Chapter 1: The Princess of Lies
The carriage rocked over frozen ground, each jolt reminding Elara that she was leaving everything she knew behind. The window glass had long fogged from her breath, yet she still tried to peer through it, as though the gray horizon might offer some comfort.
It didn't. Only endless white stretched ahead snow, sky, and silence blending into one another until it felt like she was being swallowed whole.
Across from her sat the royal envoy, his fur-lined cloak stiff with frost. He hadn't spoken a word since they left the capital. Maybe that was for the best. What could anyone say to a woman being sent to wed a monster?
Elara's gloved hands twisted in her lap. The silk gloves had once belonged to the true princess, the king's daughter by blood. They were slightly too small for her fingers, a reminder that even her disguise didn't quite fit.
"Smile, my dear."
Her stepmother's voice echoed in her mind, honey-sweet and sharp enough to cut. "You're a bride now. Make the Dragon King love you. Your life and ours depend on it."
Elara had smiled then, the perfect obedient daughter. But her lips had trembled.
Now, with miles of snow between her and the palace, the smile had frozen away.
They said the Dragon King lived in a fortress of black stone at the edge of the world. They said his breath could melt armies and his eyes could turn a man to ash.
But they also said he'd stopped showing himself in human form years ago. Some whispered it was because he'd grown too monstrous, too consumed by his beast side.
Elara tried not to think about that.
When the carriage finally halted, she nearly fell forward. The driver shouted something she couldn't hear over the wind. The door opened, and cold air bit into her lungs like teeth.
She stepped out, skirts brushing against the snow. Before her, rising from the mist, was the fortress of dark towers and bridges carved into a mountain of ice. The air shimmered faintly with heat, as though the stones themselves breathed fire.
Her escort bowed stiffly. "Welcome to Drakonis, Your Majesty."
Majesty.
The title tasted wrong.
Two guards approached—massive men with scaled armor and slit-pupiled eyes. Not human. Their scent carried the faint tang of smoke and wild things. One of them inclined his head, though his gaze flicked over her like a predator assessing prey.
"This way, human queen," he said.
The walk through the fortress was eerily quiet. No courtiers, no music. Just the soft crackle of torches and the low rumble of something alive deep within the walls. Every now and then, Elara thought she heard the faint rasp of scales against stone.
At last, the guards stopped before a pair of great bronze doors. One pushed them open, revealing a vast hall lit by molten fire.
And there, seated upon a throne of obsidian, was the Dragon King.
He didn't look like a monster, not at first glance. His form was human enough: broad shoulders, dark hair that glinted with crimson under the firelight, a face both sharp and still. But his eyes, those eyes looks like they were were molten gold, slitted like a serpent's, watching her with quiet danger.
"So," he said, his voice deep enough to vibrate the floor beneath her feet. "This is the princess they sent me."
Elara lowered her gaze and curtsied. "Yes, Your Majesty."
"Raise your head."
She did. Slowly. His gaze held hers, burning straight through the mask of calm she wore.
He rose from his throne, every movement deliberate, like a beast testing the air before a strike. "Tell me, Princess…" He stepped closer. His scent was that of a strange smoke and frost, impossible and intoxicating. "Do you come here by choice?"
Her heart leapt painfully. "I come as my kingdom commands."
A faint smile curved his lips, not kind, not cruel, simply knowing. "So, a sacrifice then."
Elara said nothing.
He circled her once, slow and silent, his shadow spilling over her shoulders like wings. When he stopped behind her, his breath brushed the back of her neck. Warm. Alive. Terrifying.
"Do you fear me, little human?"
"Yes," she whispered, before she could stop herself.
A low chuckle rumbled from his chest. "Good. Fear keeps the heart honest."
The doors shut with a heavy echo. Somewhere far below, a dragon roared and the sound made the torches flicker as if the very fire bowed to him.
Elara straightened her spine. She had one task: make the Dragon King love her, by any means necessary.
But as his gaze burned into her, she realized something far more dangerous.
It wasn't his heart she feared losing.
It was her own.