The tolling of the Sky-Forge Bell deepened into a grinding roar.
Mana storms rippled through the air, invisible but undeniable. Vampires stiffened. Dragons shifted uneasily, their pupils thinning as ancient instincts reacted to something wrong.
Balerion felt it clearest.
The third light in the sky pulsed in time with his heart:
thrum.
A surge of heat tore through his dragon blood, wild and exultant. At the same instant, a wave of cold hunger swelled from his vampire side, demanding, Drink. Claim. Devour.
They collided in his chest—where they had always clashed, where they had always tried to tear him apart.
This time, the pain came with clarity.
His breath hitched. Again… they're demanding I kneel. Both of them. Fire wants me to burn. Blood wants me to consume. I am so tired of being torn between masters that were born inside me.
The bell tolled again. The stone under his knee cracked like glass.
Whispers erupted through the crowd.
"What—?"
"The bell—"
"It's never—"
"Is that… coming from him?"
Azura's eyes sharpened. Velkan's expression didn't change, but the shadow at his feet twisted, coiling like a living thing.
"Balerion," Velkan said softly, too softly, the word carrying on unnatural stillness. "Control it."
As if it were that simple.
The twin powers surged again, vicious, demanding, ready to rend.
No.
He didn't scream this time. He didn't plead. In the space between heartbeats, his thoughts were as sharp as a blade drawn over ice.
You are my blood. You are not my king.
The third light overhead flickered.
The mana storm stuttered.
For a few fragile seconds, the conflicting tides froze as if stunned—not calmed, not tamed, but startled by resistance where there had only ever been breaking.
Power punched outward from him in a ring. Cloaks snapped, braziers guttered. Nearest nobles stumbled as if shoved by an invisible hand.
Selene felt it slam into her chest. It didn't cut or burn; it pressed, heavy with a strange command—not for her to kneel, but for her to recognize. It was not the oppressive dominance of a pure dragon, nor the seductive bind of a pure vampire.
It was something that looked at her bloodline and quietly said: Remember your place.
Her lips parted. "…Impossible."
Azura moved first.
In one smooth stride she stood beside him, hand resting lightly on his bowed shoulder. To onlookers, it was a mother's protective touch, a queen shielding her son from embarrassment.
Balerion felt the truth: she was bracing the world against him—or him against the world.
Flame wrapped her like a cloak as she faced the assembly. "The bell reacts to omens," she said, voice lined with fire. "It has sensed a storm far from here in the southern rifts. The festival proceeds."
It was such a clean lie that only those closest to the dais flinched.
Velkan's shadows curled around the cracked stone, swallowing the fractures until no mark remained. His gaze lingered on Balerion for a long, dissecting moment.
"Rise," he murmured.
Balerion stood.
No veins split. No bones caved. His body obeyed.
The crowd inhaled as one, the broken rhythm of awe and fear.
He felt their attention like hooks sinking into his skin.
They saw that. They don't understand it, but they saw.
The third light above faded, unseen by most. The humming in his blood coiled inward, not quiet, but contained—for now.
The Sky-Forge Bell fell silent.
Music cautiously resumed.
The Festival of Blood and Flame continued.
Later, the formal rites gave way to duels and performances in the arena—traditions of spectacle. Balerion was not scheduled to partake. He lingered at the edge of a high balcony reserved for royal kin, looking down on the sprawling Obsidian Colosseum.
Seven combat platforms hovered above the main ring, rotating slowly; each was inlaid with runes to stabilize mana overflow. Young dragons breathed controlled flame in spirals. Vampires blurred past each other in speed duels, blades clashing. Cheers rose and fell like waves crashing against mountain stone.
Kael Drakmor stood at the center stage, basking in adoration after an easy victory, dragonfire still simmering around his fists. "For the glory of pure blood!" he shouted, drawing roars from a portion of the crowd.
Balerion watched in silence. It wasn't jealousy that burned in his chest; it was something colder. An awareness.
