The village of Oakhaven didn't care about Dragon Kings or Otherworld Queens. Here, the only law was the rising sun and the ripening wheat.
I stood in the small vegetable patch behind our cottage, my hands stained with dark soil. I was trying to pull weeds, but my mind was a fog. I knew my name was Felina. I knew I had a mother in a place with "paved roads" and "bright lights." But why was I here? And why was the man in the field looking at me as if I were his entire universe?
"Rick," as the villagers called him, was currently splitting logs. He had discarded his shirt in the afternoon heat. His back was a map of power—muscles rippling with every swing of the axe.
I found myself staring. A "shiver" that had nothing to do with the cold moved through me. There was something about the way he moved—so precise, so predatory, yet so gentle when he looked at me. He was incredibly attentive. Every morning, he left a wildflower by my pillow. Every evening, he heated the water for my bath so I wouldn't feel the mountain chill.
"You're working too hard, Felina," he said, wiping sweat from his brow with a forearm. He walked toward me, his golden eyes glowing like embers in the sunlight.
"I'm just trying to help," I whispered, looking down at my dirty fingernails. "You do everything. You build the fence, you fix the roof... you treat me like a princess, but I'm just a girl who can't even remember yesterday."
Alaric stepped into my space. He didn't touch me—he was always so careful to respect the distance I had put between us—but his heat was like a physical wall.
"You are not 'just' anything," he said, his voice a low, "spicy" rasp. "If you never remember a single day before this one, it wouldn't matter. I would still spend every morning earning your smile."
He reached out, his hand hovering near my face. For a second, I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to feel that spark I felt when our fingers brushed. But he pulled back, his jaw tightening as he hid the shimmer of obsidian scales beneath his collar.
The Search for the Fallen King
While we lived in the quiet green of Oakhaven, the rest of the kingdom was in chaos.
In the capital, the Great Hall was cold. Kael sat on the steps of the empty glass throne, his head in his hands. The "System" was failing. Without the Dragon's fire to power the sun-stones, the city was falling into a perpetual autumn.
"Find them!" Kael roared at the scouts. "Search every valley! If the King does not return, the borders will collapse!"
But there was someone else searching.
Elena, the High Priest's daughter and the woman who had always believed the Dragon belonged to her, stood in the ruins of the High Temple. She wasn't wearing her white robes of purity anymore. She was dressed in blood-red leather, a jagged dagger at her waist.
"He threw away a crown for a ghost," Elena hissed, her eyes flashing with a mad, jealous light. "He lives like a peasant for a girl who doesn't even know his name."
She looked at a map of the Northern States. Her finger landed on Valeria.
"If he wants to live as a mortal," Elena whispered, a cruel smile twisting her lips, "then he can die as one. I will burn that valley until there is nothing left but their ashes. If I cannot have the King, then no one shall have the man."
Survival and a Taste of Home
Back at the cottage, the sun had dipped below the hills. The atmosphere was cozy, filled with the scent of pine needles and woodsmoke.
I wanted to thank "Rick" for the new table he had built. I went into our small kitchen and looked at the ingredients: flour, water, some wild tomatoes, and a block of goat cheese.
My mind flickered. Dough. Sauce. Cheese.
"What are you making?" Alaric asked, leaning against the doorframe. He looked so relaxed in his simple linen shirt, but his eyes were always "attentive," scanning me for any sign of a headache or a memory-pain.
"I don't know the name here," I said, my hands moving with a strange confidence. "But it's a 'flat-bread' from my home. We call it Pizza."
I kneaded the dough, feeling the "spicy" warmth of the hearth behind me. I crushed the tomatoes with a stone and spread the cheese. When I slid the tray into the stone oven Alaric had built, a sense of peace washed over me.
We sat together at the small wooden table. The "Pizza" was simple, but the smell was incredible. Alaric took a bite, and his eyes suddenly filled with a deep, haunting sadness.
"Is it bad?" I asked, worried.
"No," he whispered, his voice breaking. "It's perfect. It tastes like the woman I... the woman I used to know."
He reached across the table and finally took my hand. This time, I didn't pull away. The jolt of electricity was there—the "shiver" of the Soul-Link—but it felt like a melody instead of a shock.
"I'm starting to like it here, Rick," I said softly. "Just being us. No kings. No monsters."
Alaric squeezed my hand, his thumb tracing my knuckles. "Me too, Felina. More than you know."
But as we sat in the firelight, the silver bell in the village square began to ring. It wasn't a call for a festival. It was a call for fire.
In the distance, the horizon was glowing red. Elena's soldiers had arrived. The survival of the normal villagers was over. The Dragon was being called back to his flame