The ancient dragon of the royal prophecy had finally woken up from its long slumber. Its scales were the color of dried blood and each breath released a cloud of suffocating sulfur that choked the air on the balcony.
"The protector of the bloodline has returned to cleanse the usurper!" King Valerius shrieked while scrambling toward the edge of the terrace.
The king reached out his hands as if expecting the beast to carry him to safety and glory. Instead, the dragon lowered its massive head and its golden eyes narrowed with a look of ancient and cold disdain.
"Does your lizard friend usually eat its masters?" Kaelen asked while resting his dark blade on his shoulder.
Valerius froze as the dragon opened its maw to reveal rows of teeth as long as broadswords. The heat radiating from its throat began to singe the king's expensive silk robes and his thinning hair.
"Wait, I am the one who offered the sacrifices to wake you!" the king pleaded with a voice that broke into a sob.
The dragon ignored the king's cries and lunged forward with a speed that defied its massive size. Its jaws snapped shut and the sound of breaking bone echoed across the palace grounds as it swallowed the monarch in a single gulp.
Kaelen watched the scene without moving a single muscle while the shadow soldiers behind him hissed in anticipation. He felt the heavy gaze of the beast turn toward him and the air became heavy with a killing intent.
"You have no king to hide behind now," Kaelen said to the beast while his own shadow began to expand across the stone floor.
The dragon let out a roar that shattered the remaining glass windows in the palace and sent a wave of fire toward the balcony. Kaelen jumped into the air while his shadow army swirled around him to form a protective cocoon of darkness.
"Strike the wings and bring the sky to the ground!" Kaelen commanded his warriors.
Dozens of shadow soldiers launched themselves from the balcony and latched onto the dragon's leathery neck and chest. They stabbed with blades of pure darkness that ignored the hardness of the dragon's ancient scales.
The beast thrashed wildly and knocked over several stone pillars that had stood for five hundred years. It swiped its massive tail and sent three shadow warriors flying through the roof of the banquet hall below.
"Is that all the power a god has to offer?" Kaelen mocked while landing on the dragon's broad snout.
He plunged his dark sword deep into the golden eye of the dragon and twisted the metal with all his strength. A fountain of steaming black blood erupted from the wound and covered Kaelen from head to toe.
The dragon let out a final and agonizing scream before its massive body went limp and crashed into the courtyard below. The impact was so great that it felt like an earthquake had struck the heart of the capital city.
"Rise and serve the one who took your life," Kaelen whispered while placing his hand on the dragon's cooling heart.
The black blood on the ground began to bubble and move toward the dragon's corpse like a living tide. A massive shadow started to emerge from the beast and it grew until it was twice the size of the original dragon.
"Master, your will is my only law," the shadow dragon whispered with a voice that vibrated in Kaelen's very soul.
Kaelen stood atop the head of his new servant and looked out over the city that was now silent with shock. He saw the remaining royal guards dropping their weapons in fear of the monster he had just created.
"The era of the king is dead and the reign of the shadows has come," Kaelen declared to the world.
He felt a sudden and sharp pain in his chest that made him drop to his knees on the dragon's skull. His skin began to turn gray and he could see his own veins glowing with a dark and pulsating purple light.
"The price for the soul of a dragon is your own humanity," a cold voice whispered from the darkness of his own mind.
Kaelen looked at his hands and saw them starting to dissolve into the same black smoke as his soldiers. He realized that the forbidden curse was finally taking the one thing he had left to give.
The price for the soul of a dragon is your own humanity.