The Ultimatum.

~ Nerrissa ~

The world outside the shattered roof was silent, but it was a heavy, suffocating kind of silence. It pressed down on my shoulders like a sack of wet grain.

Dust and bits of crushed stone settled over the ruined Great Hall. No one moved. No one dared to bleed too loudly. Lord Vane was cowering beneath the head table, his fine velvet sleeves pulled over his ears. My stepmother lay flat against the floor near the hearth, her hands buried in the cold ashes, while Elspeth squeezed her eyes shut and wept without making a sound.

I stayed on my knees beside the broken stone pillar. The icy air coming through the ruined ceiling bit into my wet dress, but beneath my collarbone, my skin felt like it was touched by a hot poker. The dragon mark burned so intensely that my whole chest throbbed with every slow pulse of my heart.

Thud.

The sound came from the courtyard outside. It was heavy, like an iron anvil being dropped from a high tower. The ground beneath my knees shuddered.

Thud.

Another heavy impact shook the foundation. The outer gates of Ashvale—the thick pine doors reinforced with double-banded iron—didn't just break. They split apart with a terrible screech of tearing metal, collapsing into the slush like rotten twigs.

Shadows spilled into the courtyard.

They were not men. Or, if they were men once, they had traded their humanity for steel and fire. Dozens of tall figures marched through the mist in silent, terrifying rows. Their armor was dark as charcoal, jagged at the shoulders, and short black cloaks snapped around their calves in the freezing wind. They carried long spears tipped with glowing red steel, but none of them shouted war cries. They moved with absolute, terrifying order.

I pulled myself up using the stone pillar for balance. My legs shook violently, my weak knees threatening to fold beneath my weight, but I forced my fingers to stay locked around the rough granite. I looked down at my dress. The front was stained with wet mud and dark red blood from my coughing fit, but I smoothed the skirt out as best I could with my cold palm.

I would not meet them lying down in the dirt.

A figure stepped through the ruined archway of the main entrance, bypassing the barricade of smashed tables as if it were nothing more than dried grass.

He was far taller than any man I had ever seen—towering over six feet four inches—with shoulders so broad he seemed to block out the faint red light of the sky entirely. A heavy black cloak lined with dark fur rested on his back, and beneath it, his broad chest was covered in bronze armor etched with strange, swirling runes. Dark, midnight-black hair fell around his jaw, but it was his eyes that made my breath catch in my throat.

They were not human eyes. They glowed with a bright, molten gold, burning through the dim light of the hall with cold, terrifying precision.

His presence filled the room like heavy smoke. The air turned instantly hot, dry, and thick with the scent of ozone and crushed iron. The simple act of breathing became a chore, as if his very existence pushed the oxygen out of the space around him.

He did not draw a sword. He did not look at the cowering nobles or the broken roof. He simply walked into the center of the hall, his dark iron boots crunching softly over the shattered window glass.

"Which one of you rules this pile of stone?"

His voice was not a shout, but it echoed off the high walls like grinding tectonic plates. It carried a strange, heavy weight that vibrated right through the floorboards and into my bones.

For three long seconds, no one answered. The village elders pressed their faces flat against the flagstones, begging for mercy in silent prayers.

Then, a trembling hand reached out from beneath the head table.

"I... I am Lord Vane," my step-uncle whimpered, sliding out into the open on his belly like a beaten dog. His fine silk tunic was torn at the elbow, smeared with cold wine and dirt. "I rule Ashvale, Great King. We... we have no quarrel with Drakoria! We pay our taxes to the Dominion! We have no war with dragons!"

The tall man looked down at Lord Vane with absolute, icy contempt. He did not even tilt his head.

"I did not ask about your taxes, worm," the Dragon King said, his molten gold eyes scanning the dark corners of the hall. "And I did not ask for your speech. I am Theron Drakhar. I am here for what belongs to my crown."

Lord Vane swallowed hard, his skin turning a sickly shade of yellow in the firelight. "We have little gold, Your Majesty! The winter has been cruel—the crops rotted in the earth—"

"I care nothing for your gold," Theron interrupted, his voice dropping an octave, becoming dangerously low. "The Vessel lies within your borders. The ancient bloodline of the First. Surrender her to me now, or I will turn this valley into a bowl of melted glass before the moon reaches its peak."

A sharp whisper ran through the cowering nobles, though none dared to stand.

"The Vessel?"

