Daerion Ittriki drove himself forward with all the speed and force he could muster, striking at Lukas and completely disregarding the moment that the two Kings had briefly shared. It happened fast—faster than anything the King of the Dragons thought the old man to have been capable of—but still not fast enough. He watched the crackling red magic ignite along Daerion’s arm, watched it spool and lace together into the jagged strand of power known to all as the Divinity of Dissection.

  The attack hissed through the air.

  Even then, Lukas did nothing to stop it.

  He could have.

  Every instinct of his body screamed at him to react. Lukas could have slipped to the side by transforming his body into water itself or even struck back at Daerion's attack with one of his own.

  Instead, he chose stillness.

  Lukas chose, with complete awareness, to let Daerion’s killing strike to land. Because no matter how lethal the Divinity of Dissection was—its power famed for cutting through anything in its path, even the sheer essence of magic—Lukas knew it would do him no harm.

  Not when he bore the Blessing of Styx.

  The moment the red magic touched his scales, they flashed, not with Lukas' own power, but with something born from one far older than himself. A bright silver light pulsed outward across his body, shimmering like sunlight across every scale. This was no mortal magic. It did not belong to any magic that Lukas himself was capable of. This magic came from the Mantle, divine protection bestowed upon him by the Goddess of Unbreakable Oaths, granted to Lukas Drakos the moment he had conquered the Trials of Kairos Castle. With it came the power of reflection, a power so complete that even a Divinity designed to cut through magic itself could not break through it. But he did not use that reflection as the Mantle intended. Lukas did not turn the attack back upon the man who had sought his death, though he could have put an end to Daerion's life right there and then.

  Instead, Lukas angled the reflected strike past the King of Nozar entirely and sent it directly toward the frail, trembling figure behind them.

  Daerion realized too late what had been done.

  The old man's eyes widened, a flash of horror cutting through the fury that had consumed him until that moment. Because the Divinity of Dissection, now empowered by the unstoppable reflection of the Mantle, was no longer aimed at Lukas.

  It was aimed at Dorian Ittriki, it was aimed at his own son.

  The magic struck with surgical precision. It cut through the pulsing veins that had forced themselves into Dorian’s flesh, severing the parasitic-like threads that bound him to the Heart of Thalarion Drakos. The Crown Prince’s body jolted once, then collapsed as though the strings of a puppet had been sliced. His eyes, clouded with both pain and exhaustion, rose to meet the Dragon King's gaze and in that suffering was something unexpected.

  Through that pain, Lukas saw that there was also relief.

  Daerion had been right about one thing, the Heart was the only reason Dorian still lived. But Daerion's eldest was simply living on borrowed time, twisting his existence into one that was simply waiting for an end to suffering. By binding his son to the Heart of Lukas' ancestor, Daerion had not saved him. He had only delayed his death to turn him into a vessel, a conduit for a power that did not and never would belong to the Ittriki Clan.

  Lukas had struck not out of mercy nor even to punish the King of Nozar.

  He had done it for Thalarion Drakos—his ancestor, his predecessor, of whose legacy he still carried to this day.

  Ending Dorian’s torment was simply the consequence of restoring what should have never been stolen.

  Lukas could not allow this power to lie in the hands of someone like this man.

  That power was House Drakos’ alone.

  Daerion reminded him so much of the Monarch, but Maelys Drakos' actions had been born from blind, ever-consuming, directionless rage.

  But Daerion…he had acted out of purpose.

  What drove the King of Nozar was his ambition and that made him infinitely more dangerous.

  The Monarch had never pretended to be righteous. Lukas' grandfather knew what he was and had embraced it. Only at his end did Maelys Drakos finally repent for the sins he had committed unto others. But the old King of Nozar truly believed he could do no wrong. Daerion believed that every sacrifice would one day be justified, every horror reinterpreted as necessity, once the world finally fell under his complete control.

