Blake POV
The land changes the farther I travel from dragon territory.
The stone grows darker. Older. Scarred by fire that was never meant to be ceremonial. This is not the polished territory my father parades before the court—this is the land that remembers what dragons were before crowns, before treaties, before fear shaped law.
I move fast, cloak pulled tight, my presence muted but not erased. Even so, the earth knows me. It always has. Dragon blood doesn’t pass unnoticed through stone this ancient.
Elle’s presence hums at the back of my mind—distant but steady. Safe. Waiting.
I hold onto that as I descend into the ravine where the air smells faintly of ash and iron.
This place is forgotten on purpose.
Official maps label it uninhabitable. Collapsed. Dead. My father’s court beli
