Chapter One: The Conqueror’s Terms

The smell of smoke lingered even after the fires had been put out. Not the clean burn of hearthwood, but the bitter stench of charred flesh and scorched stone—an omen, some whispered, of the Warlord’s wrath.

Princess Sera stood atop the crumbling western parapet of Aeryth's citadel, the wind catching the hem of her blood-red cloak. Her gaze held the horizon, where the last embers of battle still smoldered. The once-golden banners of her father’s kingdom hung in tattered strips from the towers. Blackened. Broken.

Below, silence blanketed the remains of the capital like a shroud. No victory songs. No mourning cries. Only the cold, distant toll of surrender.

They said he didn’t take cities.

He claimed them.

Behind her, the chamberlain’s boots scraped the stone with each hesitant step. "Your Highness… it is time."

She didn’t look back. “He wants an audience.”

“He demands it.”

Of course he does. Dragons don’t request.

She turned slowly, lifting her chin with the practiced ease of royalty, even as her stomach twisted with dread. Her silken gown, once sewn with thread-of-gold, had been hastily refitted to match the darker tone of mourning—a political decision more than grief. The loss of Aeryth had not broken her. Not outwardly.

But what came next might.

∞∞∞

The throne room still stank of ash and blood.

Once a jewel of architecture, the high-arched ceiling now bore soot scars from dragonfire. Half the stained glass had melted, leaving jagged holes where sunlight poured in without mercy. The dais had been stripped bare; her father’s throne replaced with nothing but a carved obsidian slab.

And he sat atop it like he had always belonged there.

The Dragon Warlord.

He didn’t wear a crown.

He was one.

Massive, motionless, and terrifying in his stillness, the warlord looked nothing like the court's whispered portraits. His armor was made of scales—real ones, black and dark crimson, char-bound and ancient. They looked as though they had grown from his skin rather than been forged. Long hair, coal-black and streaked with silver, hung unbound around sharp, beastlike features. His eyes…

Her breath caught.

They glowed.

Not gold, not amber. Firelight, caged behind the thinnest veneer of humanity. When his gaze landed on her, she felt it like the kiss of an open flame.

"Approach," he said.

The word cracked through the air like a command to kneel. Her knees didn’t buckle, but it took effort.

She descended the aisle slowly, flanked by guards who were hers in title only. Their loyalty had shifted with the wind. Or perhaps with fear.

She stopped a respectful distance from the dais, keeping her expression neutral, her hands folded to hide the trembling in her fingers.

The warlord stood.

He was taller than she'd expected. Broader, too. Built like a creature shaped for war, but moved like he could vanish and strike in the same breath. As a child, she had often wondered what a dragon might look like in human skin—a question whispered between old books and nursery rhymes, half-believing it was myth. But if you ever did see one, it was said to be the last sight your eyes would know. And now, here he was: terrifyingly real, terrifyingly calm. A dragon made flesh. And he was looking at her like she was already burning.

"You are Sera of House Vaelir," he said, descending toward her with deliberate, predator-slow steps.

"Princess of Aeryth," she corrected.

Something flickered behind his eyes. Amusement? Annoyance?

"Not anymore."

She flinched, just barely.

He stopped before her, towering close enough to touch, close enough to devour if he wished. She had to tilt her head back just to meet his gaze, her neck straining with the effort. His sheer size eclipsed everything else—broad shoulders casting her in shadow, chest rising and falling like a beast barely leashed. His scent hit her then—smoke and metal, leather and something darker. Not unpleasant. Just... dangerous.

He lifted one gloved hand and trailed it through the air just above her cheek, not quite touching. Her pulse jumped.

"Do you know what your father offered me in exchange for mercy?"

She didn’t speak.

His lips curved, sharp, and cruel. "You."

Heat surged to her face—anger, humiliation, and something else she refused to name. It coiled low in her belly like a flicker of fire caught between fear and fascination. She hated that he could make her feel anything at all, let alone something so darkly thrilling. Her instincts screamed that this man—this dragon—was a predator in the shape of a king, and still her body betrayed her, trembling not just with dread, but something achingly close to anticipation.

