Chapter 6: The King Who Feels Nothing

Zaron's POV

The messenger arrived on a Tuesday.

I remember this not because Tuesdays hold any particular significance in the Dragon Realm — they do not — but because I had been in the middle of sentencing a border lord to death when the doors of the war chamber opened and the boy stumbled in, breathless and pale, clutching a scroll sealed with the mark of the eastern watchtowers.

I did not look at him immediately.

I finished what I was saying to the border lord first. I find it discourteous to leave a death sentence half delivered. The lord in question — a broad man with a red beard and the particular expression of someone who has only just understood that the stories they heard about the Dragon King were not exaggerated — had been skimming taxes from three border villages for the better part of a decade and redirecting the coin to his own coffers. He had done this under the assumption that I would not notice.

I notice everything.

"Your lands will be redistributed to the villages you stole from," I said. "Your title is revoked. You will be escorted to the eastern labor camps before sunset." I looked at him for the first time since he had entered the chamber. "Be grateful I am in a patient mood today."

He was removed.

I turned to the messenger.

The boy could not have been more than sixteen. He was one of the eastern watchtower runners — young, fast, trained to carry urgent intelligence across the realm without stopping. He had clearly not stopped. His boots were caked with road mud and there were dark circles beneath his eyes deep enough to suggest he had not slept in at least two days.

He dropped to one knee the moment my eyes landed on him.

"My king," he said. His voice shook only slightly. I gave him credit for that. "Word from the eastern watchtowers. The century mark has been reached. The covenant clock has completed its turn."

I said nothing.

"The human villages have been notified," he continued, still on one knee, eyes fixed on the floor. "The Choosing will take place within the fortnight. The sacrifice will be ready for collection within the month."

Silence filled the war chamber.

My generals seated along the long stone table to my left did not move. Did not speak. Did not so much as shift in their chairs. They had learned over the accumulated centuries of serving under me that silence in my presence was always the correct response until I indicated otherwise.

I walked to the window.

The Dragon Realm stretched out below the war chamber in every direction — mountains and forest and river, ancient and unchanged, exactly as it had looked for the three hundred years I had ruled it. It was mine. Every stone of it, every shadow, every creature that moved through it. Mine to protect. Mine to govern. Mine to answer for.

I turned from the window.

"Send word to Commander Drex," I said. "He will lead the collection party himself. Standard escort. Depart on the appointed day."

"Yes, my king."

"You may go."

The boy rose, bowed, and retreated from the chamber with considerably more speed than was strictly necessary.

General Vayne cleared his throat.

"My king," he said carefully. "Shall we discuss arrangements for the sacrifice? The council will want to be informed."

"The council will be informed when there is something worth informing them about," I said, without looking up from the map I had returned to. "Collection and delivery are Drex's responsibility. There is nothing for the council to discuss until the girl arrives."

"Of course." A pause. "And when she arrives? The traditional ceremony—"

"Will be handled as it always has been," I said.

"Yes, my king." Another pause. Shorter this time. "Lord Vaeris has already expressed interest in—"

"Lord Vaeris," I said, very quietly, "will attend whatever functions I decide he may attend. And no others." I looked up from the map for the first time and held Vayne's gaze. "Is that clear."

"Perfectly clear, my king," Vayne said.

I returned to the map.

The matter was closed.

Drex came to find me that evening.

He found me in the upper armory — where I went when I wanted to be left alone and therefore the first place he always looked. I was working through training forms with a long blade, not because I needed the practice but because the repetition of it was useful for clearing the mind of unnecessary clutter.

He leaned against the doorframe and watched me for a moment.

"The covenant month," he said.

"Your observational skills remain as sharp as ever," I said, without breaking the form.

"The generals are nervous."

"The generals are always nervous. It is their defining characteristic."

"Vayne thinks the council will push for a formal ceremony this time. Full court attendance." He paused. "Lord Vaeris has already sent a request to be present for the arrival."

I completed the form and lowered the blade.

I turned to look at Drex.

"Lord Vaeris will attend whatever functions I decide he may attend," I said. "That answer has not changed since this morning."

"I will convey that to him with all the diplomacy I can manage," Drex said. "Which, as you know, is a limited quantity."

"I know."

He was quiet for a moment. Then in a slightly different tone — the tone he used when he was about to say something he had been considering for longer than the current conversation:

"It has been a hundred years since the last one."

"I am aware of how centuries work, Drex."

"I only mean—" He stopped. Chose his words with more care than usual. "The last time was different. You were different then. There were still things you cared about. People." Another pause. "It was a difficult period."

The armory was very quiet.

I set the long blade on the rack beside me and turned to fully face him.

Drex did not step back. He did not drop his eyes. He simply looked at me with that steady careful attention and waited. He was one of perhaps three people alive who could do that without it costing them something significant.

"I will say this once," I said. My voice was exactly as it always was. Level. Quiet. Without inflection. "What happened a hundred years ago is not relevant to what happens this month. The covenant will be honored. The sacrifice will arrive. The traditional proceedings will take place."

"And if this one is different?" Drex said quietly. "If she—"

"She will not be different," I said. "They are never different."

Drex looked at me for a long moment.

Something in his expression said he was not entirely convinced.

He was wise enough not to say so.

"Of course, my king," he said.

He pushed off the doorframe and left without another word.

I stood alone in the armory.

Then I picked the blade back up and resumed the form from the beginning.

But my mind was not empty the way it usually was.

Drex's words sat in it like stones dropped in still water — small but present, sending ripples in directions I had not chosen and could not entirely stop.

She will not be different.

I had said it with complete certainty.

I had meant it completely.

And yet.

That night, standing at the window of my private chambers, looking out over the dark realm below — I felt it.

My dragon stirred.

Not fully. The barest suggestion of movement, deep and internal, the way a very large thing shifts slightly in its sleep. My dragon had been dormant for over a century. I was accustomed to its silence.

So when it moved, however slightly, I noticed.

I went very still.

It did not move again.

I stood at the window for a long time after, waiting to see if it would resolve into something I could identify.

It did not.

Eventually I turned from the window and went to bed.

I chose not to think about it again.

For three hundred years, choosing not to think about something had been the same as it not existing.

I was beginning to wonder, for the first time in a very long time, if that was still true.