The capital of Elarion shimmered beneath the morning mist like a city carved from glass and gold. Its towers, slender and pale, reached skyward like the fingers of gods, each crowned with flags stitched in moon-thread and fire-dye. The light of dawn refracted through stained crystal bridges and prism-windows, painting the cobbled streets below in a shifting mosaic of color.
Couriers darted through the morning crowds. Scribes and stewards carried scrolls like sacred relics. Knights in mirrored armor patrolled the outer ring, their swords more for ceremony than for threat.
To the people of Elarion, the world was waking. But in the royal chambers of Highspire Keep, someone else had not yet left the dream.
The Dreamer
Prince Kaelen Aurelian, heir to the throne of Elarion, thrashed beneath silk sheets soaked in sweat. The physicians called it fever-sleep, a consequence of a childhood illness, a fragile mind pushed too far by night visions.
But they didn't see what he saw.
Flame. Cities crumbling. The sky torn in two by a great black wing.
In his dream, a tower of obsidian stood above a world on fire, and at its peak, watching, was a dragon. Its eyes were gold and ancient. Its voice echoed like thunder whispered through time.
"Do you know what you are?" the dragon asked.
Kaelen couldn't speak. He looked down. A rune burning, living, had formed on his chest, spiraling outward like a serpent eating its tail.
The sigil pulsed.
Then everything turned to ash.
Kaelen jolted awake.
His chamber was dim, thick with incense meant to soothe his sleep. A breeze stirred the curtains, carrying the scent of lakewater and blooming auravine. His hands trembled as he sat up, pulling the blankets away from his chest.
There it was.
The mark.
Thin and coiled like flame-forged silver, it shimmered faintly just over his heart, a rune etched not in ink or scar, but light. It appeared six nights ago. No matter how many times the court mages examined it, no one could explain its nature.
It defied dispelling.
It resisted translation.
And it grew brighter with each dream.
"Still burning?" a voice asked from the doorway.
Kaelen turned to see Captain Lys Rennar, his sworn protector, leaning against the frame in full travel leathers, a worried frown on her face.
"I heard you call out again," she said. "Same dream?"
Kaelen nodded and slowly slid his legs off the bed. He was tall for seventeen, lean and sharp-eyed, though his face bore the shadows of sleeplessness. The rune still tingled beneath his skin, as if echoing to a rhythm only he could hear.
"She was watching me again," he whispered. "The dragon. Black scales. Gold eyes. And… she spoke."
Lys stiffened. "Spoke?"
"She asked if I knew what I was." He looked down at the mark again. "I don't."
Lys stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her. "Your Highness… you need to stop telling the court about these dreams. The Circle of Mages is already in a panic. There are whispers in the Great Hall. They say the old sigils are forbidden for a reason."
"Let them whisper," Kaelen snapped. "Something's happening to me. I can feel it, Lys. I'm… changing. The mark isn't just a scar. It's a message."
She looked at him for a long time, her mouth pressed in a thin line.
Then she sighed. "There's one who might know. An old exile, lives in the northern wilds. A rune-smith. The Queen exiled him for teaching dragoncraft to men."
Kaelen's heart skipped. "Dragoncraft?"
Lys nodded. "He was obsessed with dragon lore. Claims the First Flame didn't die, it simply hid in mortal bloodlines. The nobles laughed him out of the Circle. But he used to say… the sigils of the Ancients would return in dreams. That they were warnings."
Kaelen stood, already pulling on his shirt, concealing the glowing mark. "Then that's where I'm going."
"You're the prince of Elarion. You can't just leave."
"I'm also the bearer of a mark none of your mages can read. If the court won't help me, I'll find someone who will."
Lys stared at him, then cursed softly. "You're your father's son, all right. Fine. I'll have horses ready by nightfall. If we do this, we do it quietly."
In the Dreamstream
Far away, hidden deep within the dreaming world, Sareth en Myros watched. She floated not in space, but in memory, the Dreamstream, a living ocean of thought and fire. She traced the boy's dream with her mind, saw the flare of the rune as he uncovered it, felt his confusion, his fear.
It was real.
The Sigil of Tharizdane had returned. And it had chosen a human host. The flame that once shattered the world… had found kindling again.
