She found him just as he was preparing to leave.
A modest pack slung over one shoulder, dressed in travel leathers instead of silk, Sereph stood outside the Everlark Inn beneath the ivy-strangled sign. The morning sun lit his silver hair like a banner. He was laughing—of course he was—charming a pair of stable hands who looked far too reluctant to say goodbye.
When he noticed her, his face lit up with infuriating ease
"I knew you couldn't resist," he said, grinning. "Took you long enough—"
"Don't." Her voice cut through the air, low and serious.
The smile faltered. Not vanished—just… dulled.
"I'm not here for seconds," she said flatly. "There's something important you need to know."
His expression sobered at once. No protest. No clever lines.
Just a quiet, "All right."
She turned without waiting for more.
"Follow me."
And he did. Without a word.
Sereph followed her without protest, his boots crunching softly along the dirt path that led away from the city gates. His mind wandered, drifting from idle curiosity to more absurd possibilities.
Where is she taking me?
It wasn't threatening. He could sense that much. Not an ambush. Not a robbery. Besides—he was a dragon. What could she possibly do?
Maybe she was going to confess something. Her love, perhaps? That would be awkward, but not surprising. She did have that intense silence on the walk over—no small talk, no sideways glances. Just purpose.
Hopefully she's not going to say she's pregnant…
He winced slightly at the thought.
No, that's—well, that would be extreme. We only—no, even if she is, I'm not cruel. I wouldn't just vanish. I'd… give her something. Treasures, maybe. Support. Visit once in a while. I'm not heartless.
Still, she was leading him outside the city.
Humans are dramatic like that. Big confessions need big scenery.
He sighed.
Yeah. That's probably it. She's going to tell me she's pregnant. And in love. And I'll have to break it to her gently that I'm a dragon. Just so there aren't any surprises when the child inherits scales.
The clearing was old.
The kind of ancient space that remembered being sky once. Trees stood in a perfect ring, their trunks impossibly straight, their leaves whispering secrets to each other high above. At the center, under a tangle of roots from a fallen oak, the spell-work shimmered faintly—subtle, careful, invisible to anyone who didn't know what they were looking for.
Zarah stopped walking.
Sereph halted a step behind her, sensing the shift. She hadn't said a word the entire way. Her posture was unreadable, too still for a human. But he didn't see it.
He saw hesitation. Guilt, maybe. Something weighing her down.
She turned slightly, as if to speak.
He cut her off.
"I know."
She blinked.
He stepped forward, hands open. Gentle, sincere. Almost smiling, but not quite.
"You're pregnant. Right?"
She didn't move.
"I guessed it the moment you came to find me," he said, voice low. "And I want you to know—I'm not angry. Or scared. But I can't stay."
Something in her jaw tensed. Just slightly.
He continued.
"I'm not who you think I am. My name isn't Sereph." A pause. "It's actually Serethion, I'm a silver dragon. I've lived too many years to lie about something like this, not to someone like you."
He laughed, just a little. Awkward.
"I thought you'd be furious, honestly. But I figured—better you know now. Before things get complicated."
She said nothing.
He took that as permission.
"I can't raise a child like this. I'd be hunted, or worse, exposed. But I'll help. Gold. Protection. I'll visit when I can. You won't be alone."
His voice softened. "You're strong. You don't need me. But if you ever change your mind—if you ever need me—I'll come. No questions."
Still nothing.
He frowned.
"…Zarah?"
Her eyes met his. They were bronze now. No longer dulled by human illusion. No longer hiding.
Her voice was ice and lightning.
"This is worse than I thought."
Zarah's—Thazareth's—voice cut through the clearing like a blade honed over centuries.
"This is the kind of blunder that haunts you for Centuries."
Sereph blinked, confused. "Centuries?"
Then her eyes—bronze, ancient, burning—met his again.
"To think I couldn't recognize another dragon in disguise."
The realization hit him like a falling mountain. His breath caught. The weight of the moment, of their union, of the impossible convergence of two hidden legacies—
Serethion stepped back, stunned. "You're—?"
Thazareth didn't let him speak.
"Not half-human," she spat. "Half-silver dragon."
Her disgust wasn't with the egg. Not entirely. It was with herself.
"This is your fault. I know you felt it too. There's no human alive with that kind of presence. No man who could look me in the eye without flinching."
Her voice cracked—once—and she hated it.
"This shame is unbearable."
She raised one hand.
With a low hum of deep magic, the roots parted. Stone shifted. A slender stone pillar rose from the earth like a supplicant. At its peak, resting in a nest of protective enchantment, sat the egg—warm, glowing faintly with threads of silver and bronze.
"Leave," she hissed. "Now."
The command was thunder. The air bent under her will. Birds fled the trees. The earth flinched.
But Serethion didn't move.
He wasn't smiling anymore. Not hiding behind charm or ease. His silver hair stirred in the gathering wind, and in his eyes was something true—something ancient.
Conviction.
She saw it for the first time. Not the soft-hearted diplomat. The dragon.
"I have no choice," she said, trembling, "but to destroy it."
That was all it took.
The moment those words left her lips, Serethion shifted.
