“Alex! Honey, get up!”
The voice slices through the suffocating darkness like a blade cutting silk.
I jolt upright, breath ragged and shallow, vision swimming as if the world itself wobbles on an uncertain axis. Above me stands my mother—her golden hair tangled and soaked with sweat, tears streaming down her cheeks like rain cascading from a storm-darkened sky. Behind her, the castle windows glow with fierce flames, tongues of fire licking the edges of ancient stone. Somewhere beyond these walls, screams claw at the air, a cacophony of terror and desperation.
I am seven years old again.
“Mom? What’s happening?” I whisper, voice barely more than a ghost. But my bones already know. My blood remembers.
“The Dragon Kingdom is here,” she says, her voice cracking beneath the weight of unspe