If I stepped onto that platform now… would I shatter again? Or would they?
Soft footsteps approached behind him.
"If you keep staring like that, they'll think you're brooding," Selene said. "Which you are. Badly."
"I'm learning from the best," he replied without turning.
She joined him at the railing. Up close, the fading echoes of that strange wave must have still been clinging to him, because her gaze sharpened.
"You're not just different," she murmured. "You're… louder. In the blood."
He tensed. "Selene—"
"I said I keep secrets," she reminded him. "Not threats."
She leaned on her elbows, watching Kael preen. "Do you know what they're saying in the Valeria halls? That your existence offends the old gods. That mixing the Eternal Flame and Crimson Sovereign lines was a challenge thrown at the heavens."
"It was a political move," Balerion said.
"Oh, it was that too," she said dryly. "But some alliances wake old prophecies. And the old ones are very touchy about being reminded they don't control everything."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "And you? Are you offended, Selene of Valeria?"
"I'm entertained." Her lips curved faintly. "And curious. When the bell rang, my blood tried to kneel. I don't kneel easily."
"Maybe it misfired," he said.
"Maybe you're a terrible liar," she countered.
Down below, Kael raised his arm. "I challenge any heir of the blood to stand before me! Dragon or vampire!"
The crowd roared, thirsty.
Selene snorted. "Predictable."
Then Kael's gaze lifted, seeking targets—and landed squarely on Balerion.
A slow, cruel smile spread across his face.
"I, Kael of House Drakmor," he shouted, voice echoing, "challenge the so-called heir, Balerion Drakmor Vantheus, to a friendly exhibition! Let the realm bear witness that titles without strength are dust!"
The arena stilled.
Selene's fingers tightened on the railing. "Don't," she said under her breath. "They want a spectacle. If you misstep…"
If he faltered, it would cement his image as broken. If he exploded, it might reveal too much.
All eyes were on him now. Dragons. Vampires. Visiting envoys. His parents upon the shadow-flame dais.
Azura's expression gave away nothing. Velkan remained statuesque, save for one small motion: his finger tapped once against the throne's armrest.
Choice, Balerion realized. He's letting this be my choice.
For most of his life, the choice was always taken from him. Protected. Sheltered. Kept off the stage.
The echo of the bell pulsed in memory.
You are my blood. You are not my king.
His hands should have been shaking; they weren't. His veins should have burned; they didn't. Instead, his body felt coiled, balanced on a knife's edge—not tearing apart, but not yet defined.
"Decline," Selene whispered. Up close, there was something different in her voice—a layer not of pity, but of genuine concern.
He almost did.
Then Kael called again, louder, mocking reverence dripping from each word: "Come, cousin! Honor the Festival as all heirs must. Or will the Dominion's great hybrid remain hidden behind his mother's wings and his father's shadow?"
A ripple went through the arena. Laughter. Derision.
Balerion heard something quieter beneath it—his own voice, from last night, hoarse in a broken library:
"One day, you'll bow."
He stepped forward.
"Announce acceptance," he told the herald stationed near the balcony stairs.
The man's eyes widened. "My lord, your health—"
"Announce it."
Power brushed the herald's senses—just a ghost of it, unshaped—but enough to snap his mouth shut. He turned toward the amplification sigil, voice ringing out seconds later:
"By his own will, Prince Balerion Drakmor Vantheus accepts the challenge."
The crowd exploded.
Selene swore under her breath, color draining. "You idiot."
"Probably," Balerion said. "But I'm tired of letting them write my legend without me."
He descended the obsidian steps into the arena proper.
Each step was accompanied by the roar of a thousand voices, but all of it felt strangely distant. His focus narrowed to the sensation inside him: twin tides seething, circling, watching.
You tried to tear me apart. Now watch.
He stepped onto the central platform opposite Kael.
Up close, Kael's smirk was even uglier. "Brave today, cousin?"
"Bored," Balerion said.
