The air in the great hall had not yet settled when Vaelor spoke again.
"I'm leaving."
The words were simple. Flat. As if he were announcing a walk through the courtyard rather than the beginning of a calamity.
Ruria looked up first. "Leaving… again?"
"Yes."
Kaelis felt it immediately. Not fear. Not relief. Something heavier, a pull she could not name.
Selindra's wings twitched. "For how long?"
Vaelor's crimson eyes lifted slightly, as if considering something far beyond the castle walls. "Until the Dragon King stops breathing."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Lyra's hand tightened around the cloth she was holding. Elara swallowed hard. Even Selindra, demon princess and daughter of the Demon King himself, went still.
Ruria took a step forward, voice careful. "You're going to face him now?"
"No," Vaelor replied. "I'm going to end him."
Kaelis felt her pulse spike.
The Dragon Lord had been terrifying. Ancient. Overwhelming. And that had been merely a fragment of draconic power, a ruler of one domain.
The Dragon King was something else entirely.
"He won't come alone," Selindra said quietly. "Dragons gather when their king moves."
"I know."
"And you're still going," Elara asked, disbelief slipping through her composure.
Vaelor turned his gaze toward Kaelis.
"You're coming with me."
The words struck her harder than any blade. She did not ask why. She did not argue. She simply knew—she would follow.
The others reacted instantly.
"What?" Lyra blurted out.
"Absolutely not," Ruria said, her calm cracking for the first time. "She nearly died last time."
Selindra stared at him, eyes narrowing. "You usually do this alone."
Vaelor did not deny it.
"I still will," he said. "Mostly."
Kaelis felt every gaze turn toward her. She straightened without thinking, spine rigid, instincts already aligning.
"Why her?" Selindra asked.
Vaelor's eyes did not leave Kaelis. "I want her with me."
That was all. No reasoning. No explanation. Just an unspoken certainty that Kaelis belonged at his side.
The room fell silent.
Kaelis' throat tightened. She did not question it. She did not need to.
Ruria's hands clenched at her sides. "You can't take her into danger like that."
"I can," he said evenly. "And I will. She is capable. She will survive."
Kaelis swallowed. She felt her heartbeat quicken, but not from fear. From something far more complex.
"You're not teleporting," she said finally.
Vaelor's gaze flicked to her, approval faint but present. "Correct."
Teleportation into dragon territory was suicide. Dragons sensed spatial distortion instinctively. Instant movement meant instant annihilation.
"We travel by land," he continued. "Slow. Deliberate. Let them feel us coming."
Kaelis' fingers curled. The idea sent a chill through her, not of fear, but of scale.
"You want the Dragon King to know you're coming," she said.
"Yes."
Ruria looked at Kaelis then, eyes filled with conflict. "You don't have to go."
Kaelis met her gaze. She said nothing. She simply followed.
Vaelor turned away, already finished with the discussion. "Prepare. We leave before dusk."
As he walked toward the exit, Kaelis followed without hesitation.
At the threshold, he paused.
"You will not interfere," he said without looking back. "You will observe. You will survive."
"And if I can help?" Kaelis asked.
A beat of silence.
"If you help," Vaelor replied, "you die."
He stepped forward, the doors opening on their own.
The others watched them go, unease coiling in their chests. Ruria's hands clenched at her sides. Selindra's wings folded tightly, her expression unreadable.
Lyra whispered, "He's really going to fight the Dragon King."
Elara nodded slowly. "And he's taking her with him."
Outside, the sky darkened again, clouds rolling in from the horizon, thick and ominous.
Kaelis walked beside Vaelor in silence.
She knew this was not about victory.
This was about showing her what stood at the very top of the world.
And reminding the world what stood above even that.
The castle gates closed behind them with a finality that echoed in Kaelis' chest. She had followed Vaelor without hesitation, her instincts aligned with his, but now the reality of the journey ahead settled over her. The Dragon King's territory was distant, ancient, and deadly, and teleportation was out of the question.
Vaelor walked ahead, white hair catching the fading sunlight, his cloak barely stirring in the wind. Kaelis followed silently, noting the calm inevitability in his stride. She did not speak. There was no need. He had already decided everything.
By midday, the first shadows of the forest stretched toward them. The air smelled of damp earth and decay, thick with the scent of creatures long forgotten by civilized lands. Kaelis felt her pulse tighten—not with fear, but with the thrill of being at Vaelor's side, moving toward a danger that few could survive.
"Keep your head up," he said abruptly, his voice cutting through the hum of insects and wind.
Kaelis glanced at him. "Is this… safe?"
Vaelor smirked slightly, a teasing glint in his crimson eyes. "Safe? No. But you asked to follow."
