Ashes of the Conqueror : Volume 1
Volume 1:Echoes of Flame and Storm
In the 732nd year of the Dominion Calendar, the skies bled fire over Dravarys.
The Dragon Empire stood unchallenged. Its legions crushed rebellion like grain under millstones. Its banners—black and crimson—flew from the bones of conquered kings. And at its heart sat the Citadel of Flame, carved into the caldera of Mount Kryon, where dragons once ruled the skies and where now only one throne mattered.
Prince Kael was born there, beneath an eclipse.
The midwives whispered of ill omens, for his eyes flickered with gold at birth—an ancient sign, spoken of only in ruined tablets sealed in vaults. But the Emperor laughed and named him Vaeryn-Kael, "the One Who Binds Fire."
He was the only heir.
And he was cursed with power no man should wield.
---
Most wielders could touch only one of the three Greater Forces: Magic, the manipulation of essence through will; Aura, the force of life drawn from one's own soul; or Divine Power, gifted only to those blessed—or damned—by the gods.
Kael wielded all three.
By fifteen, he split mountains in training duels. By seventeen, priests feared to speak his name. And on the day of his coronation, the sky cracked with thunder not born of storms. The Oracle of Nihareth arrived barefoot, her eyes hollowed by prophecy, and uttered the verdict:
"Let none crown him until the Five Trials judge his soul."
The Trials were relics of the First Age, believed myth by most. But myths become law when the gods speak. To claim the throne, Kael would have to pass:
The Trial of the Sky, where the winds test the spirit's reach.
The Trial of Aqua, where the deep reveals what lies beneath the flesh.
The Trial of Gaia, where earth grinds down false strength.
The Trial of Agni, where fire burns away the unworthy.
And the Trial of the Conqueror, where power itself chooses a master.
He set out alone, wearing no crown. Only a blade of dragonbone at his hip and a mark of flame across his back.
Each trial would strip him of something.
Each trial would take him closer to what he feared most.
Not failure. Not death.
But what would remain of him when all else was gone.
Chapter I: The Trial of the Sky
The winds screamed as Kael stood before the Hollow Spire.
It rose from the edge of the world, a tower of ancient obsidian so high it pierced the clouds. Lightning danced across its shattered spires, and echoes of voices—some laughing, others wailing—spilled into the storm. This was not stone shaped by hands. It was born in the first breath of the world, when the sky still had a name.
Kael's dragon, Azekarith, the last of the Moonfang brood, circled once and descended onto a ledge below. The beast bowed low, its crimson-scaled neck pressed to the ground.
"This is as far as I go," it rumbled. "The sky tests not the body, but the will to rise."
Kael stepped forward, the wind clawing at his cloak. A sigil flared on his chest—the mark of the Trial.
A voice echoed through the clouds, vast and ancient:
"Mortal child of fire, ascend. Show the heavens your spirit's reach. Or fall, forgotten."
Then the tower shifted.
It split into a spiral of floating platforms, each one impossibly far and rising into the mist. Some shattered mid-air. Others shimmered as illusions. And above them all, hidden in the storm, waited a throne of cloud and lightning.
The rules were simple: Reach the top. Without wings. Without aid. Only by soul.
Kael closed his eyes and channeled his powers.
Magic surged through his veins—he formed spectral bridges, but they cracked under celestial pressure. Aura pulsed from his core, letting him leap like a comet, but the tower twisted time, making moments stretch into eternities. Divine power shimmered through his hands, shielding him from death, but not from despair.
He fell.
Over and over, he fell. Days passed. Or weeks. Perhaps lifetimes. Shadows of old kings mocked him on every platform. One took the form of his father, sword drawn. Another of himself, bleeding, begging.
But each time Kael rose again.
He bled stars. He screamed thunder.
And finally—on the 77th fall, when his spirit was frayed to threads—he stopped reaching with power and reached with purpose.
He let go of form.
He stepped, not onto stone, but onto will itself.
And the storm parted.
He stood atop the Hollow Spire, cloaked in silence. The throne of cloud dissolved, revealing nothing but sky.
The voice returned, softer this time:
"The sky bows to no man. But you... you are no man."
A mark burned across Kael's shoulder—a winged sigil of wind.
Trial One: Passed.
Chapter II: Ember and Iron
Kael descended from the Hollow Spire with eyes no longer his own.
What he saw from the sky was not the same world he had once ruled in shadow. The wind had touched him. Changed him. Stripped away the certainty that his power alone was enough. Now, every breath he took was heavier. Not from weakness, but from knowing just how high the fall could be.
