The air in the dungeon was stagnant, a thick soup of damp stone and the metallic tang of old fear. To her, it was a tomb; to me, it was a studio. I watched the princess through the flickering torchlight, my shadow stretching long and distorted against the mossy walls. I had lived through a thousand such sieges, watched a hundred dynasties crumble into the dirt, but this one—this girl—had a particular shimmer to her soul that I found intoxicating.
"Let me do it," I said.
My voice was a low vibration, a silken thread pulled taut across the silence. I didn't need to shout. True power doesn't scream; it whispers and waits for the world to lean in. The words sliced through the stagnant air like a slow-drawn blade, and I watched with clinical interest as she flinched.
"I won't drink it."
Her snarl was magnificent. It was the sound of a cornered animal trying to convince itself it still had claws. Her voice echoed, brittle and sharp—glass ready to shatter. I could hear the tremor beneath the surface, the frantic rhythm of a heart that knew its owner was outmatched. She hated that I could hear it. I could see that hatred in the set of her jaw, the way her eyes darted to mine and then skittered away.
I tilted my head, studying her. She was a flickering flame in a drafty room, desperate to stay lit. I felt a smile tug at my lips—not the cruel sneer of a conqueror, but the fascinated expression of a scholar discovering a lost text.
"Such fire," I murmured, the words tasting like fine wine. "How… delightful."
I let my golden eyes hold hers, allowing the ancient weight of my gaze to press against her mind. I was Aerion , the Dragon King, a creature of sun-forged scales and centuries of blood, and here she was—a child of moonlight and porcelain. My tail curled lazily behind me, the scales scraping against the stone with a sound like sliding coins. The torchlight caught the gold, reflecting a predatory warmth into the gloom. I didn't look at the goblet yet. The liquid was secondary; the catalyst was the girl.
"You don't have to drink it, little princess," I continued, my voice dropping into a gentle, almost fatherly cadence. "Not all at once."
I took a single step forward.
The movement was feline, calculated. Around us, the atmosphere shifted. Her knights, those pathetic metal husks, shifted their weight, their armor groaning like dying bells. Her servants were statues of terror, their breath hitching in unison. The dungeon itself seemed to contract, the shadows lengthening as if trying to hide from what was about to happen.
I watched her body react before her mind could catch up. Her fingers curled into the tattered silk of her sleeves, her knuckles white. The distance between us evaporated, and the temperature in the room rose. Dragons carry the sun in their veins, and as I neared her, the cold damp of the dungeon stood no chance. I lifted the goblet with ceremonial care, as if I were offering her a crown rather than a curse.
The liquid inside—a deep, bruised crimson—pulsed. It didn't just glow; it had a cadence. It throbbed in time with a heartbeat that wasn't mine, nor hers, but something ancient and hungry. It recognized the royal blood in her veins. It wanted to be part of her.
She took a ragged step back, her heels clicking against the wet stone. "Don't," she breathed.
It was a plea disguised as a command. I loved it.
"But tell me," I said, shifting my tone to something conversational, the way one might talk over tea while the world burns outside, "when you screamed in your sleep last night…"
Her pupils dilated. The hit landed.
"…was it for your parents?"
I felt the psychic snap. The dungeon vanished from her eyes, replaced by the vivid, agonizing tapestry of her memories. I didn't need to be a telepath to know what she saw; I had been the one who painted the scene. I had watched her father fall on those battlements, his armor a canvas for his own blood. I had seen her mother's final blessing, a silver light extinguished by a dozen black blades. I had directed the chorus of screams that filled the jasmine-scented streets of her kingdom.
I watched her relive the collapse of the white towers, the drowning of the silver skies in a sea of ash and smoke. It was necessary. To build a new world, the old one must be ground into dust so fine it can never be gathered again.
"…or for the crown you'll never wear again?"
The words were a physical blow. I could see the moment her spirit fractured. But instead of the soft weeping of a victim, something else emerged from the cracks. A hiss. A spark.
"You don't get to speak of them," she spat, her voice laced with a venom that made my pulse quicken. "You took everything."
I paused. I let the silence hang between us, heavy and suffocating. I allowed my amusement to die, replacing it with a mask of cold, hard truth.
"Took?" I repeated, the word vibrating in my chest. "No, Luna of the fallen crown. War does not take. It replaces."
I leaned in, closing the final inch of space. I wanted her to smell the smoke on my skin, to feel the heat radiating from my scales. I wanted her to realize that she was no longer in a world of humans and fairytales. She was in mine.
"Drink," I said. I didn't say it as a king to a subject, but as a smith to the iron. "Or don't. Either way, the world you knew is over. The girl who played in the jasmine gardens is dead."
I softened my gaze then, letting a dangerous, magnetic warmth seep back in. I reached out, not to touch her, but to beckon the potential I saw hidden behind her fear.
"What matters now," I whispered, "is what you choose to become."
In that moment, she looked at me—truly looked at the monster wearing a child's face. She saw the scales, the gold, and the void. And for the first time, I didn't see the princess. I saw the survivor.
The faces of her dead people—the baker, the healer, the children—were no longer weights dragging her down. They were the fuel. She didn't hide the tremor in her hands; she channeled it. She stood tall, her spine a rod of iron.
"I won't surrender," she said, her voice finding a resonance it hadn't possessed moments ago. "And I will never belong to you."
A genuine thrill raced through me. My amusement faltered, replaced by a sharp, jagged respect. Most people broke when they realized the scale of their loss. She had used the loss to sharpen her edges.
I tilted the goblet toward her, the crimson liquid swirling like a trapped nebula. "Then you will be tested, little princess. War does not forgive hesitation."
I caught the subtle movement of her hand. The shimmer of a hidden crystal. I could have stopped her—my reflexes were ten times faster than any mortal's—but I chose not to. If she had the wit to hide a teleportation stone in the heart of my stronghold, she deserved the chance to use it.
Moonlight flared, sudden and violent. It was a cold, piercing light that tasted of salt and stars. The dungeon walls dissolved, turning into streaks of silver and grey. As the air tore around her, she kept her eyes on mine until the very last second.
And then, she was gone.
I stood alone in the quiet dungeon, the empty goblet still in my hand. The knights looked at each other in confusion, but I simply laughed. A soft, melodic sound that echoed off the damp stone.
She thought she had escaped. She didn't realize that the "test" had already begun. The moment she decided to survive at any cost, she had already taken her first step toward becoming exactly what I needed her to be.
"Run, little princess," I murmured to the empty air. "The further you run, the stronger you'll have to be to find your way back. And I'll be waiting when you do."