The Void did not breathe wind or air. It breathed wounds.
It was a pulsing rift between worlds endless obsidian threaded with veins of dim, sickly crimson light. The air hummed with an ancient magic that had never belonged to the living. It was the ancestral graveyard of the dragons, and today, it felt like a cage.
At the threshold stood Krismont Ole Vhros, the King of Red Dragons.
He didn't pace; he stalked. His colossal, mountain-sized body coiled and uncoiled with a violence that made the stone groan. Claws the size of scythes carved deep trenches into the obsidian floor. Smoke leaked from his nostrils in slow, furious spirals, and every exhale made the darkness ripple.
"Eenay vis ile? Hwi vis ile icht isop coa?" (Where is she? Why is she not back yet?)
The Void trembled at his voice. Behind him stood Tas Tis Riov, wings folded tight like a shroud. His scales were darkened by centuries of ash and war, scars crossing his body like a map of everything he had outlived.
"Ile volema ode isop noma. Esie merim oly eliv." (She will come back soon. You worry too much.)
Krismont's tail lashed out, shattering a nearby spire of rock. He didn't want comfort. He wanted his blood back.
The Void shuddered not from Krismont, but from an intrusion. At the threshold, the shadows began to thicken, crawling upward like spilled ink looking for a heart to stop. It condensed slowly into a silhouette both dragons knew too well.
Cion.
"Greetings, Red Dragon King," the shadow purred, the voice echoing with a mockery of respect. "I bring... unfortunate news."
Krismont's eyes ignited. They didn't just glow; they burned like twin suns about to go supernova.
"Your beloved daughter," Cion continued, his tone as smooth as a funeral shroud, "has been taken by the King."
The roar that followed was not a sound of anger. It was the sound of extinction.
Flame detonated from Krismont's jaws, the heat so intense it melted the obsidian cliffs. High above, the dragon nests embedded in the stone burst awake. Ancient beasts stirred, wings unfurling with the sound of snapping sails, their growls rolling like distant thunder.
"You promised us," Krismont snarled, his voice a low, lethal vibration, "that she would be safe."
Tas stepped forward, his wings half-spreading not to protect Cion, but to keep Krismont from lunging. "How did this happen?"
Cion tilted his head, his shadow flickering in mock confusion. "One moment I was delivering my own daughter to the King. The next yours simply appeared. As if summoned."
A cold, sharp look passed between the two dragons.
"She knows better," Tas said. "She would never enter the human square. Everything she needs the grain, the supplies lies at the mountain's foot."
Cion's shadow thinned for half a second. "And yet," he said softly, "she did. Which makes me wonder... did you send her to betray me?"
Krismont's claws sank deep into the stone. "How dare you." The fury had left his voice, replaced by a coldness that was far worse. "We do not break our word. You promised resources and safe passage. We promised you a war against the hybrid King."
"And yet," Cion replied lightly, "she went exactly where she was forbidden. I will attempt to retrieve her, of course. But Castel does not release what he claims."
The word claimed hung in the air like a guillotine.
"If I fail," Cion continued, "I will... inform you. Though, without her ability to cross between the Void and the world of light, I suppose you'll have to find a new way to feed your people."
Cion laughed, a jagged sound. "I suggest you begin populating, Krismont. You're going to need the numbers."
"You are despicable," Krince spat.
"It's just business," Cion said, his shadow turning to leave. "Now, if you'll excuse me I have a wedd....I mean... a rescue to plan."
He vanished, his laughter lingering in the dirt like a disease.
The Void fell silent for a heartbeat before the nests erupted. The younger dragons were the first to cry out, their voices thin with starvation and fear.
"Eenay ile? Nhronos noma, kie?" (Where is she? The time grows, yes?)
"La resources... ahi. Woz used. Woz eaten!" (The resources... are gone. Used. Eaten!)
The panic rose like ash in a chimney. The dragons were trapped in the Void, their bodies too large, their hunger too great for the barren rock. Arastella had been their only bridge to the world of plenty. Without her, they were just giants waiting to starve in the dark.
"Fear is there!" a younger dragon shrieked. "The hatchlings are starting to fight one another!"
Krismont's roar crushed the panic flat. Stone split under the weight of his voice. Every dragon froze.
"KMIO!" (SILENCE!)
He stood at the Heart Rift, the scar in existence where vows were etched in blood. His voice rolled like volcanic thunder. "Ile volema ode isop noma." (She will come back soon.)
He let the silence stretch, his gaze sweeping over the starving nests. "Kie ile icht ode... nser ropoi durf temi." (If she does not... our people will stand.)
"And how will we stand, King?" an elder dragon croaked. "When the food is gone?"
Krismont's eyes burned. "Lasc's hlalm truth." (Let us speak truth.)
His wings unfolded fully, casting a shadow over every nest in the Rift. "When the resources are gone... we thin the herd."
A shock of horror rippled through the dragons.
"We kill the old," Krismont said, his voice devoid of mercy. "We kill the weak. And if the hatchlings are wasted... they are eaten."
The Void itself seemed to recoil. Even Tas remained silent. Krismont slammed a talon into the stone. "Virah ahi weakness. Zote beg. Zote cry. Zote kneel." (Fear is weakness. Never beg. Never cry. Never kneel.)
The panic didn't disappear; it transformed. It became a grim, cold calculation. Survival at any cost.
Krismont turned away, moving deeper into the Heart Rift where the runes of the ancient Kings glowed. He sank his claws into his own chest, letting his royal blood spill onto the stone.
"She is my child," he whispered, the Varack cadence thick in his throat. "Born of flame. Forged of my blood. And taken."
The runes ignited.
"Kie Castel zlaptos ain kie ftos ienez ain vii ouviai ain ksuche..."
(If Castel harms her if he cages her or breaks her spirit...)
"By the fire that devours worlds, I swear this oath." Flames rose from the rift, forming the sigil of the Red Dragon Kings. "I will burn his throne. I will burn his city. I will scatter his bones across realms that do not remember the word mercy."
The blood sealed into the stone. The vow was bound.
Tas stepped beside him. "A convergence. Flame, Void, and Blood. She is not merely our daughter anymore, Krismont."
"No," Krismont said, staring into the dark. "She is our survival."
Somewhere beyond the rift, a girl was wearing a crown she hadn't chosen. A war had been called, and the King of All had no idea that he had just kidnapped a goddess of the end-times.