  Daerion Ittriki believed without a doubt that when he finally completed his conquest, ruled over all and shaped reality as they knew it in accordance with his own design, then—only then—would it all be worth the pain he had caused. This man had the unwavering certainty of a martyr convinced that history would worship him rather than condemn him. He'd make sure of it. Because history was written by the victors.

  But even then, just like how the Monarch cared for Rowan, Daerion loved his eldest son dearly. That much, Lukas did not doubt.

  “NO!” The scream tore itself out of Daerion with a force that shook the chamber walls.

  The grief that clung to the King of Nozar now was no performance.

  Daerion fell to his knees beside Dorian’s collapsing body, the sheer size of him made small in an instant. His hands trembled as he pulled his dying son into his arms, as if the warmth of his embrace could stitch together the unraveling threads of life slipping away from the Crown Prince.

  The old man pressed his forehead to Dorian’s, voice cracking, breath hitching, sobs beginning to claw their way out of his chest.

  For the first time, the King of Nozar looked fragile, shattered beyond the reach of pride or authority.

  But just like the Monarch, love alone would not redeem him, nor did it absolve the atrocities he committed.

  “Enough,” Lukas whispered quietly, though his voice carried an iron that left no room for misinterpretation. He stepped forward, shadow falling across the kneeling king. “Will you set my people free, Daerion?”

  Daerion did not respond at first. The man's shoulders shook, his arms tightening around his son, as though the question itself was an intrusion upon grief he believed sacred.

  But Lukas did not relent.

  “I will not allow them to remain slaves, Daerion.”

  Slowly, the King of Nozar looked up.

  Even through the glassy sheen of tears, Lukas saw the truth in the man's eyes long before Daerion’s lips parted.

  To Daerion, the draconic kind were not "people". They were nothing but creatures who had been blessed with power they were too wild to wield. In the man's mind, the chains that bound the draconic kind were not restraints, they were extensions of his ambition. To unbind them would be to loosen his own grip on the world, to let the carefully constructed hierarchy crumble.

  It would mean losing control. And Daerion Ittriki could not lose control. Not even now.

  Not even as his son died in his arms.

  “Never.” The word left the King of Nozar as a guttural snarl, a final verdict that confirmed everything that Lukas needed to know.

  The old King's grief had sharpened into defiance.

  Lukas nodded once, the barest dip of his head. The refusal had never truly been in question; the moment Daerion lifted his eyes, Lukas already knew the man was lost to his own obsession.

  There would be no negotiation, compromise, not even peaceful surrender.

  “So be it,” Lukas murmured, more to himself than to the man on the floor.

  Because Daerion’s choice would not stop the King of the Dragons. Nothing would stop Lukas from accomplishing what he had set out to do.

  The magic in Lukas' right arm began as a faint thrum beneath the skin, a soft, pulsing energy radiating from the limb that had been gifted to him by the Sisters of Styx. Then the magical intensity spiraled throughout his entire body, swirling around the arm in coils of shimmering power, twisting tighter and tighter as the Draconic Flow ignited.

  The air around him rippled.

  Lukas did not rush the transformation, letting it unfold slowly. Bone shifted first, soft cracks echoing through the chamber, as his frame reshaped itself. Muscles tightened and unraveled, sinew stretching and reforming. Scales glowed faintly, then receded beneath skin that wove itself over the shifting anatomy like threads being drawn across a loom. His form condensed, refined and reshaped into something smaller yet no less commanding.

  The glow faded, leaving behind a man, a humanoid figure with features that stopped Daerion’s breath in his throat.

  Lukas stood there, calm and deathly silent, and Daerion stared at him as though the world itself had inverted. Not because of his transformation.

  But because the man that the dragon had transformed into had the face of one Daerion recognized.

  It was the face of Klein.

  It was the face of the Rising Star of the Magic Tower, the prodigy who had taken Hiraeth by storm. The only mage that the former Head Mage of the Magic Tower had ever taken in as his apprentice, whose potential the King of Nozar once feared.

  Daerion had never truly believed Klein died in the invasion; suspicions had lingered in the back of his mind. But the truth hadn’t mattered. What had mattered was that Klein had vanished, removing himself as a possible obstacle in Daerion's path.

