Draeven's POV
I shift into my dragon form before Casimir can blink.
My body explodes into scales and wings, filling half the library. Books crash to the floor as my tail whips around, creating a barrier between Seraphina and the twenty guards pointing weapons at her.
"Stand down, Uncle," I growl, my dragon voice shaking the walls. "Now."
Casimir doesn't flinch. He's seen me in this form a thousand times. "The council has spoken, Draeven. The witch dies, or we all do. Stop being selfish and think about your people."
"I am thinking about my people!" I roar. "Killing her won't save anyone! It'll make everything worse!"
"How?" Casimir demands. "Explain to me how letting the Void's prison lock continue living makes sense when every second weakens the seal?"
He's not wrong, and that's what makes this impossible.
Behind me, I feel Seraphina's hand touch my scaled leg. Even in dragon form, her touch sends warmth through me. "Draeven, he's right. Just let them—"
"No." I shift back to human form and spin to face her. "Stop trying to die. You're not a sacrifice. You're a person."
"A person who's a bomb about to explode!" Her silver eyes are filled with tears. "I heard the Void, Draeven. It promised to kill you first. It's going to use me to hurt you, and I can't—I won't—"
"Your Majesty," one of the guards interrupts nervously. "We don't want to hurt you. Please step aside."
I look at the twenty dragons surrounding us. I've trained with most of them. Fought beside them. Some of them I've known for a century. They're not evil. They're scared.
"I can't," I say simply. "I won't let you kill an innocent woman."
"She's not innocent," Casimir snaps. "She's the lock on a prison that's opening. Her very existence threatens us all."
"Then we find another way to strengthen the seal!"
"In one hour?" Casimir laughs coldly. "Before twelve High Priestesses and three hundred witches attack us? Be realistic, nephew."
Kael steps forward, positioning himself beside me. "If you want her, you go through both of us."
I glance at my brother, surprised and grateful. He grins at me. "What? You think I'd let you have all the fun of being a heroic idiot?"
Despite everything, I almost smile.
Casimir's face hardens. "So be it. Guards, seize the king and his brother. Kill the witch."
The guards hesitate. They don't want to attack their king, but they will. I can see it in their eyes. Fear makes people do terrible things.
I'm about to shift again when Seraphina does something unexpected.
She steps around me, putting herself between us and the guards.
"Wait," she says, her voice strong despite the fear on her face. "I'll go with you. I'll let the High Priestesses do what needs to be done. Just don't hurt Draeven or Kael. Please."
"No!" I grab her arm. "Seraphina—"
She looks back at me with those haunting silver eyes. "You said I deserve to live. Maybe you're right. But everyone else deserves to live too. If my death saves the world, then that's not a sacrifice. That's a purpose. That's the first real purpose I've had in two hundred years."
Something in my chest tears open at her words. This woman has been hurt so many times, betrayed so deeply, that she actually believes her only value is in dying.
"Your purpose isn't to die for us," I say roughly. "Your purpose is to live despite us."
"That's easy for you to say. You're not the prison lock."
"No, I'm the king who's supposed to protect his people. All of them. Including you." I turn to face Casimir and the guards. "Everyone wants an easy answer. Kill the witch, save the world. But easy answers are usually wrong answers."
"We don't have time for philosophy," Casimir says.
"Then make time!" My voice echoes through the library. "Our ancestors—dragons and witches—worked together to trap the Void. They didn't fight each other. They didn't sacrifice innocents. They found a way to win without losing their souls."
"That was different—"
"Was it?" I challenge. "Or are we just too afraid to try?"
One of the younger guards lowers his weapon slightly. "What if the king is right? What if there's another way?"
"There isn't," Casimir says firmly. "I've studied the ancient texts for decades. The seal requires a Luna Priestess's death to be renewed. There's no alternative."
"You studied the texts in this library?" I ask.
"Of course."
"The same library that the old kings controlled? The same library that might have had information removed or hidden?" I'm grasping at straws, but I have to try. "What if there's something you missed?"
Casimir's eyes narrow. "What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting that maybe our ancestors left a backup plan. Something that doesn't require murder." I look at Seraphina. "You said Morganna told you the ritual needed your willing death or my killing blow. Why those two specific options?"
Seraphina frowns, thinking. "She said... she said it had to be justice, not murder. That's why she tried so hard to make you kill me."
"Justice," I repeat. "Not just any death, but a death that's seen as right and fair."
"So?" Casimir demands.
"So what if the real seal isn't death at all?" My mind is racing now, pieces clicking together. "What if it's consent? Choice? The original Luna Priestess chose to sacrifice herself. She wasn't murdered. She volunteered."
"And?" Casimir looks impatient.
"And Seraphina never chose this! Morganna forced it on her as a child!" I turn to Seraphina. "What if that's why the seal is breaking? Not because you're alive, but because you never consented to being the lock in the first place?"
Her eyes widen. "That's... that's actually possible. Blood magic always requires willing participation. If Morganna forced the seal on me—"
"Then it was never properly sealed to begin with," Kael finishes, catching on. "It's been slowly failing for two centuries."
Casimir shakes his head. "That's an interesting theory with no proof."
"Then let me find proof!" I shout. "Give me the hour we have left. Let me search every forbidden text in this library. If I can't find evidence of another way, then..." I force the words out. "Then I'll step aside."
Seraphina gasps. "Draeven, no—"
"But if I find something," I continue, staring at Casimir, "you call off the guards and help me save her life. Deal?"
Casimir studies me for a long moment. Then he looks at the guards, at Kael, at Seraphina. He's calculating odds, weighing options.
"One hour," he finally agrees. "But I'm stationing guards at every exit. If you try to run with her, we hunt you both down."
"Fair enough."
