Chapter 11: Children of the Crown
The winds of the Sapphire coast carried whispers.
And whispers have sharp teeth.
In the golden chambers of House Daemon, where politics wore silks and secrets drank wine, the rumors finally reached those most bound by the throne.
Princess Alina Daemon, eldest daughter of King Levi, stood in the high library, her fingers tracing an ancient map. Her eyes—sharp, curious—didn't lift as Serra, her handmaiden, spoke.
"They say he lives in the north. The bastard son. Hidden for years. A dragon walks beside him."
Alina froze.
"A dragon?" she echoed softly.
"Yes, Princess. Some claim it breathes fire. That it answers only to him."
Alina finally turned, her face unreadable. "And my father?"
"He sends no word. But… he burns letters in the dead of night."
Alina's thoughts raced. Her father had never spoken of a bastard. But the cold way he looked at the sea some nights… the way he watched the flames in the hearth. It made sense now.
A child born of war. Hidden. Forgotten.
And yet, here he was.
With a dragon.
Her blood.
Her brother.
—
Down in the training yard, Prince Cael Daemon drove his blade into a straw dummy with brutal precision. Again. And again. Until the wood cracked beneath his fury.
He'd heard the whispers too.
A bastard. His father's shame.
But what twisted inside Kael wasn't surprise.
It was rage.
Ever since he was a boy, Cael had fought for approval. He had bled to be worthy of the crown. And now—now—a no-name farmer born of some lowborn concubine had the fire?
His fire?
He slammed his sword into the stone wall, splinters flying.
"If he dares step foot in Sapphire," he growled to his captain, "he dies."
"Your father—"
"I said he dies."
The captain bowed, but the worry in his eyes was plain.
The fire was not just waking in the mountains.
It was igniting in the heart of the royal family.
—
Far away, Marcus knelt before the final statue in the Ember Vault. Veyrion loomed behind him, wings spread like shadows over stone.
The statue was of a man in full dragon-forged armor, one hand resting on the snout of a massive dragon. The inscription read:
> "Only when blood turns against blood shall the flame choose its final bearer."
Marcus stared at it in silence.
And far to the south, Alina Daemon sat alone in the library, quill in hand, writing a letter not to her father… but to Marcus.
> *"I do not know your face, only the shape of the stories whispered in these halls. But if you are my brother—if blood binds us—know that I do not seek your end.
Come to the coast of Eldmere. Alone. I will wait beneath the old lighthouse, seven days from now.