The descent into the deep caverns beneath the Citadels felt nothing like the world above. The Inner Cities of Nozar had always possessed a certain polished grandeur—clean lines, marble halls, immaculate order—but the moment Lukas stepped into the descending passage, that illusion fell away. Down here, the air was thick and humid. Each step carried him farther from the world Daerion presented to his people and deeper into the foundation of his machinations which he had kept hidden. The cavern was immense, swallowing sound and light alike until only the slow drip of water and the echo of their footsteps remained.

  Lukas stopped without meaning to, his breath leaving him in a slow exhale he didn’t remember taking.

  The Heart of Thalarion Drakos rose from the stone like a monument.

  It resembled the Heart of Kaeryth in its structure, a shaped and perfected crystalline creation rather than the bloodied organ of any living creature, but that was where the similarities ended.

  Where Kaeryth’s Heart shone like molten gold, the Heart of Thalarion Drakos was a deep, oceanic blue. Its surface shimmered as though captured tides moved beneath its shell, veins of flowing water threading through it like currents trapped in eternal motion. The light it cast wasn’t harsh or blinding like the Khaitishi sun, the light that emanated from this Heart was soft, yet impossibly vibrant, each pulse sending a ripple through the cavern, a heartbeat that lived without flesh or bone.

  The magic that poured from it washed over Lukas in waves—powerful, rhythmic and unmistakably familiar.

  It was the magic of House Drakos, his House.

  It was the Divinity of the Seas.

  To feel it now reminded him of how wrong it all was, that this fragment of his own lineage was now lying in the hands of a man who did not deserve to wield its power. Even beyond the Kingdom of Dragons, all had heard and known the name Thalarion Drakos before.

  The original Dragon Lords of Linemall were legends, their stories repeated across nations and generations even after the Great War. But among them, Thalarion had always been the strongest of those Lords, the one whose power had needed no embellishment from song or myth. And that was why, when Thalarion vanished, the world had never stopped wondering where he had gone.

  There were sightings and theories but in the end, there was nothing to show for it.

  Lukas had read many of those theories in the archives of the Royal Palace, tracing inked speculations written by scholars who had died long before he was even born.

  It was a mystery that had gone unsolved up until now.

  Lukas knew it because he had seen the records himself—records Varian had uncovered and Ellion had painstakingly deciphered.

  The truth was not glorious.

  It was not triumphant.

  The Admiralty of Nozar had found Thalarion not in battle, not in some heroic stand against an unimaginable force, but drifting in the open sea, bleeding, weakened and defeated.

  By what?

  No one knew. They did not want to know.

  The navy had simply dragged the great dragon’s massive body back across the waters, its size so tremendous that ten warships had been required simply to move him. And when they reached Nozar, the Archmage Vaelith had removed the memory of this discovery from every mind involved, erasing the event as thoroughly as if it had never happened at all.

  Lukas stared at the Heart now, the same Heart that they had extracted from the great dragon and now Lukas saw the consequence of that act laid bare before him.

  Thalarion's end had become the foundation of Daerion’s empire of control.

  But it also was the only thing keeping Dorian Ittriki alive.

  The crystalline veins of the Heart, glowing with currents of liquid blue, stretched outward like roots of living magic, and every one of them converged upon a single figure suspended in their grasp. The veins wrapped around the Crown Prince of Nozar, intertwining with his body as though an extension of Dorian's self.

  Lukas felt his stomach twist.

  The Crown Prince looked impossibly frail beneath the pulsating blue light. His limbs hung weakly, thin and delicate as if carved from brittle porcelain. Each pulse of the Heart sent a tremor through him, his body arching in agony, contorting with pain. His skin had lost all color, washed out to a pasty pallor, and his breaths came in ragged, stuttering pulls that rasped through the cavern like dying wind.

  “It was Mana Poisoning.” Daerion’s voice was barely a whisper but Lukas heard every word.

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  The King of Nozar did not look at Lukas when he spoke. His gaze remained locked on his son, on the frail body that jolted with each beat of the Heart.

  “Born with so much power that his body was not able to contain it.”

  Lukas knew the feeling perhaps better than anyone else. His own Mana Pool had fractured beneath the strain of channeling the power of every Dragon Lord who had come before him. He knew what it meant for magic to turn against its wielder, for one’s own power to become poison.

  Daerion continued, his voice raw, stripped of the arrogance that usually sharpened it. “I prayed. I prayed endlessly to Oceanus, hoping that he would heal my boy. I spent years watching him cry out in pain. And yet I could do nothing for him. I felt so weak…I felt so…helpless."

