Hesitation clung to her like a second skin, heavy and cold.
Lux stood frozen at the precipice of the cliff, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, breath shallow and ragged. Was it the chilling grip of fear? A stubborn, nascent defiance? Or simply the wrenching reluctance to step away from the only warmth she had ever known?
She didn't know.
But Mother did.
With that familiar, arrogant smile drawn across her face like a bow pulled taut, a curve of **dark, triumphant beauty**, Esh turned her head. Her **ruby eyes blazed**, twin infernos reflecting the nascent chaos below.
"Have a little faith, Lux," her voice, though a mental whisper, resonated with the authority of ancient stone and the crackle of fire.
Then, like a living tempest, her colossal form twisted and surged—flesh becoming scale, the elegant silk of her gown ripping and transforming into obsidian spines and plates of garnet. The dragon, magnificent and terrible, reemerged, a force of nature given form.
The very moment she stepped into the open air, chaos answered her presence. Screams tore through the morning—the guttural cries of fear, the desperate prayers of the faithful, and the arrogant war cries of men, all mixing like oil and fire, a cacophony of impending doom.
Lux didn't hesitate for long. Her small form spun, and she bolted for the far edge of the cliff. The jump was high, a dizzying plunge—but she was still a dragon, no matter how small, how fragile. And a fall like that wouldn't be the end of her.
...She hoped, a desperate, raw plea echoing in the chambers of her young mind.
Before she finally leapt, she paused—just once—a fleeting, primal urge to see how Mother was faring in the maelstrom.
She crept closer, her tiny claws scrambling for purchase on the rough stone. Acrid smoke, thick and metallic, stung her eyes, and her breath hitched, held tight in her throat. The battle had erupted fully now, a cataclysm unleashed. She could hear the ringing clash of knights' steel, the guttural incantations of mages tearing at the air, the desperate, chanted prayers of priests seeking divine intervention. All of it crashing together in a storm of steel and sanctimony, a symphony of destruction.
Then came Mother's roar. A sound that didn't just split the sky—it fractured the very fabric of reality, a primal force that rattled the bones of the earth and every living thing upon it.
Lux watched from her precarious perch, eyes wide with a horrific fascination, as fire bloomed from Mother's maw—a living, incandescent wave. It was so hot it didn't just burn; it fused metal to flesh, turned arrogant shouts to agonizing screams. Human bodies, once vibrant with life and ambition, fell like discarded dolls, charred husks, broken and grotesque.
*Stupid humans and their unending hubris,* she thought bitterly, a cold, nascent fury beginning to stir within her own fragile core.
But her thoughts died—cut clean, mid-sentence, by a sudden, chilling realization.
From the blood and smoke, something emerged that was not chaos.
It was control. Precision.
The mages, cunning and coordinated, were shielded, protected by an unbreakable formation of silver-clad paladins, their armor shimmering with faint, protective energies. The circle they formed glowed with an eerie, internal light. A ritual complete. A trap sprung.
Two spells flared to life, bright and terrible.
One was etched in pulsing star-sigils, patterns of cosmic energy—the Fairy Star, a binding array of celestial magic, designed to shackle the mightiest of beings.
The other?
A man on horseback. Clad in gleaming white-and-gold armor, he rode forth like an avenging angel, his sword gleaming with a divine energy so potent it sang—no, *screamed*—of death. This was no ordinary steel. It was dragon-slaying steel. Blessed. Cursed. Crafted with a singular, merciless purpose: to kill dragons.
Lux flinched forward, a desperate, primal urge to run to Mother's aid surging through her—but she stopped. A sudden, overwhelming paralysis seized her.
Smoke choked her lungs, burning and corrosive. Tears blurred her vision, hot and stinging. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move. A suffocating wave of power, ancient and crushing, rolled over her, chilling her to the bone.
She turned.
She ran.
Down the jagged cliff face, her small claws tearing at the rock. Through the ancient, gnarled trees, over treacherous roots and unforgiving rocks and everything else that didn't matter. She ran, a frantic, desperate blur of silver and shadow.
Her small fists clenched so tight her knuckles, already pale, bled freely, streaks of crimson against her delicate scales. She didn't stop. She couldn't.
Then—Mother's final scream.
It wasn't merely a sound; it was a rupture, a tearing of the world itself, echoing like the cracking of the very firmament.
And behind it—a chorus of raucous cheers.
Laughter, cruel and triumphant.
Celebration, chilling in its callous joy.
Lux stumbled.
Fell.
Her knees slammed against the unyielding earth, the impact sending jolts of agony through her small frame. Her arms trembled violently, her throat burning with the unshed screams that clawed their way up but could find no release. Her heart, a fragile thing, shattered in her chest like stained glass dropped from heaven, each shard a stab of unbearable grief.
She couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't comprehend the horror that had just unfolded.
Tears, hot and relentless, flooded her face, mingling with the bitter taste of smoke. Her breath hitched—then broke, a ragged gasp that tore through the silence. Her voice, when it came, was not a child's plea, but a nascent roar, trembling like a blade on the verge of snapping, yet sharp with a terrifying new resolve.
"I will have my revenge."
Her hands, bloodied and dirt-caked, curled into fierce, nascent claws, tearing at the soil.
"With rage as hot as Mother's flame—
—I will have my revenge.
And frostbite will be the least of your concerns when I serve this dish you ordered in blood."
She rose slowly, agonizingly, like a storm preparing to speak, her small body radiating an immense, cold power.
"Etch my words into your very bones. You will know the unfathomable depths of my wrath, and it will consume you utterly."
The ground beneath her trembled, a faint tremor echoing her inner turmoil. The very air seemed to recoil, thick with the weight of her declaration.
"You have ignited a fire that will not be quenched. A fire that will reduce your existence to naught but ash and regret, a barren wasteland of your own making."
Her voice was no longer a child's. It was ancient, cold, and infused with a chilling, boundless fury.
"I swear it—on the honor of my ancestors, and the sacred blood of my kin. I will make you suffer. You will know torment beyond imagining."
And in the profound, aching silence that followed, even the birds dared not sing, held captive by the sheer weight of her oath.
"Your fate will be a testament to the darkness now awakened inside me. And you will tremble before my vengeance, a cold, relentless tempest that will sweep all before it."