There was no fanfare. No roar. No flash.
One blink—and a silver dragon stood before her. Graceful, radiant, towering. His wings folded close, but power rolled off him in waves. His eyes—still his—locked with hers.
And when he spoke, his voice rolled through the trees like a vow made to the world.
"No, you're not."
And the wind held its breath.
Thazareth stood firm, still in her human guise, shoulders squared like a war general on the eve of battle. Her voice cracked the air like iron on stone.
"Do you know the shame this brings to a bronze dragon?"
She took a step closer to him, eyes locked to his, unflinching.
"I'd rather die than raise that abomination."
She gestured sharply toward the egg.
"Do you know the kind of life it will have? Neither silver nor bronze. A mutt. Unclaimed by the skies. Scorned by both bloodlines."
Still, Serethion—massive and silent in his true silver form—said nothing. His wings shifted, but not his gaze.
Her voice rose with fury, but her expression was steel.
"Tell me you feel it." She jabbed a finger toward him like a spear.
"I know you feel it. Don't lie to me."
Silence.
He didn't flinch. Didn't blink.
And that—that—was what truly enraged her.
She took one breath.
And then, with venom like frostbite:
"Speak, you coward."
The words hit like a dagger dipped in old betrayal.
For a moment, it seemed he wouldn't respond.
But then, softly—too softly for such a massive creature—he said:
"I do.
But I won't allow it."
A heartbeat passed.
Then another.
Her body rippled with restrained force. And in a flash of molten bronze light, her true form unfolded.
Thazareth the Deep Bolt stood revealed—majestic, terrifying. Bronze scales shimmered like forged armor, eyes blazing like judgment itself. The clearing trembled under their combined presence.
Half the air chilled into frost and mist. The other half sparked with ozone and storm.
They were equals now.
No illusions.
Only dragons.
Her words crackled through the clearing like lightning made flesh:
"Allow it? Are you commanding me?"
The Draconic was raw, ancient, sovereign.
And then Serethion, silver scales glinting like moonlight on still water, answered her without flinching. His voice was calm—not meek, not defiant. Just resolute.
"And if I am?"
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was charged—as though the very world leaned in to listen.
Thazareth's wings flared just slightly, her tail coiling around the egg without thought, a subconscious act of defense or possession. Her claws dug into the earth.
A lesser being would have fled.
But this wasn't a lesser being. This was her.
Her bronze eyes narrowed, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped—quieter, colder, like the eye of a storm:
"Then I will destroy the egg… and you along with it."
She took a step forward, so close now that the mist rising from their opposing magics curled around them like dueling spirits.
"Because if you command me, Serethion—if you think your blood gives you the right—then you are no different from the tyrants I've hunted all my life."
Her chest rose with a breath that trembled not with fear, but with fury barely leashed.
"You are not my kind. You never were."
Another pause.
Then, quieter—cutting deeper:
"I let you in. Once. That was the mistake."
"Yes, your mistake. And mine," Serethion said, his gaze locked to hers without flinching.
"You speak of tyranny—but in my eyes, you are the only tyrant here."
His voice was steady, cold steel beneath silk.
"This child may be a mistake, yes. But killing it? That is not the answer."
He took a step forward, wings shifting slightly, the tension between them thick as storm winds.
"You came here ready to drop this child into my hands when you believed I was human. Isn't that right?"
Her silence was damning.
"And now? Now you want to destroy it because you discovered I'm a dragon."
His eyes narrowed. Voice quieter. Sharper.
"Tell me you're not suggesting the problem… is my blood."
He let the words hang, heavy and dangerous.
"Because if you are, then you insult everything I am."
"The fact that you came ready to discard your child at all," he continued, "already makes you unworthy of raising it."
Then, voice like a blade drawn in final warning:
"Are you saying you want to kill my child?"
She didn't answer.
He didn't need her to.
He stepped closer, unblinking, and said:
"Then I'll say it again—
I. Won't. Allow it."**
The magic around him pulsed with ancient force.
"Kill this child…" His tone dropped into something primal. "And I'll kill you. That's not a threat. That's a promise."
A final breath. Final truth.
"We both know I'm stronger."
Her eyes didn't flinch, but his words had struck something deep—something raw. She masked it well, as bronze dragons do, pride stitched over pain like armor.
"My answer stands," she said coldly.
"I'd sooner die than raise it."
She didn't call it a child.
Not a daughter. Not a son.
Just it.
A word meant to sever.
Serethion didn't move.
"Fine," he said, voice low. Unforgiving.
"Have it your way."
She sneered, the wind from her wings surging with resentment.
"It's an abomination. You can have it."
Her tone was hollow now, but laced with venom.
"It's not my child."
And with that, she launched into the air, her great wings beating against the clearing, stirring leaves and silence in equal measure.
She didn't look back.
Not once.
But as she vanished into the sky, her heart seethed.
She had come to dispose of a burden. Instead, she left behind a wound.
He had cornered her with truth, and worse—he'd won.
She would never forgive him for it.
She would curse the name Serethion until her dying breath.
Not because he was cruel.
But because he had made her feel the one thing a proud bronze dragon could never forgive.
Humiliation.