  Or so the King of Nozar had thought.

  Now, with his dying son in his arms and the truth staring him directly in the face, Daerion’s mind spun. For a heartbeat—for a single, fragile heartbeat—the old man even forgot he was holding Dorian, forgot that his son's time here within the Land of the Living was coming to an end.

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  Lukas no longer had to hide behind a mask. But he revealed himself not out of pride, nor theatrics, but because he wanted Daerion to connect every thread of the past few years and see the full tapestry for what it truly was.

  This was Klein who had risen through the ranks, climbing the Floors of the Magic Tower faster than any other mage ever before. This was the Klein who had turned down Daerion's sponsorship, whose loyalty had always remained a mystery even after he had accepted the Merchant's Guild over his own. This was the very same Klein who had been able to stand against the magic that the Heart of Thalarion Drakos that Daerion had wielded through his eldest son, undoubtedly becoming the strongest human mage in Hiraeth's history.

  The conclusion came crashing down all at once upon the King of Nozar.

  If Klein was Pallas…

  If the prodigy, the one they called the Rising Star of the Magic Tower, had been the King of the Dragons the entire time…

  Then there was no doubt that he had been fighting for the freedom of his people from the very beginning.

  The King of Nozar’s face twisted.

  Confusion, denial, dawning horror, each emotion cut through his grief and Lukas saw all of it.

  The Shard of Obedience.

  Its earliest unveiling remained etched into the collective memory of all who had been present in the Inner Cities during the last Celebration. Everyone present in the Citadel the moment the dragons had ceased their march remembered how their fear gave way to curiosity the instant the young grandson of the Countess had introduced the Shard as if it were a gift to civilization itself.

  It looked like any other magical crystal that the world had become accustomed to, thanks to the genius of Magnus Elarion and his crystalline technology. But it soon became clear that this was no ordinary crystal. Everyone had felt the gravity of what it represented.

  It was what could give humanity true victory over the very dragons that continued to struggle against them even while they remained shackled in chains.

  Those attending the Ceremony had been particularly enthralled not by the object alone, but by the young man presenting it. Jesse Ilagron, no older than the Princess of Easthaven herself, polished in speech and gifted with charisma beyond his years, stood at the heart of the stage as a young prodigy bathed in the spotlight. Along with Jesse had come the mind behind the Shard itself, the Rising Star who had been chosen as the Magic Tower's Representative.

  Dragons were not ordinary creatures that could be subdued by crude chains or even ancient runes. Even defeated, they were unyielding. Even collared, they were defiant. Long after their Kingdom was forgotten and their armies had been scattered, they fought against their restraints and ignited fear with nothing more than a flicker of their gaze.

  Humanity might have been able to take away their freedom. Yet their pride remained. And it was this Shard that would break the pride that continued to live within the draconic kind.

  The Merchant Guild advertised it as a breakthrough; an elegant solution for ensuring safety, efficiency, and harmony between species. Its power broke through and into the mind, unraveling instinct and autonomy until obedience was no longer coaxed but demanded.

  With the Shard of Obedience, chains were no longer needed.

  This crystal turned mighty beings into docile creatures that lowered their heads at human command. They became compliant, muted versions of themselves, stripped of dignity and shaped into living tools for those who fancied themselves the architects of a new age.

  The Shard of Obedience was undoubtedly the most successful invention since Magnus Elarion’s crystalline technology, the very product that had elevated the Merchant Guild into the upper echelons of Hiraeth’s political sphere.

  With the draconic kind finally subdued, nobles gained access to power they had only dreamed of wielding.

  This was humanity's true victory over the draconic kind.

  But beneath all the praise and polished marketing was a truth that the King of Nozar could have ever predicted.

