Chapter 1: The Slave Who Shouldn't Exist
764 Words
The city of Ironveil never slept.
Not really.
Even at midnight, the dimensional gates above the city pulsed with violent energy. Purple lightning crawled across their edges. The distant sounds of battle echoed from the outer walls where hunter teams pushed back the latest wave of creatures.
Inside the city, life continued.
For most people.
For Kael Drayven, life had never really started.
He moved through the back corridors of the Voss Estate with his head down and his footsteps quiet. Seventeen years of practice had made silence natural. Almost instinctive.
Be invisible. Be useful. Don't exist too loudly.
Those were the rules that had kept him alive.
The estate was massive. Four floors of polished stone and expensive light fixtures and rooms that cost more to furnish than most hunters earned in a year. The Voss family was old money. Old power. The kind of family that had survived every gate crisis for three generations by being smart enough to hire the right people and ruthless enough to discard the wrong ones.
Kael was somewhere in between.
Not hired. Not discarded.
Just... kept.
He didn't know why. He had stopped asking years ago.
He carried a tray of empty glasses from the dining hall toward the kitchen, moving through a side passage that servants used to stay invisible during family gatherings. The main hall was still lit. Voices carried through the walls.
The Voss family was celebrating something.
They were always celebrating something.
Kael set the tray down in the kitchen and turned to go back for the next load.
That was when the pain started.
Not the usual kind. Not the ache of too many hours of work on too little food.
Something else.
Deep in his chest.
Like something pressing outward from the inside.
Kael stopped walking.
Pressed one hand against the stone wall.
"What—"
The pain intensified.
He bit down against it.
His vision blurred at the edges.
For a moment he thought he was dying.
For a moment that didn't seem entirely bad.
Then the pain broke open—
And something else came through.
Not pain anymore.
Warmth.
Ancient warmth.
The kind that had nothing to do with temperature.
A sound echoed in his mind.
Not words.
Just a tone.
Like something enormous breathing.
Then—
A screen appeared.
Translucent.
Floating directly in front of his eyes.
Text formed across it.
[Ancient Dragon Core System — Initializing]
Kael stared.
"What?"
[Host detected: Kael Drayven]
[Bloodline scan — in progress]
[Ancient Dragon Bloodline — confirmed]
[Dormant — activating]
Kael looked at the screen.
Then at his hands.
A faint golden light pulsed beneath his skin.
Like something moving through his veins that had always been there.
Waiting.
For this exact moment.
He stood in the kitchen of the Voss Estate.
Invisible.
Forgotten.
A slave in everything but name.
And something ten thousand years old had just chosen him.
The screen continued.
[First Ability Unlocked]
[Dragon Sense — Level 1]
[Perception enhanced. Threat detection active.]
Kael felt it immediately.
The world sharpened around him.
He could hear the guards changing shift outside.
He could smell the specific tension of a gate destabilizing three kilometers north.
He could feel—
Someone watching him.
He turned slowly.
The kitchen was empty.
But the feeling remained.
Eyes. Close. Intentional.
His new instincts screamed—
Not a person.
Something else.
Something that had been waiting in the walls of this estate for longer than Kael had been alive.
Something that had felt his bloodline activate.
And had come to see.
[Warning: Ancient presence detected]
[Location: Beneath the estate]
[Status: Awakening]
Kael looked at the floor.
At the stone beneath his feet.
At whatever had been sleeping below the Voss Estate.
And was sleeping no longer.
The gate above Ironveil pulsed violently outside.
The lights in the kitchen flickered once.
Then went dark.
And in the darkness Kael heard it.
Not through his ears.
Through something older than ears.
A single sound.
Low.
Ancient.
The sound of something very large.
Drawing its first breath in a very long time.
What ancient creature has been sleeping beneath the Voss Estate — and why did it awaken the moment Kael's bloodline activated? What does the Ancient Dragon Core System want from a forgotten slave with no power and no future? And when the Voss family discovers what is hiding in their own estate — will Kael survive long enough to understand what he truly is?
Keep reading — The Last Dragon Sovereign
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- Writer