Vaelthar sensed it. The dragon said nothing as Kael climbed into the saddle, but its heartbeat—once thunderous—matched his own.
They flew home in silence.
---
Dravarys, the Dragon Empire, was a land carved by flame and blood.
Stretching across half a continent, it rose from the ruins of a thousand fallen kingdoms. Its capital, Emberhold, was built atop the bones of the World-Wyrm, whose ribs still arched through the skyline like cathedral spires. Lava rivers ran beneath its streets, powering the forges that never slept. Towering citadels, bound with steel and obsidian, stood like sentinels at every border. Magic shimmered in the air like heat.
Here, power was not inherited. It was proven.
The people were proud and brutal, shaped by centuries of conquest. They wore scaled armor passed down for generations and spoke a language that crackled like fire over stone. Even the children trained in aura arts by the age of six. The weak were not mocked—they were reformed or removed.
And above them all, in the Citadel of Flame, ruled Emperor Vorthar the Ninth—Kael's father.
---
The throne room was a cavern of molten grandeur. Flames danced in braziers that never dimmed, fed by the breath of lesser dragons. Columns of basalt rose like teeth toward the ceiling, which was carved with the victories of House Vaeryn. At the center stood the Obsidian Throne, forged from the heart of a fallen star.
Emperor Vorthar sat atop it in full warplate—crimson and gold, lined with runes older than the empire itself. His face was a monument of hard lines and sharp edges. The crown he wore was no delicate band—it was the fang of the first dragon he'd slain, wrapped in iron and fury.
He did not rise when Kael entered.
Kael knelt. Not as a prince. As a soldier returned from battle.
"I have passed the Trial of the Sky," he said, voice low. "The winds have named me worthy."
The silence that followed was colder than the winds above the Spire.
Then the Emperor laughed. Not warmly. Not cruelly. But with the weight of old grief.
"They tried to break you," Vorthar said. "They will try harder next time."
"I know."
"You are not the boy I sent out."
Kael raised his eyes. "No. I left with fire. I return with scars the wind could not see."
The Emperor leaned forward. "Good. A crown is not given. It is hammered into the soul, blow by blow. Remember that when you face the waters."
He stood and approached, placing a hand on Kael's shoulder.
"When you were born, I feared you. You shone too brightly, too soon. But now I see it... You are not just heir. You are the storm to end all storms."
Kael said nothing, but the mark on his shoulder burned.
Not with pain.
With promise.
---
Later that night, Kael walked the streets of Emberhold in a plain cloak, unseen. He watched his people—strong, proud, hardened by empire. Children sparred in the ash-pits. Traders haggled over relics found in the bone-fields. Priests lit fires for the ancestors.
But for the first time, he wondered.
What was he meant to rule? A war machine? A legacy of blood? Or something more?
The Trials would answer. Or they would destroy him.
Chapter III: Echoes of the Flame
The mark of the sky still burned on Kael's shoulder, but it was not pain that pulled him from sleep.
It was unrest.
The wind had changed him—split something inside him—and though his body had returned to Dravarys, his spirit had not yet landed.
He could not take the next step until he understood the last.
So before the next trial, Kael walked paths most would avoid—drawn by instinct, or something deeper.
He needed answers. Or perhaps… to confront the questions he'd buried.
---
The Hall of Embers was buried so deep beneath the Citadel that even dragons feared its silence.
Kael entered with bare feet. No armor. No blade. Only the mark on his shoulder and the weight of the wind in his chest.
He stood before the statues of the old emperors—each carved in their final moment: triumph, torment, transcendence. Cold flame licked the walls. The air reeked of smoke and time.
The voices came slowly, like embers stirred by breath.
"You come seeking wisdom. But we were not wise."
"We were fire. We were conquest. We devoured the world and left ash."
"Will you do the same, Kael Vaeryn?"
He did not flinch.
"I will burn the world only to forge something stronger from its ashes," Kael said.
The flames hissed.
"You believe yourself different. All emperors do. Power carves the soul until it forgets shape. What will remain when it finishes carving you?"
Kael closed his eyes.
And this time, his voice did not tremble.
"Whatever remains—will be mine. Not a copy of you. Not a shadow of my father. Not a puppet of prophecy."
"I will shape the flame."
"Not be shaped by it."
The flames roared once, then dimmed.
One of the statues—Emperor Aeryth the Bladed Storm—wept molten tears.
