Kaelis POV
The King believed he was summoning me.
That was the first mistake.
I had felt the shift long before the King rose from his throne, long before the braziers bent and the wards whispered their panic through stone and fire. Power like that did not announce itself politely—it sang. It moved through blood and bone, through ancient bargains written into the world itself.
Golden.
The word had tasted like promise.
And opportunity.
I stood alone now in my private solar, the walls etched with draconic runes older than the Kings reign, older than the crown he clung to like a second skin. The mirrors along the far wall reflected a woman of perfect composure—dark hair braided with onyx and ember-thread, eyes sharp and calculating, scales faintly visible beneath my skin where my magic
