Chapter 38 The Five Kingdoms
Azerath
Breakfast should not feel like a battlefield, yet that morning it did.
When I rose from the rocking chair and offered Serafina my hand, I did so carefully, as if approaching a skittish creature I had no right to startle. “Come,” I told her gently. “Breakfast is ready.”
She looked at my hand.
Not at my face. Not at the warmth I tried to place in my voice. She looked at my hand as though it might burn her.
The hesitation was brief, but I felt it in full. She did not take it.
I closed my fingers slowly and let my arm fall back to my side. The rejection was not cruel—only cautious—but it pressed against my chest like a weight I wasn’t ready for.
“I will wait outside,” I said, straightening. My voice remained calm, though I was aware of the distance growing between us. I gestured toward the teacup on her nightstand. “Drink that. It will help relax you. It will calm your ember.”
Her ember. Awake now. No longer dormant. No longer hidden beneath Imperial classifications and deliberate suppression.
I moved to the door, pausing before stepping out. The words felt heavier than I expected. “I am sorry about last night,” I said quietly. "Truly."
I should not have provoked her the way I did. I had needed her power to surface fully, but I had underestimated the cost.
Blink shifted on the bed, watching us both with perceptive eyes.
“Blink,” I said gently, “come now. I know you need to go outside.”
The wolf jumped down immediately and followed me out. I closed the door behind us, leaving Serafina alone with her thoughts.
The morning was far brighter than I preferred.
Sunlight penetrated the canopy of the Cursed Forest in sharp, golden shafts that illuminated the undergrowth and thinned the shadows. On mornings like this, visibility stretched farther than it should. Imperial Enforcers favored such conditions. So did rebels. Both relied on light to navigate terrain they did not fully understand.
Blink trotted ahead of me toward the tree line.
“After you are finished,” I instructed, “check the perimeter. Make certain no one enters the forest. Serafina and I will be training after breakfast.”
Blink huffed in acknowledgment before disappearing into the trees.
There was a small clearing not far from the hut where the sun spilled freely through a break in the canopy. I stepped into it and closed my eyes, letting the sun's warmth bathe me.
My bronze skin darkened as scales rippled outward across my shoulders and down my arms,
shimmering in colors of emerald, ruby, and sapphire. They absorbed the light, drinking it in. The gold in my eyes deepened even behind closed lids, flickering with restrained flame. The sun fed my fire in ways no other source could.
As a sun and moon dragon, I required both cycles. The moon restored my illusions and veiled magic. The sun restored my core flame.
Standing there, absorbing its warmth, a memory surfaced.
Elias. Kneeling.
Blood streaked his temple, wrists bound, brought before the newly crowned Emperor. Even restrained, he held himself with the quiet dignity of a man who understood exactly what he was sacrificing.
I had burned half the imperial forces that day.
The sky had been thick with ash. Dragonia had already fallen.
The other dragons had been slaughtered by weapons forged in imitation of Elias’ sword, and by sigils devised by Arcanis scholars. Lunaran shadowbinders clipped wings mid-flight, while Aetherion’s machines pierced scales once thought impenetrable.
They had not hunted some dragons.
They had hunted all of us.
I was the last.
The Emperor did not threaten me directly. Instead, he stood before Elias with a blade resting lightly against the throat of a newborn child.
Elias’s son. The heir of the Valyn line.
“Yield,” the Emperor had said calmly, “or your bloodline ends here.”
Elias had looked at me then. Not with fear. With apology.
He knew what kneeling meant. He knew what surrender would cost him in history. But he also knew what pride would cost his child.
He bent the knee.
I had roared in fury that split the mountainside.
The Emperor had not flinched. He had simply offered terms.
“You will sleep,” he told me. “You will remove yourself from this world. In exchange, the child lives. The bloodline will be permitted to continue under imperial supervision."
I could have incinerated them all. But I would have burned the child with them.
So I agreed. Not out of defeat. Out of trust in Elias’ choice to preserve his son.
The Valyn name disappeared that day. Elias renamed himself Valen, altering a single letter to obscure legacy. He was branded not as traitor—but as proof. Proof that even Celestials could kneel. Publicly, he became a loyal servant of the Empire. Privately, the last witness to a genocide of dragons and Celestials.
The Empire rewrote history. Dragonia became myth. Ember became folklore. And the Great Collapse was rewritten as a war caused by dragon aggression. The Empire declared itself savior of civilization.
But the Great Collapse was not a single battle. It was a systematic dismantling of balance.
A cold nose pressed against my hand, pulling me from memory. Blink had returned. I stepped out of the sunlight and allowed the scales to recede beneath bronze skin.
“Are the wolves still guarding the edges of the forest?” I asked.
Blink huffed once in confirmation.
I gave her an affectionate pat behind the ear. “Good. Let us have breakfast.”
Inside, Serafina was already at the table.
She had dressed in black trousers, a white shirt, and boots. Her hair was braided neatly down her back in a French braid that revealed the line of her neck. She was placing a plate of sausages on the floor for Blink.
“You seem to favor trousers,” I observed.
“They’re comfortable,” she said, buttering toast and popping a bite into her mouth. “I can move in them.”