"To take you as tribute, to spare his people. He would have offered his crown, his blade, his soul. But none of it mattered."

The warlord stepped closer.

"You mattered."

"I am not a—"

"Prize?" His voice dipped into something dark, velvet-wrapped steel. "No. You’re the offering."

The room spun. She kept her feet through sheer force of will.

"You burn like power wrapped in silk," he murmured, eyes dragging down her body with deliberate, predatory hunger. "I could smell it from the gates."

Gasps flitted through the ruined chamber like startled birds. One of her guards visibly shivered, eyes fixed on the floor. Another turned away entirely, jaw clenched tight. No one dared interrupt. No one defended her. His court—dragons in elegant humanoid shapes, generals with gleaming claws and eyes like molten stone, watched with unreadable expressions. Some looked intrigued. Others hungry. But not a single soul looked surprised.

Her mouth went dry.

"You want to understand what it means to be chosen?" he asked, voice lowering to a whisper as he leaned in, his breath searing against the shell of her ear. "Have you ever seen a dragon’s rut?"

∞∞∞

Later, in the cold echo of her new chamber—a high, volcanic spire swathed in dark stone and red glass—Sera gripped the edge of the black-marble washbasin and fought the urge to scream.

The mountain groaned around her. She could feel the weight of the volcano beneath the fortress, heat rising through the floor in languid, menacing pulses. A living thing. A beast’s heart. It felt as though the entire fortress was breathing with him, his presence inescapable. The walls held his scent—smoke and fire and something wild. The very air trembled with restrained power.

Red glass filtered moonlight into veins of molten crimson across the floor, casting her pale skin in shades of blood. The chill of fear fought with the furnace heat around her, leaving her shivering despite the rising temperature.

She felt hunted. Not like prey exactly, but like something claimed. Like the way dragons watched gold—possessive, obsessive, never blinking. She could still feel the weight of their gazes from the court: some filled with hunger, others with cruel curiosity. But his had seared the deepest. His had devoured.

And she was gold now.

She had been delivered into its throat.

They’d stripped her of her silks, her jewels, her guards. Even her escort had abandoned her at the gates of the volcanic fortress, as though crossing its threshold had made her something less than human. She’d arrived with only her name, and even that trembled now, brittle and thin as scorched parchment.

The door creaked open behind her.

She spun.

The warlord stood in the doorway like a shadow made flesh. He didn’t speak.

She backed up instinctively, heart pounding like a warning drum. Every step he took into the room felt like the closing of a trap, the final click of a lock she hadn’t known she was bound by.

He stepped inside, letting the heavy doors slam shut behind him, sealing her in with heat, him, and inevitability.

His eyes swept her body in one slow, unashamed pass. Her nightgown was thin—too thin. She felt his gaze like hands, rough and scalding, branding her without touch.

"I am not yours," she said, voice shaking with fury.

He tilted his head. "You were given."

"By a coward."

"By a king," he corrected. "And kings do not give away what is worthless."

He advanced slowly, boots silent on the obsidian floor, and yet each step echoed inside her like thunder. She could feel her pulse in her throat, in her fingertips, in the backs of her knees. A part of her screamed to run. Another part—darker, older—was still.

"You’ll sleep here now. In the heart of my keep. You’ll eat what I bring. Wear what I give."

"I’ll escape."

He smiled, slow and wicked, like the idea of it thrilled him. She didn't doubt that it did. "Try."

He reached for her face again—this time, he touched. Just barely. His fingers were warm, not cruel. Callused from war, but careful.

She hated that she leaned into it, even a little. Hated more that it steadied her. That some part of her—the part that remembered the stories, the ones about dragons and offerings and burning, the part that was always curious—wanted to know what came next.

"The terms are set," he whispered, voice dark silk over steel. "In three days, my rut begins. If you’re still here, I will take you."

"And if I’m not?"

He smiled wider, slow as a flare of fire catching dry wood. "You will be."

Then he turned and left, the door closing behind him with a thundering finality.

She stood frozen in the silence that followed, in a room full of firelight and fear.

And the worst part—the very worst part—was that some ancient part of her wasn’t entirely afraid.

It was listening.

It was waiting to burn.