Chapter 269
The sky was unusually dark for morning.
Not from clouds, but from something thicker. Ancient. Watching.
I stood before the High Altar of Flames, deep beneath Westeroz in a chamber sealed for centuries. The air crackled around me, heavy with heat and memory. The last time this room had been opened, a queen had died.
Now it opened for me.
Only a handful knew about the chamber—me, the Alpha, and an elder from the scrollkeeper’s bloodline who warned us that the Blackfangs might attempt a ritual here.
They weren’t wrong.
The stone floor still shimmered with recent blood. Symbols scrawled in jagged strokes circled the altar. Runes not meant for mortal tongues. Some still glowed red. Others pulsed, alive with something wrong.
“They were trying to awaken something,” I murmured.
Zaerion stirred above, his presence pressing into my chest like thunder. I could feel his tension through the bond. The dragons didn’t like this place. Too many echoes. Too much death.
“She was here,” I whispered. “The last Moon-Blooded queen. They bled her in this very circle.”
The Alpha stood at the edge of the room, hand never leaving his blade. “And now they want to finish the ritual. Only this time, with you.”
I swallowed the rising chill in my throat. “They’re trying to bind the fire before it fully becomes mine.”
I stepped into the circle.
And everything changed.
Pain.
Raw. Instant.
It wasn’t my own.
It was theirs.
The dragons.
I dropped to my knees as images slammed into my mind—Zaerion snarling in chains, another dragon thrashing beneath a crimson moon, wings torn, scales blackened.
They were hurting.
Not in the sky.
Below.
“They’ve trapped one,” I gasped. “They’re using the ritual to summon a dragon—one that doesn’t belong to me.”
The Alpha’s eyes darkened. “You mean to control it?”
“No,” I said, horror dawning.
“To kill me with it.”
A scream echoed through the chamber—not mine. Not his.
Another’s.
The fire at the center of the altar burst into the air, revealing a form rising from molten shadow. A massive figure emerged from the flame, obsidian-scaled and covered in chains burning with runes. Its eyes were not gold like Zaerion’s. They were hollow. Bleeding.
A corrupted dragon.
The air shook.
Zaerion’s roar split the sky above us, answering the challenge.
I stood, heart hammering. “They bound him. A dragon of fire, soul-split by blood magic. I can’t control him.”
“But you’re his queen,” the Alpha shouted over the wind. “You’re their mother!”
“Not his,” I said. “He’s been turned.”
The corrupted dragon’s wings unfurled, massive and jagged, black smoke trailing like poison.
I stepped forward anyway.
“I’m not here to control you,” I said, voice steady. “I’m here to free you.”
It screamed—a sound that wasn’t a roar, but a cry of pure pain.
I reached for the flame inside me.
And for the first time...
It fought me back.
The fire burst from my chest too early—wild, unshaped, lashing out in spirals across the chamber. It struck the corrupted dragon, and for a moment, I thought it was enough.
But it didn’t flinch.
It absorbed it.
The ritual had twisted its nature. My flame wasn’t purging it—it was feeding it.
“No!” I shouted, dropping to one knee. “I’m losing it—I can’t—”
“ARIA!” the Alpha shouted, running toward me.
But the dragon struck.
A single wingbeat sent a blast of fire across the chamber. It wasn’t normal flame. It was death wrapped in magic.
The Alpha leapt, grabbing me, shielding my body with his. I felt the heat sear past us, skin blistering even beneath magic.
“Let me go,” I said, shoving him off. “You’ll die if you stay.”
“I won’t leave you,” he snarled. “Don’t you dare order me away.”
I looked up at him.
And then back at the altar.
The fire in me surged again—but this time, I stopped fighting it.
I let it take me.
The mark on my chest glowed bright white. Not red. Not gold. White like starlight. The kind of flame that doesn’t just burn—it transforms.
Zaerion dove from the sky above, smashing through the chamber roof in a cyclone of silver and light.
He collided with the corrupted dragon in midair, fangs sinking into its neck, wings thrashing the very air into chaos.
The two titans fought above us—clawing, snarling, fire and smoke swirling like twin gods of war.
And I stood in the center of the storm.
Then I screamed.
A single word in the old tongue.
“Al'shara!”
Release.
The corrupted dragon froze—mid-lunge, mid-roar—as the chains around it ignited.
It writhed.
And the fire inside me jumped.
From my chest.
Into it.
The fire wrapped around its form—not hurting, but purging. Cleansing. It screamed one last time—and the black smoke shattered from its body like glass.
It collapsed.
Zaerion landed beside it, panting, scales glowing faintly.
And the corrupted dragon… bowed its head.
Its eyes—no longer bleeding—met mine.
Gold.
Like the others.
I fell to my knees.
Exhausted.
Alive.
And no longer just a queen.
A Mother of Dragons.
When I awoke, I was in my chambers.
The Alpha sat beside me, bandages on his arm, watching me like I was a dying star.
“You’re awake,” he breathed.
I smiled faintly. “I didn’t burn the kingdom down. That’s progress.”
“You cleansed a corrupted dragon with your soul fire,” he said. “That’s more than progress. That’s impossible.”
I closed my eyes. “Nothing’s impossible anymore.”
He leaned closer. “The court wants answers.”
“Let them wait,” I whispered. “They’ve had enough warnings. Now they’ll see what a queen with dragons looks like.”
He chuckled softly. “You know... I think you scare me more than the dragons.”
I opened one eye. “Good.”
Then I reached for his hand.
“I need you with me,” I said softly. “Not just as my protector. But as the one person who’ll hold me back when I start burning everything.”
His fingers closed around mine.
“You have me,” he whispered. “Always.”
Outside, three dragons flew together for the first time in centuries.
And far below, hidden deep within the mountains…
The last corrupted egg began to crack.
The war wasn’t over.
But for the first time in my life—
I knew who I was.
And what I was born to become.
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