Dravion stood beside the altar, head tilted toward the indifferent stars, utterly unaware of the storm that was already swirling on every side. He didn't know that the vision he'd just survived had left a beacon in its wake—a column of light, mana-rich and raw, now echoing across every hidden corner of the region. He remained still, not yet feeling the weight of every gaze now turning his way. Just his luck: the fight always seemed to find him, whether he wanted it or not.
He had been fighting since the moment he broke his shell.
His nostrils flared, breath slow. The air had shifted—its scent now tinged with something unfamiliar, something colder and sharp. He muttered quietly, "The air smells… wrong." Even the mana around him felt changed, pressing close, the night's warmth pulled tight as a bowstring, and every sound sharpened by anticipation. Somewhere out there, he could sense eyes—watching, measuring, moving just beyond reach.
He let his senses reach outward, mapping the currents that curled through the trees, following threads only instinct could trace.A whisper of movement—leaves rustling, low and dry, the kind of warning that was never meant to be heard.
Dravion's hand found the hilt at his waist. The grip was awkward, but the power behind it was absolute, muscles and bone still new to this world but forged in purpose. His golden eyes narrowed, irises ringed with that living hunger, waiting for the unknown to show its face.
"Foe… or friend?" His voice still carried that rough, newborn rhythm, half-learned and half-remembered. He was learning the language of thought, the shape of words, but the logic of battle—of threat and survival—that was written into his marrow.
But the forest hushed itself, not a leaf or breath disturbing the silence. Nothing revealed itself. Somewhere out there, something stalked with the patience of true predators, hunting with intelligence rather than hunger—biding its time, letting the world grow tense and small.
For a heartbeat, the darkness split—two violet eyes shone through the branches, vivid and polished, catching what little moonlight slipped down between the leaves. They watched him with the knowing calm of something that had killed before and would again, then faded away, melting back into shadow without a ripple.
Dravion knew more were coming.
He could feel them—closing in from all sides, some swift and heavy, some low and gliding, others slithering, some simply waiting. They were drawn by more than the taste of mana, pulled by the echo of old stories, the scent of things that shouldn't exist. Whether they came for him, or the altar, or for some deeper need only the forest understood, didn't matter. They were coming, and he would meet them here.
He didn't run. The idea didn't even cross his mind. He only gripped the hilt tighter, his fingers straining, the bone beneath aching with the need for action. No place to run. No reason to flee.If the night wanted to hunt him, let it try.
High above, nearly lost in the restless shadows, someone else was watching. A figure perched on a twisted limb, half-concealed in rolling mist and darkness so deep it seemed to slip around the mind's eye. Man or beast, it was hard to say—its limbs stretched too far, its posture too loose, belonging to neither world.
"Tsk… causing a mess already, little demon," the voice drifted down, laced with lazy amusement, as casual as a knife sliding between ribs. "I leave you for five minutes, and the whole region comes running. Classic."
The watcher didn't move, just shifted for comfort, eyes glinting like a spectator settling in to enjoy a show.
"No wonder the mistress wants you. You're unpredictable. Wild. Fun to watch." The words carried a flicker of satisfaction, as if the outcome mattered less than the spectacle.
Then, silence, a pause stretching longer, the sense of a smile without a face.
"If it turns ugly, don't fret. I'll be the one picking up whatever's left. Wouldn't want you to miss your grand introduction."
Without another word, the presence folded into the darkness—no trace, no sign, the chill in the air all that remained.
For Dravion, the forest closed in again, heavy and restless. The certainty of being hunted pressed down on him, but he didn't flinch.
He was never alone, not truly. Not in a world where everything wanted a piece of him.
He turned to go, ready to vanish beneath the trees, but a scent slipped into his mind—familiar, ancient, almost his own but not quite. It struck something deep within, memory without form.
"Dragons," he whispered, the word tasting like prophecy, his eyes lifting to the sky.
Four shapes streaked across the moonlight, wings spread wide, silhouettes unmistakable. Humanoid forms, but kin in every way that mattered. For an instant, he felt the urge to hope—for reunion, for answers, for the touch of blood that meant home.
But as they descended, the air twisted—kinship warped into suspicion, greed, the bitter shadow of old rivalries reborn.They did not land as brothers or sisters. They landed as rivals, as claimants, as enemies.
Trevuqis dropped first, boots cracking through dry branches, eyes raking over Dravion's form again and again, each glance sharper than the last. He recoiled as if he'd been struck, a question twisting in his mouth, fear and envy wrestling beneath his practiced sneer.
"This can't be," he muttered, forcing bravado into his tone. "Who is this? Have any of you ever seen that child?" The words broke apart, weak beneath the surface.
Recognition flickered across his face, too fast to hide. The legends—his grandfather's warnings—whispers about a black and gold egg that never hatched. Not a myth, then. Not a story. A threat.
If it's him… if he really is the Queen's heir… then everything promised to me dies right here. Not me. Not me…
The thought split through him, bitter and sharp, a wound that bled anger.
He looked at Dravion not with awe, but with hatred already forming—silent, poisonous, intent. A plan was already rooting itself, desperate and ugly. Dravion would have to die before anyone else learned the truth. The bloodline had to end here, quietly, without witnesses.
The moment thickened, breathless and tense. Above them, wings broke the silence—Xyntherra, slicing through the canopy with effortless speed.
She landed with a ripple of wind. "So this is where you ran off to?" Her voice was sharper than steel. "What did you idiots think you were doing—"
She stopped, eyes meeting Dravion's. Something shifted deep inside her—a sudden, lurching recognition, the shape of stories her father had whispered into her childhood. The legend of the unhatched egg, the Queen's lost child, the prophesied return in the Bronze Leaf Forest. All of it, colliding with reality.
She stared at the black and gold child, alone by the altar, golden eyes cool and silent, and the world seemed to slow around her heartbeat.
Could it really be him? The one the old stories warned about?
Dravion watched her in return. He didn't know her name, didn't know his own fate, but in her gaze, in the silence between them, something sparked—recognition that had nothing to do with memory and everything to do with blood.
He felt no fear. Only the sense of finally being seen.
And for a single, lingering moment, the world held its breath, every story and rivalry and wound balanced on the edge of what would happen next.