Dominic walked toward the senior official with measured, unhurried steps, each footfall carrying the kind of quiet authority that needed no announcement.
The official felt it immediately, a tightness in his chest, a sudden awareness of how small the space between them had become. His throat constricted as though the air itself had grown heavier.
He had learned the truth from Tom Marriott not long ago, and that knowledge now pressed down on him like a physical weight. This man, this seemingly ordinary figure standing before him, was the dragon coiled beneath Duskhaven City. One flick of his wrist could reshape the city's power structure, and one whispered word could bring empires crashing down or raise them from nothing. The official understood, with bone-deep certainty, that he was stand
