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Home / Fantasy Short Story / The Dragon Lord Who Never Believed Me / Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

All Chapters of The Dragon Lord Who Never Believed Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

7 Chapters

Chapter 1

The High Healer had already given me his final verdict. In three days, my dragonfire would gutter out completely, and my soul would splinter with it.For the Dragon Lord who had never believed me and the family Cecilia had fooled for seven years, my death might be the only truth they couldn’t argue away.The Oath Hall’s bronze doors slammed open.“Evelyn!”Cassian’s roar made every brazier along the walls flare. I turned to find him striding toward me in black-and-gold battle armor, his dark red dragon eyes burning with fury.Cecilia hurried in behind him, still wearing the silver-blue cloak of the newly appointed Captain of the Dragonwing Guard. She was slightly out of breath, but the concern on her face had already been arranged to perfection.“You had to drag this into the Oath Hall today?” Cassian stopped inches from me. “Cecilia just received the Dragonwing Medal. The entire Court is waiting to celebrate her promotion, and you pick this moment to stage some grand departure?”Befor

Chapter 2

Cassian’s face stiffened.His eyes flicked to the moving portrait on the desk, then away. “What are you getting at?”“You promised that once the north was secure, you’d crown me Dragon Queen.” My voice was low. “Later, you said my dragonfire was too weak and I wasn’t ready for the responsibility.”“That was the truth.” His patience was already wearing thin.“You spent my nineteenth birthday at the border. On my twentieth, you said the Council had buried you in work. When I turned twenty-one, you forgot altogether.” I held his gaze. “But you’ve personally chosen Cecilia’s gift every year.”“That’s enough.” Cassian spun toward me, and the force of the Dragon Lord’s presence filled the cramped room. “You turn every small slight into an old grievance. If you weren’t so sensitive, suspicious, and obsessed with comparing yourself to Cecilia, we wouldn’t be here.”His power pressed the air from my lungs.So in his mind, being unloved wasn’t something that had happened to me. It was something

Chapter 3

Cassian bent and lifted Cecilia as though she were made of spun glass.“Who touched her before she fell?” he demanded. “Anyone besides you?”I caught a glimpse of the leather pouch beneath Cecilia’s sleeve and finally understood. She had planned every beat of this scene before she ever entered my room.“She brought something with her.” I pointed toward her waist. “Search the pouch.”Cecilia curled protectively around it as tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s only pain medicine. Why do you have to turn even that into something ugly?”“Evelyn!” Cassian set her down and closed his hand around my throat. “You hurt her, and now you’re trying to pin it on her?”His fingers tightened.The air vanished. Darkness crowded the edges of my sight. I didn’t fight him. I only stared at the face inches from mine and thought, [Maybe this is easier.]If he killed me now, I wouldn’t have to survive the next two days.Then agony exploded through the fated bond.It wasn’t my pain. It was his.When one fat

Chapter 4

“Why?” Cecilia repeated as if I had asked the stupidest question in the world.“Do you know what it was like to be dragged out of an orphanage and brought into a house where you already had everything? A name. Parents. A fated Dragon Lord.”“You were too weak to form wings, but fate handed you the Dragon Queen’s place anyway. Why did Cassian’s bond have to choose you?”She caught my chin, years of buried envy blazing in her eyes.“I’m stronger than you. More obedient. Better suited to stand beside him. House Ashton and the Obsidian Court should have been mine.”She leaned close enough that her breath brushed my ear. “You’ve always wondered why your dragonfire kept fading, haven’t you?”“Since you were twelve, I’ve been adding ash-thorn extract to your tonics. Only a few drops at a time—too little for a healer to notice, but enough to rot your dragon core slowly.”“The cold-iron powder in your training clothes, the push in the canyon, the switched medicines—that was all me.”“And last w

Chapter 5

Cassian was meeting with the elders in the council tower when the message disk on the table flared red.The sender was Evelyn.At first, irritation rose automatically.[So she finally decided to contact me, and she chose the middle of a military council. What is she trying to make me abandon this time?]He tapped the message open.Cecilia’s voice poured from the echo stone, sharp and unmistakable.[Since you were twelve, I’ve been adding ash-thorn extract to your tonics.][The cold-iron powder in your training clothes, the push in the canyon, the switched medicines—that was all me.][When you die, I’ll be the only woman left to become Dragon Queen.]The recording ended.Only the crackle of the braziers remained in the council chamber.Cassian sat frozen as the color drained from his face.“No.”He surged to his feet and knocked over the chair behind him. “It’s fabricated. Evelyn hates Cecilia. She’d do anything to get revenge.”The words had barely left his mouth when tearing pain ripp

Chapter 6

I floated beneath the rafters of the Copper Kettle and watched Maeve lead them through the kitchen and up the narrow stairs.Cassian stopped when the loft door opened.Two white candles burned beside the bed. My body lay near the window beneath Maeve’s best wool blanket, my hands folded carefully over my chest.“What is this?” Cassian’s voice shook. “She’s only sleeping. Isn’t she?”No one answered.He crossed the room and yanked back the blanket, as if moving fast enough might startle me out of death.My face was already cold.Maeve had dressed me in a clean cream-colored nightgown and combed my hair. A faint smile still rested on my lips because, in the final moment of my life, I had truly stopped being afraid.Cassian touched my cheek and froze.The last remnant of our bond vanished.The dragon inside him released a roar of grief so violent that cracks raced across the window glass. The Dragon Lord who had never fallen in the northern wars dropped to his knees beside my bed and coul

Chapter 7

My body was carried to the Stillfire Hall in Obsidian Keep to await the woodland burial.That evening, Cecilia returned to the main tower with a spring in her step.She had no idea what had happened after the healing tower. She assumed Cassian’s suspicions still began and ended with the flowers and the missing vial.“Cassian, I’ve been thinking.” She entered the hall in her gentlest voice. “Evelyn must have been manipulated by outsiders. I saw her speaking with people from that border tavern. Perhaps they taught her to falsify an echo stone.”“If she comes back and explains herself to the elders, I’m willing to ask them for mercy.”Her words died when she saw the white-draped body on the Stillfire bier.Cassian stood beside it, colder than the night beyond the windows.“You still want her to come back and explain?”Cecilia stepped back instinctively. “Who is that?”Cassian lifted one hand.His power struck her like a hammer and hurled her into the stone wall. Her shoulder broke with a

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