Casimir signals the guards, and they lower their weapons. But they don't leave. They position themselves around the library, blocking every door and window.
As Casimir turns to go, he pauses. "You know, nephew, when you became king at seventeen, I thought you'd be easy to manipulate. A grieving boy playing at power. But you've always been stubborn. It's going to get you killed one day."
"Maybe," I say. "But at least I'll die doing the right thing."
He leaves, and suddenly the library feels smaller with just me, Seraphina, and Kael, plus twenty guards watching our every move.
Seraphina touches my arm. "You didn't have to do this."
"Yes, I did." I meet her eyes. "You asked why I care. Honestly? I don't know. But watching Casimir's guards point weapons at you made me want to burn them all alive. And I haven't felt that protective of anyone since..."
I stop myself, but Seraphina tilts her head. "Since when?"
The words come out before I can stop them. "Since my parents died."
Silence falls between us. Even Kael looks surprised. I never talk about that night.
"What happened to them?" Seraphina asks softly.
I don't want to answer. Don't want to open that old wound. But she shared her pain with me. She told me about watching her village burn, about Morganna's betrayal.
Fair is fair.
"I was seventeen," I start, my voice rough. "There was a witch I loved. Her name was Lyria. She was beautiful, kind, everything I thought I wanted. We were planning to run away together, start a life away from crowns and kingdoms."
Seraphina's expression shifts to understanding and sympathy.
"The night before we were supposed to leave, my father was murdered in his sleep. His throat was slit with a poisoned blade. My mother found him and died of grief before sunrise—they were true mates, and when one dies, the other often follows." I clench my fists. "That morning, I found a letter from Lyria. She confessed everything. She was a spy. She seduced me to learn our defenses. She helped plan the assassination."
"Draeven..." Seraphina breathes.
"She used me. Made me believe she loved me while plotting my father's death. I became king that day. Seventeen years old, orphaned, betrayed, and suddenly responsible for an entire kingdom." I look at Seraphina. "So when I saw you—another witch—I saw Lyria. I saw every witch who's ever hurt my people. I wanted you dead before you could betray us too."
"But I'm not her," Seraphina says.
"No. You're not." I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, surprising myself with the gentle gesture. "You're nothing like her. And I'm sorry I couldn't see that sooner."
Before Seraphina can respond, the ground beneath us shakes violently.
Books fly off shelves. Guards stumble. Cracks spread across the stone floor.
And from those cracks, black smoke pours out.
"What's happening?" Kael shouts.
I know exactly what's happening. The Void is getting stronger.
Then I hear it. That terrible voice that doesn't come from any direction but seems to come from everywhere at once.
"Tick tock, Dragon King," it whispers. "Your hour is almost up. And I'm so very hungry."
The smoke forms shapes—shadow creatures with burning red eyes. They rise from the cracks, surrounding us.
One of the guards screams as a shadow creature lunges at him. His sword passes right through it, useless.
"They're not solid!" another guard yells.
But they can still hurt us. I watch in horror as a shadow wraps around a guard's throat and squeezes. He gasps, choking.
I shift to dragon form and breathe fire, but it does nothing. The shadows laugh.
"Physical attacks won't work," Seraphina says, her voice cutting through the chaos. "They're made of pure Void energy. We need—"
She stops mid-sentence, her face going pale.
"Seraphina?"
"It knows," she whispers. "The Void knows what you're planning. It's not going to give you an hour. It's going to kill everyone in this room right now."
The shadow creatures multiply, doubling, tripling. Soon there are hundreds of them, filling the library.
And they're all moving toward us.
"We need to leave!" Kael shouts. "NOW!"
But the doors are blocked by shadows. The windows are covered. There's no way out.
We're trapped.
And that's when the real horror begins.
The shadows start speaking. But they're not speaking in the Void's voice. They're speaking in voices I recognize.
"Draeven," one shadow whispers in my father's voice. "Why did you let me die?"
"Son," another says in my mother's voice. "You failed us."
I freeze, my blood turning to ice.
The shadows are using my parents' voices against me.
And from the look on Seraphina's face, she's hearing voices too.
"Sera," a shadow calls in a small girl's voice. "Why didn't you save me, big sister?"
Seraphina's sister. The one who died in the plague.
"Stop it!" Seraphina screams, covering her ears. "You're not real!"
But the voices keep coming, drowning us in guilt and pain.
Then, through the chaos, I hear something else.
Singing.
Someone outside the library is singing. A high, clear voice that cuts through the shadow voices like a knife through silk.
The shadows recoil from the sound.
The library door explodes inward, and a woman walks through.
She's tiny, barely five feet tall, with white hair and eyes that glow pure silver—brighter than Seraphina's.
"That's enough," the woman says calmly, and her voice makes the shadows dissolve like smoke in wind.
Within seconds, every shadow creature is gone. The library is silent except for guards gasping for breath.
The woman walks straight up to Seraphina and me. She looks ancient and young at the same time, like she's been alive forever but hasn't aged a day.
"Hello, child," she says to Seraphina. "I've been looking for you for two hundred years."
Seraphina stares at her. "Who are you?"
The woman smiles sadly.
"I'm Celestia. The first Luna Priestess. The one who sealed the Void a thousand years ago." She looks between Seraphina and me. "And I'm here to tell you that everything you think you know about the seal is wrong."
She touches Seraphina's forehead with one finger, and Seraphina's eyes roll back.
"What did you do?" I roar, catching Seraphina as she collapses.
"I gave her the truth," Celestia says. "When she wakes up, she'll remember everything. Who she really is. What she's truly meant to do."
"And what is that?" I demand.
Celestia's smile disappears.
"Not save the world, Dragon King," she says quietly. "Destroy it."