  When flesh replaced scale and when the draconic silhouette folded into the familiar shape of the man who had once been known as Klein, Lukas unveiled the truth that had been waiting to be revealed. Because what the King of Nozar did not realize was that he was not the only one who was able to manipulate his enemies into believing only what they wished to believe. In fact, it was Daerion Ittriki himself who allowed the Shard of Obedience to become as successful as it did. The man believed that it would simply give him more control over this world. To the King of Nozar, it was a tool of order. A device that bent the wild, prideful minds of the draconic kind into shapes that humans could control. He had allowed it to replace heavy iron collars, allowed it to slip neatly around scaled throats while believing it robbed them of the will to resist.

  Or at least that was the story they had told to the rest of the world while working in the shadows.

  Years had gone into perfecting the final product. Not because the concept was particularly complex, but because it demanded absolute precision.

  Daerion had never questioned the inner workings of said product, believing that the Merchant Guild had already fallen under his empire.

  The truth was that the Shard of Obedience had never enslaved a single dragon.

  Not once.

  Not ever.

  This prized invention, the one marketed as the final seal on humanity’s victory, had been a lie crafted from their own arrogance. What Daerion had helped distribute across the rich and powerful was not a device of domination but a lifeline to the oppressed.

  That was exactly why they had needed Magnus Elarion's help.

  They needed the power of Runic Language, something that only the late Head Mage could give. The sequence of runes embedded in each crystal had been designed to carry out three functions, each and every one of them vastly complex in its nature.

  The first was Physical Restoration.

  The Shard granted strength and regeneration, mending the bruises and fractures that came from years of blows, from days spent starving, from wounds left untreated because slaves did not need to be whole. Health and vitality flowed through those who wore it, giving them strength when the humans pushed them to their limits. But at the same time, the appearance of those injuries could never appear to have been healed. The illusions of those festering wounds remained while in reality, they had been healed long ago.

  The second function was Connection.

  Almost laughably, the Shard shared the same foundational structure as the communication crystals used across the world, tools that allowed families to speak to one another across distant continents. To the draconic kind, these crystals acted as threads of hope, reaching back to Linemall, where their loved ones whispered comfort into weary minds. In the nights where everything seemed hopeless, reassurance replaced despair.

  Through times of great suffering, familiar voices reminded them that they still mattered.

  Finally, the third and most important function, was the Delivery of a Single Message.

  In every single Shard that had been wrapped around the necks of all the draconic kind was ingrained a single, unchanging recording.

  It was a message from Lukas Drakos himself.

  The King of the Dragons had spoken those words years ago, long before the invasion of Easthaven or his fight against the Hero in Linemall, long before any dragon dared imagine freedom might be real again.

  That message had become their light in the darkness.

  Those words played now, echoing through the minds of every dragon who wore the Shard, their collective breath held as he spoke to them again.

  “My name is Lukas Drakos. And I am the Lord of Linemall’s Seas. I made a promise to you and to myself that I would free you from your chains and it is a promise that I plan to keep. But you must wait. I know that you have suffered long enough and I know that it is hard to put your trust in me but I ask you to do so again. Please…trust me. Bide your time. Lower your heads. Let them believe that they have nothing to fear. Swallow your pride but never forget it. Hold onto it. Never surrender. And when the time comes, when you hear my voice…you will know that the time has come.”

  That time?

  That time was now.

  The King of Nozar knew it and there was nothing Daerion could do to stop this.

  “More than two hundred years, Daerion,” Lukas shook his head. “That is how long your people have kept my kind in chains.”

  Daerion remained silent.

  "The last time I was here was for the Celebration of the Great War. That day, you marched by people through the Citadels like they were trophies, like spoils of war…a war that you did not even fight in. And when I left these Inner Cities, I made a promise. I swore an oath on the River Styx.” Lukas continued. “An oath that I would set my people free."

  The King of the Dragons stepped forward and Daerion flinched. But Lukas did not strike at the King of Nozar.

  He was simply here to send a message.

  “I am the breaker of chains,” he said quietly. “I am the Warrior of Liberation.”

  The King of Nozar's mouth opened, his eyes flashing with recognition at the title that had been spoken within the words of Propehcy. A Prophecy that he had used to manipulate so many people to enacting his will.