Kael left in silence.
But not in doubt.
---
The next morning, Kael stood at the edge of the Shatterfield, drawn there by dreams of blood and dust.
He had not returned to reminisce. He had returned to remember what he'd survived.
He watched the young spar. Felt their aura crackle like lightning under skin. He saw a girl no older than ten bleed from her lip and stand again, her fists shaking, her eyes defiant.
He saw himself.
"Are you measuring the future or mourning the past?" came a gravel-rough voice.
Kael turned to find Commander Saeryn Vol at his side, arms folded, eyes sharp as ever.
"Neither," Kael said. "I came to remember the difference between pain and purpose."
Saeryn grunted. "That line doesn't stay clean for long."
"I know. That's why I have to walk it myself."
She studied him. "You've changed. You used to burn for glory. Now you burn for something else."
Kael nodded. "Now I burn to become something worth following."
---
That night, the Northern Tower called him. Not by voice—but by blood.
His mother, Empress Nyvara, stood at its highest peak, where no fire touched and the wind was her blade. She didn't need to turn to know he'd arrived.
"I felt the sky leave its mark on you," she said. "You're heavier now."
"I'm becoming who I must be," Kael replied.
She turned—tall, silver-braided, ice-eyed, wrapped in storm-forged armor. She was beauty and brutality shaped into flesh.
"You were born with power," she said. "But what you lack is balance. Fire consumes. Wind guides. Ice preserves. You carry all three—but do you understand when to use them?"
"I'm learning," Kael said.
She stepped close. "Then learn this—the Trial of Aqua will not test your strength. It will test what lies beneath your strength. Water does not break stone. It erodes it—slowly, until the mountain forgets it was ever sharp."
"Will I survive it?" Kael asked.
Her expression grew distant, her voice a whisper on the wind.
"No one truly survives the water, Kael. They only emerge... changed."
---
And far below Emberhold, where the magma veins of the world sleep, something ancient turned in its dream—drawn by Kael's fire, waiting for his next descent.
Chapter IV: The Drowned Truth
Part I – The Rite of Flamewinds
It had been forty-seven years since the Trial of the Sky had been passed. The last to do so was Empress Nyvara, whose arrows once froze the wings of gods. Now, her son stood where she once did.
And the sky itself had borne witness.
Atop the Citadel of Flame, the highest spire of Mount Kryon, the Bell of Storms tolled—not once, but thrice. Once for the trial. Once for the soul. Once for the dragon.
Across Dravarys, silence fell. The people bowed not just in reverence, but in awe—for this was no mere tradition. This was the Rite of Flamewinds, and only twenty-two souls before had earned it.
Now, there were twenty-three.
The crowd gathered around the Pillar of Scales, the oldest monument in the empire. Hewn from blackstone veined with frozen lightning, it bore the names of those who had survived the judgment of the heavens.
And tonight, a new name would be carved in fire.
A hush swept the wind as Prince Kael emerged, robed in storm-dark leathers, his shoulders unburdened by armor. On his back, the scar left by the Trial's sigil shimmered faintly—the Mark of Windsworn, etched by divine breath and agony.
Behind him, padding silent as shadow and massive as a mountain, came Azekarith—his dragon, his mirror, his bond. Eyes of molten dusk, wings still faintly glowing from flight beyond the clouds, he moved with a predator's grace and a prophet's patience.
The Herald of Ash, ancient and blind, stood before them in a circle of flickering blue fire. His voice was not loud, yet it carried like thunder spoken through a whisper.
"Let the wind halt, for it knows the bearer has returned.
Let fire kneel, for flame has found its form.
Let the twenty-third soul be counted."
Kael stepped forward, gaze steady. The crowd dared not breathe.
"State thy name," the Herald intoned.
"State thy wound.
State thy becoming."
Kael's voice was low, but clear—like still air before a storm.
"I am Vaeryn-Kael, son of storm and fire.
Born beneath an eclipse.
I entered the sky as flame without shape—
I return as silence sharpened by wind."
The Herald bowed his head. "And what did the sky strip from you?"
Kael looked up, eyes gold-lit and distant. "My fear. And what remained of my pride."
"And what did it give?"
He paused.
"Clarity. And a question I have not yet earned the right to ask."
A murmur passed through the highest priesthood. Empress Nyvara, her cloak of pale frost trailing wind, watched from the stair with unreadable eyes. Beside her stood Emperor Vaergon, silent as stone, arms folded over his crimson warcloak.
