The council chamber shivered with unrest. One of the younger alphas — rash, arrogant — sneered as he slammed his fist on the oaken table.
"Dragonriders?" His voice cracked with mockery. "You speak of them as though they were sovereigns. They are dust, relics. What witch or rider could stand against us now? We are alphas, heirs of the Moon's Law . The moon bows to us — not to fables."
A few others murmured in agreement, their pride kindling like dry tinder.
But then a voice cut through the chamber, sharp as a blade and heavy as thunder.
Isabella's grandmother rose from her seat. The weight of her years draped about her like a mantle of iron, her silvered hair catching the dim light.
"Pride has blinded you, pups." Her words were neither shouted nor softened — they fell with the gravity of truth. The chamber stilled, every tongue arrested.
"Dragons were not mere beasts. They were fire given breath, storms given form. And those who rode them were not men of flesh alone, but souls bound to flame. Yet even their might was nothing without the witches. For it was the witches who bent the dragon's will, who stilled their soulfire and commanded their wrath. Without the witches, riders were ash waiting to scatter. Without the riders, witches were queens of fire they could never mount.Divided they bled, united they ruled."
She paused, her gaze sweeping over the circle of wolves. Even the brash alpha who had spoken before lowered his eyes, his defiance folding beneath her steel.
"You think yourselves invincible, but you know nothing of what once ruled these skies. Wolves ruled the forests, yes. But dragons ruled the heavens. And together — witch and rider — they made kingdoms tremble."
Her voice dropped lower, colder, intimate enough to make the braziers gutter.
"And that blood… has not died. It still runs, here, now. And a single heir of such a union could eclipse every alpha gathered in this hall."
The silence that followed was suffocating. No one dared to breathe too loud, as if even the air itself remembered those truths.