The arena's protective dome flared to life around them in a translucent shell. Runes lit along the circumference, designed to contain ordinary noble-level blows.
"Begin!" the arbiter called.
Kael didn't hesitate.
Dragonfire roared forth, a pillar of gold-white flame spearing across the platform, hot enough to slag steel. The crowd cheered; to them, this was already decided. The weak prince would be overwhelmed. The barrier would catch the overflow. Order maintained.
Balerion did not dodge.
Instinct screamed at him to move, but something deeper, rawer, refused.
You are my blood. You are not my king.
The fire hit.
A wall of thermal force hammered into him, devouring his vision. For anyone else, it would have incinerated flesh, shattered bone, left only cinders.
For him, the dragon side surged up, exulting—Mine. The vampire side rose to meet it, cold and hungry—No, mine. Flame and abyss collided in his veins.
It should have broken him.
Instead, the third thing stirred.
The strange, dark-scarlet pulse that had been coiled in his core since the library uncurled with almost lazy irritation, like a predator disturbed mid-slumber.
Enough, it said without words.
Flame that should have consumed him folded—twisted—bent as if reality skipped.
When the blaze cleared, Balerion stood where he had been, cloak smoldering at the edges, hair whipped back, eyes half-shadowed.
On his right arm, obsidian scales shimmered—each edged in faint crimson, each drinking in lingering embers.
A hush strangled the arena.
Ash drifted around him and then, impossibly, was drawn inward—threads of spent mana sinking into those scales, vanishing like rain into parched earth.
Balerion looked down at his hand.
You devoured it.
The realization slid through him with cold clarity.
Across from him, Kael stared. "What did you—"
"Is that all?" Balerion asked quietly.
No shout. No arrogance. Just a question that turned hundreds of spines to ice.
Kael snarled, furious, lashing out again. This time he launched a focused spear of draconic force, scales flaring, every ounce of power he could muster compressed into a killing blow.
Balerion moved.
Not fast enough to blur. Not impossibly. Just… decisively.
He stepped into the attack instead of away, twisting his body so the spear of force grazed his scaled arm. The impact jolted him, but the scales drank deeply, humming.
He closed the distance between them in three controlled strides.
Kael swung, claws wreathed in flame.
Balerion caught his wrist.
The moment their skin touched, something in Kael's blood shuddered.
His dragonfire stuttered. For an instant, he felt his own heritage bend toward Balerion like grass to gravity.
"Don't worry," Balerion said softly enough that only Kael and the amplification sigils heard. "I don't know what I am yet either."
Then he released him and stepped back.
Kael stumbled, aura fracturing. His next attack sputtered weak, unfocused. The crowd saw the shift, felt it.
The arbiter, stunned from the earlier onslaught, finally remembered procedure. "Victor—Balerion Drakmor Vantheus!"
Silence.
Then, a wave of shocked voices. Disbelief. Fear. Awe.
On the royal dais, Azura's fingers dug into the armrest. Velkan's eyes gleamed like twin eclipses.
Selene, watching from above, whispered to herself, voice trembling with a thrill she hadn't expected:
"…Draconyric."
She didn't know where the word came from. It slid out like something old and waiting, breathed through her by the world itself.
Down on the platform, Balerion stood alone in the center of roaring noise he barely heard.
Inside his chest, the fused pulse beat once, twice.
It no longer felt like a cage of warring tyrants.
It felt like a throne being built.
He raised his scaled arm, watching embers coil and vanish into his skin.
You are my blood, he thought again, and this time the fire and hunger did not lunge to tear him apart.
They listened.
For now.
Above Obsidia Sanctum, far beyond mortal eyes, something in the Astral Zenith stirred—a distant, displeased awareness turning its gaze toward the Dominion.
The Festival of Blood and Flame would be remembered.
Not for Kael's boasts.
Not for the beauty of dragonfire over obsidian towers.
But for the first public moment when the Broken Heir stopped breaking.
And the hunt for what he was truly becoming quietly began.