“It suits you,” I said honestly.
She smiled at the compliment and took another bite of toast. Her eyes closed and a soft groan escaped her.
“I'm starving,” she muttered. “I did not know magic could take so much energy.”
“It does,” I said, taking my seat at the head of the table. “You awakened dormant power. Your body is compensating.”
“And you?” she asked.
“I recharged in the sun,” I replied, placing eggs and sausages on my plate. “As a sun and moon dragon, I require both. The moon restores my illusionary magic. The sun restores my fire. You, however, will restore yours through food and rest.”
She mirrored me, adding eggs and sausages to her plate without hesitation.
After a few bites, she looked up at me with intent.
“The woman in my dream,” she said carefully. “Red hair. Green and gold eyes. She spoke of Emberborn Celestials and the Great Collapse. She said my bloodline is older than the Empire. Who was she, Azerath?”
“She was one of the first Celestials of the Kingdom of Ember,” I said, after I swallowed a bit of my eggs. “Not in flesh, but in memory. The Emberborn carry ancestral echoes within their blood. When your power awakened, it reached back through that lineage and stirred what still endures.”
Serafina remained silent, absorbing every word.
“You were born into a bloodline the Empire tried to erase,” I continued. “Your parents concealed your fire to protect you. Had it manifested openly, you would have been taken—either molded into imperial service or eliminated as a threat.”
I folded my hands on the table before going on.
“The Celestials were never mere fire-wielders. Their flame was solar in origin, drawn from celestial alignment rather than emotion alone. They shaped it into tangible forms—barriers strong enough to withstand dragonfire, weapons capable of ending wars, even bridges across shattered terrain when the world itself fractured. They did not dominate dragons. They stood beside them as equals.”
She held my gaze steadily. “And now?”
“Now,” I answered carefully, “you are the first in generations to awaken that power without the Empire’s chains shaping it first. Your fire is not conditioned by their doctrine. It answers only to you.”
I set my fork down and chose my words carefully before I began to explain.
“There were once five kingdoms,” I continued. “Aetherion, Arcanis, Lunara, Dragonia, and Ember."
“I’ve never heard of half of those," she said.
“You were not meant to. Dragonia housed the Dragon Courts. Ember housed the Celestials. We were not numerous, but we were balance. Dragons corrected catastrophe when provoked. Celestials stabilized surges of uncontrolled magic. Among them were rare individuals capable of Dragon Resonance. Elias Valyn was one.”
“And the other kingdoms?” she asked.
“They were mortal and ambitious. Arcanis mastered structured magic. Lunara mastered shadow manipulation. Aetherion advanced mechanical innovation. They shared a common resentment toward forces they could not control. That resentment unified them.”
She leaned forward slightly.
“Resentment became diplomacy. Diplomacy became alliance. Aetherion, Arcanis, and Lunara formed the first Triune Accord. Publicly, it was for trade. Privately, it was for strategy. They studied dragons. They studied Celestial magic. Then, they formed the Empire.”
“So they formed the Empire to wage war on you?” she asked, her voice tight with disbelief.
“Yes. They crowned the first Emperor and swore to bring all magic under a single authority. Dragons were considered too volatile, and Celestials too independent. This was after their failed attempts to subjugate the dragons, an effort that angered both dragons and mortals alike. That failure sparked the Great Collapse.”
Her jaw tightened. “So they exterminated dragons.”
“They exterminated all of them,” I said evenly. “Except me.”
Silence filled the room.
“And Ember?” she asked quietly.
“Those who were bonded to dragons perished when their dragons were slain. The remaining Celestials were hunted relentlessly and pressured to bend the knee. Only one yielded. The Empire then declared all Celestials unstable, using it as an excuse to justify their suppression.”
“Only one did?”
“Your ancestor bent the knee to preserve his son. I entered hibernation to ensure the line endured. The Empire allowed the Valyn blood to remain within the Imperial Court under watchful control. Your parents rose high enough to sit on the Small Council.”
Her expression shifted at that.
“But they were executed,” she said.
“Yes.”
I didn’t speak Magnus’s name. Not yet. I suspected it was his doing. The truth behind the Ironside name would reveal itself soon enough.
Serafina’s expression fell, and the quiet stretched between us.
“So the Empire feared us even after the deal,” she said at last.
“They feared what balance represented,” I replied. “Control requires imbalance.”
Her ember flickered faintly at her core. I felt it.
“And now?” she asked.
“Now you have awakened,” I said. “You're an Emberborn Celestial. You possess Dragon Resonance. The last dragon stands beside you.”
She held my gaze this time, unwavering. “This is not rebellion,” she said.
“No,” I replied. “It is restoration.”
She inclined her head slightly. “The woman in my vision… she said my fire is a promise.”
“It is,” I confirmed.
“Of what?”
I looked steadily into her eyes. “Of choice,” I said.
Outside, the forest shifted under too-bright sunlight. Somewhere beyond the trees, an Empire still believed dragons extinct and Celestials diluted beyond consequence.
They were wrong.
And this time, if they came—
I would not allow Serafina to kneel.