The Darkness Dragon Heir

The day I died started like any other.PresentHadeon had left for a work trip to Crepusculum about a week prior. It was a daunting trip with over a thousand kilometres between here and there. He would be halfway by now if the weather was good. Cyra had come from those parts, as Ignis resided within the volcano that looked out over Crepusculum. Hadeon would be away for a full two months before coming home. Before he saw his daughter again. I was alone, yet not lonely. Elliana kept me company throughout the days. Laughter filled the halls often enough that mother had decided it was finally time to come visit again. Father had dropped by only two days prior. He always seemed to hover for longer than necessary. Both of them loved my daughter with no limitations, but they tend to become suffocating every once in a while. Dragons had those habits with their hatchlings, it seemed. Especially if those hatchlings were their grandbabies.Staff fluttered

There was a special kind of fear when you were a mother. The type of fear that spurred you to stop your toddler from eating rocks and fussing over cuts or small bruises. Everything around you was a hazard and sometimes all you wanted to do was hide your child away from the outside world. Nothing was ever safe enough or good enough for them. For you. At some point you realize that you will never get to keep them from the real world forever. You start relaxing more and just enjoy the little things. Then there was real fear. The kind that brought you to your knees. Made you vomit up everything within your stomach. Gasping for air. For release from this awful grip. Neither of these fears are invalid, but the latter made me choke on the very air I breathed.Elliana was elated to see me but sleep still blurred her vision. She had just woken up to a strange man in her home. This was her own version of fear, one I could never fully understand. Blood rushed to my ears, a dull roar for

13 Years AgoFreedom was a luxury for an heir, especially one that defied all laws of our world. That was why it took some convincing on my part before mother let my out of the manor atop Tenebris mountain. I was, however, forced to bring along a companion. As if the humans could ever figure out that a Caligo dragon walked among them, along with an Ignis. It was worth all the trouble, as the beautiful city of Stygian had just started their summer market. Ladies in all sorts of finery walked around, feeling up fabrics and buying candy for their little ones probably stuck with their nannies. Spices of all varieties clung to the air, my favourite being vanilla. Cyra loved cinnamon, grabbing a sugary cinnamon bun from a vendor when we had barely reached the entrance of the market. She could afford it, with her long thin legs and toned arms.Mud clung to the bottom of my light chiffon dress, dragging it along the unpaved road. It wasn't a grand market, like

Stygian laid at the foot of the Tenebris Mountains. Ornate gates of sandstone lead into farmlands bordering the northern side of the city. We had to go south, through a gate that once welcomed thousands of Tenebris members into its fold. Now it was nothing more than thorn wire and crumbling bricks now. Cyra knew we didn't have enough time to run through the city again to reach the northern gate. Too many people had already seen our faces fleeing the shop. This was the quickest way out of the city and into our home territory. Sentinels should be waiting about 2 kilometres into the forest for us. Even if we planned to stay much long than we had, mother will ensure that they stay close by. As if she knew her daughter would cause trouble. She was right, though, to assume such things.The crumbling stone spilled down the sides of the gate and wall. Rust covered thorny wire jutted through the rubble. They had dismantled this gate a long time ago, years before even I was born. Human

To say my mother wasn't pleased would have been an understatement. Cyra and I had spent hours afterwards telling and re-telling our stories. At some point a guard entered and murmured into my mother's ear. Her face crumpled even more; I didn't even know that it could be possible. Atarah had rubbed her temples slowly and rose from her seat. Apparently, she had other matters to look to instead of our little squabble with the humans. And away we were swooped to be held in our rooms until she could deal out fitting punishments. To both of us. According to her, ladies didn't conduct themselves in such rude fashion. Throw in the whole loyalist jeweller debacle and me picking a fight for no good reason with the shop keeper, I could only imagine what she had in store for me. We were nobility. The royals upheld the standards for everyone else to follow, but it didn't help that we sometimes set the standards so low. I had no doubt that word of our little deviant act would spread like wildfire