The first sensation Serina felt was weightlessness.

Her body plummeted, hair whipping around her face as the wind roared past her ears.

The world spun—sky, trees, shadows of jagged stone—and for an instant she thought the teleport had gone wrong, that Lerai's invention had ripped her free of the mortal plane entirely.

Panic seized her chest as the ground surged closer, a blur of black and green rushing up like the jaws of a beast.

Then—warmth.

A hand caught her.

Arms steadied her fall as though gravity itself had been denied. She blinked through the shock, heart hammering, and found herself cradled against Aric's chest.

Her sigh came out half-relief, half-exasperation.

"Lerai didn't warn me about that part."

Aric's mouth tugged into a thin, dry smile.

"Yeah. He didn't warn me either. Difference is—" his eyes glinted with quiet amusement, "—I had no one to catch me."

Despite herself, Serina smiled.

The brush with danger faded into something softer as she looked at him. His grip was firm but gentle, a strange paradox that somehow always defined Aric—death in one hand, salvation in the other.

"Thank you," she murmured, letting herself slide back to her feet.

Aric lowered her carefully onto the mossy earth.

She dusted her cloak, brushing off damp soil and fragments of leaves, before lifting her chin. "So," she said, folding her arms with practiced composure, "what's the plan?"

Aric's gaze dropped toward the ground, eyes narrowing as though he could see through soil and stone.

"The anchor should be somewhere underground, beneath us. If Twicher did as he was told, we should be just outside the Draken Imperial City."

Serina tilted her head, watching him.

"Is the plan to barge into their palace and demand an audience? Because I'm not entirely sure 'arrogant prince storms the dragon's nest' will have a happy ending."

A low chuckle rumbled from his throat.

"No. That would be far too… predictable." He looked to the horizon, where faint, jagged silhouettes rose beyond the trees.

"I'll let them come to me. First, we'll explore the City of Dragons."

---

The forest around them was ancient—its trees towering like pillars of a forgotten cathedral, trunks braided with moss and clawing vines.

The air carried a faint metal smell, sharper than ordinary woodlands, as though the soil remembered fire and scale.

Each step crackled with damp leaves, and distant roars echoed in the sky, not wholly like beasts, not wholly like storms.

Serina walked beside him, her cloak trailing across the roots, eyes flicking constantly to their surroundings.

"This land feels… different," she said quietly. "Heavier. Quite odd."

Aric nodded. "The Draken homeland is steeped in mana. Dragons once nested in these ranges—some still do. Their presence lingers in everything: the earth, the rivers, even the people. It's what makes them proud… and dangerous."

"Dangerous seems an understatement," Serina muttered.

They pressed onward, navigating the undergrowth until the trees began to thin.

The ground sloped gently upward, and shafts of late-afternoon sunlight pierced the canopy, gilding the moss in hues of gold.

Then, as they crested a ridge, the forest fell away before them—and the world changed.

The city lay sprawled across a vast plateau, carved into tiers that rose like a fortress built by giants.

At its center, towers of obsidian-black stone pierced the sky, each one crowned with dragon-headed spires whose eyes burned with ever-lit flame.

Walls encircled the city—three concentric rings of black granite etched with glowing runes that shimmered faintly, a constant ward against siege or spell.

Beyond the walls, jagged peaks formed a natural barrier, their ridges shaped uncannily like the backs of slumbering serpents.

It was a sight both magnificent and unnerving.

"The City of Dragons," Aric said softly, almost reverently.

Serina exhaled a low whistle. "Impressive… in the 'I'd hate for them to be an enemy' kind of way."

Aric's lips curved faintly. "Intimidation is part of their strength. The Draken learned long ago that reputation is half the battle."

They descended from the ridge, following a dirt path that soon gave way to an ancient, cobbled road.

Carved dragon motifs lined the stones, their scales smoothed by centuries of feet and wheels.

Merchants passed them occasionally—rough-looking men with wagons of ore or furs—yet even they moved with a wary discipline, bowing their heads slightly whenever the city loomed into view, as though approaching a sacred temple.