  Lukas had never seen Daerion like this. The King of Nozar was many things—ruthless and manipulative—but this look was something else entirely. It was love, a father’s desperate, unyielding love for his son. It was no different from the love that had kept Jakob Fronterra alive, the Hero thinking that he would one day return to his son back on his Earth.

  Lukas realized then how much this empire of control had cost Daerion Ittriki.

  Soren Ittriki, once just a bastard child and now the New Divine Knight of the Church, had turned his back on the King long ago, choosing conviction over blood. Alric Ittriki, former Rear Admiral of the Admiralty, had perished in Rodan Drakos’ rampage—a death Lukas had seen unfold with his own eyes. And Darren Ittriki, the youngest son of Nozar, had abandoned his claim to royalty entirely, choosing a life Daerion was no longer allowed to be a part of.

  For all his dominion, for all the fear his name commanded across Hiraeth, Daerion stood here as just a man. He stood there just as a father. And his son was all he had left.

  “I was the one who found that dragon.” Daerion’s voice rose suddenly, cracking through the cavern like a whip. His eyes left his son and snapped toward Lukas, fury igniting beneath the grief. “It is because of me that my son still lives. Not Oceanus. Not the bloodydamn Titan of Hiraeth. But me!”

  The air tightened around them as Daerion’s rage surged.

  “You see me as the villain in your story." The King of Nozar's voice rose. “But you forget that it is because of me that Hiraeth has known peace! Not because of Oceanus, not you or anybody else. Me!” His chest heaved with each breath, the veins of the Heart pulsing behind him like a second presence. “Deny it if you wish, but this control you think is so evil is the only reason why this world knew peace. I am this world's salvation."

  “You will be its destruction, Daerion.” Lukas’ voice cut through the cavern with a clarity that did not need to be raised.

  The old man froze but Lukas went on before the King of Nozar could speak another word.

  “I will deny it. Because that peace you speak of? It was never real to begin with.” There was no venom in Lukas' tone, only the truth. “There is no peace without freedom. You can delude yourself into thinking that peace is an absence of conflict. But true peace…is learning to live with it.”

  The Dragon King's gaze drifted from the Heart of his ancestor back to Daerion.

  “True peace is understanding that this world will never be perfect,” Lukas continued, each syllable deliberate. “The peace you are looking for is within you. Not out there. There is no prize to perfection, Daerion. Only an end to pursuit.”

  His expression softened.

  “What mattered is that we can try. We can try to be better. We have to be better. For ourselves…and for our future.”

  Lukas stepped closer, lowering his head until he and Daerion stood face to face. The light from the Heart behind them cast shifting patterns of deep blue across their features, illuminating every hard line of Daerion’s expression and every quiet certainty in Lukas’s. And Lukas held Daerion’s gaze without wavering.

  For a single, fleeting moment, Lukas saw it.

  Hesitation.

  A crack in Daerion's armor.

  A flicker of something nearly human beneath it all.

  Lukas’ chest tightened, hope sparking for the briefest heartbeat. But then it vanished.

  The doubt extinguished as quickly as it had appeared, swallowed by his ambition.

  “That is no future that I wish to live in,” Daerion whispered. And with those quiet, final words, Lukas understood. There was no bridge he could build, no plea he could make that would ever shift Daerion from the path he had carved out for himself.

  The King of Nozar would never comprehend the peace Lukas sought for Hiraeth. Not because he refused to but because Daerion was incapable of imagining a world that was not held in his grasp.

  Lukas’ eyes widened as red magical energy burst to life around Daerion, forming instantly, almost reflexively, a radiance of crimson that licked across his arm like a living blade.

  It was the Divinity of Dissection.

  The magic of the Ittriki Clan was not subtle nor was it gentle.

  It was a force built for severing, slicing through all things in its path. It could cut through all—flesh and steel, magic and soul. And Lukas had lowered his head to speak to him, to look Daerion in the eyes and hope that his words could somehow reach the King of Nozar.

  Instead, what Lukas had given Daerion was an opening.

  An opening that the man would use to end this fight before it even began.

  The red glow intensifying around Daerion’s arm made the cavern look as though drenched in blood. Power hummed through the air, vibrating the stone beneath their feet. The King of Nozar’s face twisted, not in sorrow now, but in fury sharpened by certainty—a rage born from the belief that he alone was the only one that could save this world, a belief that anyone who opposed him had to be cut down.

  Daerion roared, a deafening sound that filled the cavern before the King of Nozar brought his arm down in a lethal arc.

  The Divinity of Dissection cleaved through the air toward the King of the Dragons with the full intent to end Lukas' life in a single, merciless strike.

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