The stone walls of the castle felt like they were weeping. It had been seven days since the smoke filled the Great Hall. Seven days since the violet-eyed woman he called his wife vanished into the thin, bitter air.
Alaric sat on his throne, but he did not look like a King. He looked like a storm that was waiting to break. His silver-white hair was wild, his eyes were bloodshot, and the shimmering obsidian scales on his jaw were permanently visible. He hadn't slept. He hadn't eaten. He only searched.
"Your Majesty," Kael whispered, stepping into the cold throne room. "We have searched every village. We have checked every cave within a hundred miles. There is no sign of her."
Alaric didn't move. His hand was clamped tightly around the Dragon Heart Stone. The gem was no longer glowing with a soft pink or a warm red. It was a dull, dying grey, with a jagged black crack running through the center.
"She is alive," Alaric growled, his voice sounding like grinding rocks. "If she were dead, the stone would be ash. But it is cold. So cold."
He looked toward the window. The rain was pouring, a dark and angry curtain over the kingdom. He suspected the House of Elara. He suspected the High Priest. He even suspected the Southern Rebels. But he had no proof. Every time he went to the dungeon to scream at Elara, she only laughed.
"Maybe your 'book girl' just read her own ending and left you, Alaric," she had mocked him.
Alaric's grip tightened on the stone. He didn't believe Felina had left him. Even though he had been angry about her secret—about the "book" and the "real name"—the silence in the castle was killing him. He missed her voice. He missed the way she wasn't afraid of his heat.
"I don't care who she was," Alaric whispered to the empty room. "I don't care about the name Felina or the world she came from. I just want her back."
He stood up, his massive frame shaking with a rage that was starting to turn into despair. The dragon inside him wanted to burn the entire world just to find one girl.
The Shadow Prison
While Alaric searched the skies, Felina was underground.
The air was thick with the smell of rot and damp earth. I was tied to a wooden post in a room that never saw the sun. The ropes were thick and rough, biting into my wrists until they bled. Every time I moved, a sharp pain shot through my body.
A week had passed. Or maybe it was a lifetime. I couldn't tell anymore.
The people who took me—men in dark robes with no faces—were cruel. They didn't want information. They wanted to break the "Dragon's Anchor." They had beaten me until my back was a map of bruises. My silk dress, the one I wore to the ceremony, was now just rags soaked in blood and dirt.
"Water..." I rasped. My throat felt like it was full of hot sand. My lips were cracked and bleeding.
A guard stood near the door, watching me with cold eyes. He held a cup of water, but instead of giving it to me, he poured it onto the dry dirt in front of my feet.
"The King is looking for you," the guard said with a nasty smile. "He flies over this mountain every day. He is so close, yet so far. He will never find this place. It is protected by ancient magic that hides the scent of a human."
I let my head fall forward. My long hair was matted with sweat. I felt so weak that I couldn't even keep my eyes open.
Alaric... I thought. Can you hear me?
I tried to reach out through the Dragon Heart Stone, but I realized they had taken it from my neck. It was gone. The only thing I had left was the memory of his heat.
I thought about my old life—the girl in the rain reading a book. I thought about how I wanted to save him. I had succeeded in changing the plot, but now I was the one facing a tragic ending. I was dying in the dark, thirsty and broken, while my King went mad with grief.
"I'm sorry, Felina," I whispered to myself. My real name felt heavy on my tongue. I had told him the truth, and he had looked at me with such hate. That memory hurt more than the ropes or the hunger.
A tear tracked through the dirt on my cheek. I didn't want to die like this. I wanted to see his golden eyes one more time. I wanted to tell him that even if I wasn't the "real" Seraphina, my heart was more real than anything in this world.
The Breaking Point
Back at the castle, the sun was setting on the seventh day.
Alaric was standing on the highest tower, his wings half-unfolded. He was ready to fly again, but his body was failing him. Even a dragon needs rest.
Suddenly, he felt something.
It wasn't a sound. It was a "shiver" in the back of his mind. He pulled the cracked stone out of his pocket. For a split second, the stone flickered. It didn't turn red or pink. It turned a pale, watery violet—the color of Felina's eyes.
He felt a wave of thirst. He felt the sting of a rope. He felt a deep, soul-crushing sadness.
"She's thinking of me," Alaric breathed.
He closed his eyes and pushed his consciousness into the stone. He didn't look for a location; he looked for a feeling. He looked for the "Soul-Link" they had shared in the library.
'Felina!' he shouted in his mind. 'Where are you? Give me a sign! Look at the moon! Look at anything!'
Deep underground, I felt a spark of heat in my chest. It was faint, like a dying ember, but it was there.
I looked up at the ceiling. There was a tiny crack in the stone, and through it, I could see one single star.
'The Star of the North,' I thought with the last of my strength. 'I am under the mountain that looks like a broken tooth. Alaric... please.'
On the tower, Alaric's eyes snapped open. They were no longer gold. They were a terrifying, brilliant white-hot orange. He knew that mountain. It was the "Black Peak," a place forbidden by the Church.
"Kael!" Alaric roared, his voice shaking the very stones of the tower. "Prepare the fire-bombs! We go to the Black Peak! And tell the men... they don't need to bring handcuffs. There will be no survivors to arrest."
He jumped from the tower, shifting into the giant Black Dragon before he even hit the ground. His roar was so loud that the glass in the city below shattered.
He wasn't a King anymore. He was a monster who had finally found his treasure. And heaven help anyone who stood between a dragon and his heart.