained to obey, not to feel. But as the gates opened with a groan that sounded like a dying god, my heart dared something treasonous.
Hope he kills me quickly.
Inside, it was too quiet. No guards. No flames. Only stone — black and ancient. I was left alone in a vast hall, trembling.
Then I felt him.
A presence like thunder. Fire. Hunger.
He didn't walk in. He descended from the shadows, tall, broad-shouldered, with silver-black hair and golden eyes that glowed like a dying sun. He didn't wear armor — only a black cloak and leather, no crown but a presence that made me kneel.
Not out of respect. But instinct.
"You're smaller than the others," he said, voice like gravel over flame. "Fragile."
I didn't speak. Couldn't.
He came closer. Claws tipped his fingers. Black veins ran along his throat — a sign of his transformation, they said. Not beast or man. Both.
His hand tilted my chin up. His gaze narrowed.
"But you... you smell like something ancient." A pause. "Fire."
His thumb brushed my bottom lip. I flinched. His smile was not kind.
"You tremble like prey," he whispered, leaning down. His breath was heat. "Do you know what that does to a dragon?"
Before I could answer, he bit me.
Not hard — not to wound. Just enough to leave a mark on my neck, a spark of pain that made my knees buckle.
"You're mine now," he growled.
I didn't know it yet, but that bite was the beginning of a ritual. One older than kingdoms.