Lord Vane blinked, his eyes darting frantically around the room. He looked at the elders, he looked at his own weeping daughters hiding near the pantry, and then his gaze moved slowly across the hall, stopping directly on me.

My heart gave a massive, painful thud against my ribs.

My stepmother, still lying near the hearth, lifted her head from the ash. Her sharp, cruel eyes locked onto mine, and a sudden, terrible light lit up her face. She didn't hesitate. She didn't pause to think. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and pointed a trembling, ash-stained finger straight at my chest.

"Her!" Lady Verna shrieked, her voice high, thin, and desperate. "Take her! She is the one you want! Her mother was a stranger from the eastern wastes! She has silver hair and blood that turns black in the cold! She is useless to us—take her and leave our land!"

"Mother!" a soft voice squeaked from the pantry hatch. It was Finn, his face pale as a sheet as he peeked through the wooden slats, his eyes wide with horror.

"Quiet, boy!" Elspeth hissed, grabbing a broken bench leg and shoving it toward the hatch to block him. "Let the monster have her!"

Lord Vane scrambled to his feet, eager to save his own skin. He rushed over to me, his heavy hands grabbing my thin shoulders from behind. He shoved me forward with all his strength, sending me stumbling out into the open center of the hall.

"Yes! Take her!" Lord Vane yelled, hiding behind the stone pillar as I stumbled into the light. "She is Nerrissa Ashvale! She is a burden on our estate! Take her, Lord Drakhar, and grant us peace!"

My weak ankles gave out on the slick, glass-covered floor. I fell hard onto my hands and knees right in front of the tall dragon lord, the sharp edges of broken crystal cutting through the fabric of my stockings and digging into my skin.

A sharp cough tore out of my throat, violent and uncontrollable. I pressed my white kerchief to my mouth, shivering as fresh, hot blood soaked through the linen, dripping onto the white dust near his boots.

The heavy iron boots stopped moving.

The heat radiating off his body hit me like an open furnace door. The air smelled of ash and molten bronze. I stayed on my knees, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps, watching my dark blood sink into the dry stone floor.

"Is this a joke?" a hard, feminine voice snapped from the doorway.

A female warrior stepped through the smoke, clad in high dragon-scale armor, a heavy double-bladed axe strapped to her back. Her sharp eyes swept over my tiny, shivering frame with open skepticism.

"General Selene Veyra," Theron said quietly, without looking back at his general.

"My King, she is broken," Selene said, her voice full of harsh disbelief as she looked down at me. "Look at her. She is coughing up her own lungs on the stone. Her frame is so small a light breeze could snap her spine. Is this the creature the prophecy spoke of? She looks like a dying human rat."

I listened to her words, feeling the sharp sting of their judgment, but I did not bow my head lower. I forced my breathing to slow down. I wiped the blood from my chin with the back of my bruised hand, ignoring the sharp pain in my knees.

Slowly, carefully, I lifted my head.

I looked up past the bronze armor, past the dark dragon runes etched into his broad chest, until my eyes met the glowing, molten gold of the Dragon King's gaze.

He was staring down at me with absolute, cold detachment. There was no pity in his eyes. No kindness. No anger. He looked at me the way an emperor looks at a piece of stone he intends to build a wall with—a tool to be evaluated, owned, and used.

Beneath my collarbone, the dragon birthmark burned with such intense, blinding heat that I thought my skin would burst open. But I did not look away. I held his gaze with my large, blue-gray eyes, letting him see every bit of my physical weakness, and every bit of the quiet, unbreakable resolve hiding beneath it.

Theron took one step closer. The tip of his dark iron boot touched the hem of my ruined dress.

He reached down, his massive, dark-runed hand wrapping around my chin. His fingers were broad, calloused, and scorching hot against my freezing skin. He lifted my face up with effortless, iron strength, forcing me to look directly into his terrifying, glowing eyes.

His thumb pressed hard against my jawline, tilting my neck back until the collar of my dress slipped open, exposing the dark, dragon-shaped mark pulsing red beneath my bone.

Theron’s molten eyes narrowed slightly. The golden light in his pupils flared like a dying star.

"This fragile thing is supposed to save my race?" Theron murmured, his voice sounding like dry stone sliding over iron, loud enough to fill the silent hall. "She looks too weak to survive a single night."

He tightened his grip on my jaw, his thumb tracing the burning edge of my birthmark.

"Bind her," Theron commanded coldly, casting his gaze toward Selene without letting go of my face. "If she dies on the journey, burn this entire realm to ashes anyway."