Nyvara stepped forward, her voice cool and edged like a winter gale.
"Do you know what follows now, Kael?"
He nodded. "Yes, Mother. Ceremony. And then the sea."
She approached, placed a hand on his chest, just above the heart.
"Then remember this: the wind carries many things—sound, scent, truth. But never lies. Let the next trial see only truth in you, or it will drag you into the deep."
The Herald raised the skyglass dagger, its edge catching light that wasn't there. He carved the Mark of Windsworn into Kael's palm—three lines, curved like the air currents above the Trial's peak. Blood hissed as it struck the blackstone.
The Pillar of Scales ignited. The statues of the twenty-two who had passed before lit one by one in sacred flame. When the twenty-second—Nyvara's—glowed white-blue, a twenty-third pedestal emerged beside hers.
Azekarith stepped beside it, his wings unfurling to their full span. Lightning crawled along the edge of each scale.
Kael ascended the new pedestal and raised his hand to the sky.
"Let this fire remember what wind could not take.
Let this name burn brighter than silence.
Let the bearer rise."
The storm above cracked open.
And then—Azekarith spoke. Not aloud, but within Kael's mind, as only he could.
"You are not the same."
Kael's voice returned, calm and lit with something heavier than fire.
"No. I left a boy in the sky. I don't know what came back.
But whatever I am now… I will not be unmade."
And somewhere, far to the west, the sea stirred in answer.
Chapter IV: The Drowned Truth
Part II – The Ember Behind the Throne
The ceremony had ended, but the flames still flickered on the Pillar of Scales.
Kael stood in the Hall of Breath, the highest inner chamber of the Citadel. It was a sanctum rarely entered—built for dragons, not men. The floor was shaped like a great wing, each feather a slab of obsidian. At its center: the Soulforge, where the dragons of emperors were once bound to flame.
Here, Kael was born.
Here, his soul had been tethered to Azekarith's, when both were still unborn—when his mother sang to the egg born of her ice-breathing dragoness, mated with the crimson-scaled leviathan of the Emperor. The ritual was done beneath moonlight soaked in sacrificial blood.
Now, all three stood once more beneath the vaulted dome.
Emperor Vaergon was silent, leaning one hand on the hilt of his greatsword. His other hand was clenched behind his back, knuckles white.
Nyvara circled the Soulforge slowly, her cloak of ice and silk dragging frost across the hot stone, steam curling behind her.
Azekarith lay coiled beside Kael, his great head resting on his talons, one eye open like a slow-turning star.
The silence had weight.
Kael broke it first. His voice was soft, yet firm—as if carved from the wind he had endured.
"You taught me to conquer. But the sky… it taught me to yield."
Nyvara stopped mid-step. "Yielding is not weakness."
"No. But understanding how easily power turns to dust is strength."
The Emperor's voice rumbled like a dying furnace. "The sea won't offer you such clarity, boy."
Kael turned. "Then I'll dive with my eyes open."
Nyvara approached, her face unreadable. She raised her hand to his cheek, but stopped short of touching.
"You were a child when we gave your soul to a dragon. Before you could speak, you shared his dreams."
Azekarith blinked slowly, a low, rumbling purr vibrating the floor.
"Now," she continued, "you're a man who has outgrown prophecy. That frightens them."
"Who?" Kael asked.
Nyvara's lips curled ever so slightly. "The gods."
Vaergon stepped forward at last. "You carry the legacy of fire, Kael. But fire is not only destruction. It remembers."
Kael met his father's gaze. "Then let the sea remember me."
There was a pause.
Then Vaergon approached his son and—breaking all ceremony—placed both hands on Kael's shoulders.
"I failed to break the ocean. Your mother passed the sky. But you... You were born for all five. Not because you are stronger than us. But because you are more broken."
Kael didn't flinch.
"Then let my pieces sharpen into a blade."
Nyvara turned to Azekarith. "And you, storm-child?"
Azekarith replied with words only the bonded could hear.
"He dreams in tides now. I will follow him, even if the sea swallows the sky."
A single horn blew in the distance—the call of departure.
Kael walked to the edge of the chamber and looked down upon Dravarys. The rivers shimmered like veins of light. Ships waited in the black harbor, sails furled like silent wings.
He looked once more at his parents.
"Tell the empire nothing," he said.
"Let the world wonder if I drowned."
And then he turned, cloak sweeping behind him, as Azekarith leapt from the chamber's edge—and the wind carried them toward the sea.