  His gaze locked onto Daerion’s, unblinking, as if wanting to ensure that the man was listening to every word.

  “Hear my words now,” Lukas declared, “and remember them for the rest of your days.”

  The King of Nozar did not even dare draw another breath.

  “For this…is my Declaration of Freedom."

  Waters formed and rose around Lukas, lifting him from the cavern floor in a spiralling column that tore upward through stone.

  Even as he rose, Lukas' eyes never left Daerion's, refusing to grand the King of Nozar a moment of reprieve, even as he held his dying son in his arms. They were fixed upon the man with an intensity so sharp that it felt like a blade pressed against his neck.

  Lukas wanted Daerion to remember this.

  He wanted the King of Nozar to remember every minute detail, remember every single collapsing piece of the delusion he had built his empire upon.

  He wanted him to remember the moment when all these illusions of control finally fell apart.

  Behind them, the water that had carried Lukas upward tore through the cavern and the earth above it. It spiralled and churned violently, a column of sheer force that burst into the bright world above. And atop that rising platform of water hardened into something almost crystalline, stood the King of the Dragons.

  The Legacy of the Crown awakened the instant Lukas emerged from below. Light flared from it in a radiant pulse, so bright it shimmered even beneath the harsh, cloudless sky. The Crown’s magic unfurled outward like a shockwave. It spread across Nozar, then further still, stretching beyond borders, across mountains and rivers, sinking through forests and cities, until not a single draconic mind remained untouched.

  Voices flooded through those connections.

  Lukas heard hundreds of thousands, layered over one another in chaotic, desperate chorus. Some recognized him instantly from his brief visit to the Inner Cities, their hearts rising in familiarity and joy. Others felt him like a stranger stepping into their minds, a presence they had never known yet instinctively trusted. Their confusion and stunned disbelief all rushed through him at once.

  But then Lukas spoke and the cacophony fell into immediate, absolute silence.

  “You have heard my voice. You know who I am.”

  The words rippled through every mind connected to him, carried by the power of the Crown and magnified by the very magic that had once kept them subdued. Dragons in chains, dragons in cages, dragons hidden in dark pits beneath noble estates both in the Inner and the Outer Cities of Nozar, even in the rural mountains of Easthaven and the dunes of Khaitish—every single one of them lifted their heads right then and there.

  “I have asked you to wait. But you shall wait no longer."

  He felt their hearts accelerate, felt that burning pride stirring like embers of a fallen fire.

  “Help free those who cannot free themselves. Protect one another. Do not hurt the innocent or you will answer to me. But tear down anyone who wishes to keep you in chains.”

  This was not a call for revenge.

  “Your fight is for your freedom. Not your vengeance.”

  Lukas felt the acknowledgement from countless of minds as they put aside bitterness and hatred, focusing on what truly mattered in this moment.

  “Take to the skies. Run to the seas. There you will find those who will keep you safe.”

  The promise he had whispered for years through the Shards was no longer a distant dream, it had become a command issued by their King.

  “It is time to fight for your freedom.”

  His voice grew, strengthened by every dragon listening.

  “Rise up and fight for your freedom.”

  Then it thundered.

  “FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO LIVE!”

  The silence that followed was unlike anything the world had ever experienced. It was the calm before the storm, the moment when reality itself held its breath, understanding that the Prophecy was finally being fulfilled.

  Lukas felt their emotions surge, disbelief turning into exhilaration, despair igniting into hope, fear dissolving into adrenaline.

  And then, they rose.

  Dragons all across Nozar and beyond pushed upward. Wings unfurled for the first time in years. Chains snapped. Cages burst open. The sky trembled beneath the power of a thousand ascents.

  Just as during the Celebration at the Citadels, the silence shattered with roars.

  They were declarations, voices of a people reclaiming themselves.

  Once, this sound had been one of defiance.

  Now it was one of confirmation.

  A confirmation that the Age of Dragons had finally returned.

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