Sareth opened her golden eyes, awakening on her obsidian throne.
"He walks the path of the Betrayer," she murmured. "And yet… he dreams of truth."
Elarion's spires gleamed like glass swords in the morning light, but within the heart of Highspire Keep, cold shadows clung to the stone.
Kaelen stood before a silver-framed mirror, half-dressed, jaw clenched as he studied the mark pulsing faintly beneath his skin. The rune was subtle now, no brighter than candlelight, but even in its dimmest state it felt alive, like something watching him from inside.
The Sigil of Tharizdane.
Bearer of fire, breaker of worlds…
He didn't know why that name echoed in his head. He didn't even remember learning it.
But it was there, always.
A whisper, a warning.
Court Intrigue
The Council Chamber was a spiral of ivory steps and red-velvet seats, circling a floor of runic marble. Light from sun-crystals filtered through the domed ceiling, casting soft, soothing hues designed to calm the court in times of discord.
It wasn't working.
Whispers hissed through the chamber like wind through grass. Noble families watched the prince with narrowed eyes. Mages stood in uneasy clusters, robes stiff with enchantment, fingers twitching toward hidden spell-weaves.
"Let the record show," said Archmage Lorian Dell, voice measured but cold, "that the rune afflicting the Crown Prince has not responded to any known divination, dispel, or purification rite. We have attempted three mirrorwalks and two dream-holds. Each failed."
A noblewoman in dark green leaned forward, face pale and pinched. "You say 'afflicting.' Do we know it is a curse?"
Another mage, young, nervous, murmured, "It's older than cursecraft. I saw a trace when it flared. It matches glyphs we recovered from the Old Wall. The Wall built by the-"
Lorian silenced him with a sharp glance.
"Speculation," the Archmage said. "No glyph in our archives matches the rune exactly."
Kaelen stepped forward.
"I dreamed of a dragon," he said, voice steady. "A great one. Obsidian and gold. She knew the rune. She spoke to me. And I-"
"You are seventeen," interrupted Lord Emeric of House Thorne. "And barely recovered from dream-fever. Dragons have not been seen in five hundred years. If one speaks to you, it is likely madness, not prophecy."
Kaelen's jaw tightened.
"They thought it was madness when the first seer spoke of the Sundering too," he snapped. "How many dismissed the signs before Tharizdane's war drowned the old world in fire?"
Lorian's hands twitched. The room went silent at the name.
Tharizdane.
Even now, it cracked the air like a blade.
"I will not be silenced," Kaelen said, stepping down from the dais. "There is something inside me. A truth the Circle fears to name. But I will learn it, with or without the court's blessing."
The Escape
Later that night, Kaelen stood in the stables beneath Highspire Keep, cloaked in charcoal wool, a travel satchel over his shoulder.
Lys Rennar adjusted the harness of a midnight-black stallion beside him, her sword slung across her back. She wore no crest, no sigil, only a silver pin shaped like a crow's feather.
"Riders will be sent after us before sunrise," she muttered. "They'll track the horses unless we take the river path."
Kaelen nodded. "North, then east. To the Tanglewood. The map shows a ruined tower on the border. That's where the rune-smith lives?"
"That's what the records say." She paused. "Kaelen… if what you dreamed is real, if this rune is his…"
He looked at her. "Then I need to know why it came to me."
She nodded once, and they mounted their horses. As they rode out into the night, the city fell away behind them, its crystal towers fading into mist.
Neither of them noticed the flicker in the sky above the moon, a shape with golden eyes, gliding silently through the clouds.
In the Deep Skies
Sareth en Myros soared high above the mortal realm, wings beating so slowly they barely stirred the clouds. Her form was hidden behind veils of dream-silk and rune-concealment, but her gaze pierced worlds.
She had seen the boy again.
He was running, fleeing, from a place of power built on lies.
Good, she thought. He has begun to choose.
But choice was only the first step.
From the dreamwinds, a whisper rode the ether. A name spoken by an old, broken voice.
"Tharizdane…" Sareth froze.
That voice was not from the mortal realm.
It came from beneath.
From the Veins of Flame.
A crack, deep in the roots of the world, where something once sealed had begun to stir.