Serina studied Aric as they walked. "So, what exactly is your angle here? You've already thrown their envoy back in disgrace. Now you plan to wander into their city unguarded and hope they… welcome you?"

Aric's voice was steady, confident. "They're desperate for allies. The Northrend alliance makes them nervous, and Sylas has been whispering poison into their ears for years. Harming an Imperial prince would only turn desperation into disaster."

Serina gave him a skeptical look. "That's… a bold assumption."

"It's not assumption. It's calculation." He glanced at her, eyes sharp as a drawn blade. "Desperation makes men predictable. Fear makes them reckless. We'll use both."

She didn't reply, but her silence carried the weight of concern.

---

As they neared the first of the great walls, the scale of the city grew overwhelming.

The gate alone stood as high as a castle keep, forged of blackened steel reinforced with dragonbone.

Carved upon it was a relief of two wyrms intertwined, their wings spread to form the crest of the Draken Empire.

Runes glowed faintly along the hinges, and guards in crimson-black armor lined the battlements, their helms shaped like snarling dragon maws.

Even Serina, who had walked beside magus royalty and commanders, felt her throat tighten.

The air here buzzed with raw mana, so thick it prickled the skin. It was a place that reminded intruders they were trespassers in a land that could devour them.

"Friendly place," she muttered under her breath.

Aric didn't slow his stride.

His cloak swept behind him, his expression calm, yet every step radiated purpose—as though he belonged here as much as any Draken noble.

There were no sentries to halt them, no massive gates to bar their entry.

The Draken Imperial City was a raging thing —too vast, too crowded, too restless to be sealed against a single pair of travelers.

Merchants, wagoners, and pilgrims flowed through its teeth like a river through a canyon; children darted between market stalls, porters balanced ingots and woven silks, and couriers scurried with banners of distant houses.

The city checked no one twice. It examined faces with an economy of seconds and let the rest pass.

Aric and Serina stepped into that tide, and the press of bodies swallowed them as easily as it had every other stranger.

They moved less as intruders but as two people passing along a crowded street—anonymity their cloak.

Serina's eyes took in the bustle, the drake-motifs carved into cartwheels, the smell of spice and burning oil, the clang of metal from forges.

The city felt alive with history and habit, every corner a small theater of its own.

"I know a place," Aric said, low and confident, fingers ghosting along the carved balustrade as they passed.

He angled away from the markets, through a narrowing lane where the crowd thinned and the buildings rose a touch taller, their facades lacquered and inlaid with bronze.

The din softened to the hum of well-kept homes and servants' footfalls. Lanterns here burned more richly; braziers exhaled scents of incense and roasted meats.

Wealth walked these streets with a different gait.

They reached the high-end district: cobbled avenues lined with shops selling lacquer bowls and dragonbone trinkets, courtyards where nobles favored quiet conversation over spectacle.

The air felt ordered, as if people here measured their steps the way they measured their silver.

Aric halted before a narrow entryway set between two carved pillars—a small restaurant whose screens were papered with a painted dragon curling about a moon.

He looked to Serina, and for the first time in days the edges of his expression softened.

"Dinner? If you would be so kind" Aric smiled.

He extended his arm as an old courtesy, a gentleman's anchor in the foreign tide.

Serina's smile came quick and genuine; she slipped her arm through his. "It would be my honor, Your Highness," she said, voice light but steady.

They moved inside together, shoulders brushing, perfectly ordinary in a city that thrived on the ordinary. As they walked, Serina's brow lifted with amused curiosity.

"So you really plan to simply enjoy the city? No grand entrance, no demands?" she asked, teasing.

Aric's mouth twitched into a shadow of a smile. "No," he said, voice quiet and edged. "In a bit we will go chop the limbs off a few dragon riders."

He paused.

"But we can't do it on an empty stomach, can we?" Aric said, and the humor in his words held the steel beneath.

Serina blinked, then chuckled—sharp and incredulous, but not without an undercurrent of approval.

"Charming. A dinner and then a little butchery. Very civilized."

They passed between warm lanterns and took a seat at a low table by the window.

Outside, the Draken Imperial City moved on—proud, immense, and unaware of the reckoning that had just walked quietly past its gates to dine in its heart.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.