Her cheeks heated. She knew he was enjoying her unease. "I can handle danger."
"I know," he said lightly. "That's why you're here. Not the others. Only you. And perhaps… because you're amusing."
Kaelis rolled her eyes but did not speak. The teasing, the way he looked at her as if reading her thoughts, made her pulse pound. She had faced the deadliest blades of her clan, survived impossible ambushes, yet this—this casual amusement directed at her—was harder to endure.
The first day passed through dense forests and rocky ridges. They rested only when night fell, and even then Vaelor refused to light a campfire. Kaelis had expected danger, but the absence of warmth, of light, made every shadow stretch into something alive.
"You're quiet," he said finally as they crouched in a small clearing, the stars barely visible through the canopy.
"I'm… thinking," she replied, keeping her voice steady.
"About?"
Kaelis hesitated. "About… what's coming."
Vaelor tilted his head, studying her profile. "You are already thinking too much. You worry about things you cannot control. That is weakness."
Kaelis' stomach twisted. His gaze was not cruel—it was sharp, precise, like a blade pressing against her chest. She swallowed. "And yet you let me come."
"Because I choose," he said simply. "Because it is my right."
The words were soft but carried weight that settled around her like chains. She felt something stir inside her—fear, admiration, a strange heat of curiosity.
On the second day, the terrain grew harsher. Jagged cliffs and poisonous marshes forced them to move slowly. Vaelor walked with ease, his stride unbroken, while Kaelis struggled to keep pace. He glanced at her occasionally, smirking each time she stumbled.
"Not as agile as you think, are you?" he teased.
"I've kept up with your training," she said, breathing hard.
"Training is not surviving," he said, almost lazily. "You'll learn the difference soon enough."
That evening, when they sheltered in the remains of an old stone watchtower, Kaelis finally asked the question that had lingered for days. "How old are you… really?"
Vaelor's eyes flickered with amusement, and he allowed himself a faint, rare smile. "Nineteen."
Kaelis' mouth fell open slightly. She had expected older, perhaps seasoned. She was twenty-one—two years his senior. And yet, his power, his composure, his command over life and death made the difference between them impossible to measure by age alone.
"You're… nineteen?" she asked again, incredulous. "And I'm older than you."
"Yes," he said, voice soft but carrying the weight of inevitability. "Yet age does not matter. Only power. Only what you can survive."
The words sent a shiver down her spine. There was something both terrifying and intimate about him revealing this small truth, letting her see behind the mask.
Vaelor leaned back against the cold stone wall, watching her closely. "Do you feel nervous?" he asked.
"Why would I?" Kaelis said, though her pulse betrayed her.
He smiled faintly, walking over to her, close enough that she could feel the faint heat radiating from him. "Because you are untested. You think you understand what this is… but you do not."
Kaelis' throat went dry. "I can handle it."
"Perhaps," he said, moving closer until her breath caught, "or perhaps you will enjoy it."
The tension between them was sharp, electric. Every word, every movement carried layers she could not yet decipher. She felt heat in places she had never expected to feel it, a strange flutter that made her focus sharper and her heart hammer harder.
The third day dawned with storm clouds overhead. Rain fell intermittently, cold and relentless, soaking their clothes and chilling their skin. But they pressed on, climbing ridges and moving through forests filled with unseen dangers. Vaelor remained effortless, while Kaelis' muscles burned with exhaustion.
"Slow down?" he asked, his voice teasing.
"I'm fine," she said, though her knees threatened to buckle.
"You're not fine," he said simply. "Yet you do not stop. That is… commendable."
The words, though not romantic, carried an intimacy that made her pulse quicken. The teasing, the observation, the recognition of her struggle—each moment drew her closer, though she refused to admit it.
When they paused to rest again at a ruined cliffside temple, Vaelor finally spoke more seriously. "Tomorrow, we enter the Dragon King's domain. You will see power you cannot imagine. Survival will not be guaranteed. Only those who endure understand what true strength is."
Kaelis nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. She did not feel fear now. She felt something else—a mix of awe, anticipation, and something darker she did not dare name.
Vaelor's gaze swept over the distant horizon, the storm gathering like a living thing. "Rest well," he said finally. "Tomorrow, nothing will be easy. But you will be here… with me."
Kaelis felt a flutter of something she could not define, caught between excitement, dread, and the slow, undeniable pull of attraction. He was infuriating, terrifying, overwhelming—and yet, she did not want to be anywhere else.
The storm above mirrored the storm within her.
And as night fell over the darkened forest, Kaelis realized that by the time the Dragon King faced them, nothing about her, or her heart, would remain untouched by Vaelor.