From Sacrificed Slave to the Dragon King's Obsession

Lina's POV

Ten years ago

The carriage rattled to a stop outside our cramped apartment on Ashveil Street, and for one breathless moment, I thought my prayers had finally been answered. Father—Lord Horace Valerian, Duke of the Eastern Marches and pure-blooded elven noble—stood in our doorway for the first time in months, his silver-gold hair catching the dying light of dusk, and the panic in his green eyes should have warned me that something was terribly, irrevocably wrong.

"Pack your things," he said, his voice tight and strangled. "Both of you. Now."

I was twelve years old, and I believed in fairy tales.

Mother's hands stilled over the mending in her lap. "Your Grace?" Her voice trembled with something that might have been hope or might have been fear. "What's happened?"

"Don't ask questions, Marian." He stepped inside, his fine leather boots tracking mud across our threadbare rug, and suddenly our tiny apartment felt even smaller, suffocating under the weight of his presence and his desperation.

I remember jumping up from my stool by the hearth, my heart hammering with wild, stupid joy. 'He's come for us,' I thought. 'He's finally going to take us home. He's going to introduce me to the family, let me sleep in a real bedroom instead of this drafty corner behind the kitchen. He's going to tell everyone I'm his daughter.'

The family crest gleamed on the side of his carriage—a silver tree beneath twin moons—and I traced it with trembling fingers as he hurried us inside, convinced that this symbol would soon be mine too, that I would finally belong somewhere beyond these gray, narrow streets.

The Valerian estate rose before us like something out of a dream, all white stone and soaring towers, gardens that sprawled across acres of manicured perfection. But the carriage didn't stop at the main entrance. It rolled past the grand marble steps, past the windows blazing with warm light and laughter, and deposited us at a side gate that led to the servants' quarters.

"You'll stay here tonight," Father said as he gestured to a small, sparse room in the back of the guest wing. He led Mother to a separate chamber down the hall without explanation. "Tomorrow... tomorrow there's something we need to do."

"Father?" I caught his sleeve as he turned to leave, my voice small and uncertain. "Aren't we going to meet—I mean, will I see—"

"Not tonight, Lina." He pulled free gently. "Just... rest. And tomorrow, wear the dress I left on the bed. The white one."

I didn't understand then that white was the color of sacrifice.

The next morning, Father dressed me in that simple white gown and bundled me back into the carriage alone. We traveled for what felt like hours through winding mountain roads, the air growing colder and thinner as we climbed, until the landscape transformed from rolling green hills to jagged cliffs shrouded in perpetual mist.

Wyrmspire Citadel rose from the peaks like a monument to dominion itself, all black stone and soaring battlements that seemed to claw at the storm-gray sky. The fortress loomed larger and larger as we approached, its shadow swallowing our carriage whole, and by the time we passed through the outer gates—flanked by guards in dragon-scale armor who watched us with reptilian indifference—my hands had gone numb with cold and dread.

Father led me through corridors that seemed designed to make mortals feel insignificant, until we reached a pair of massive obsidian doors that seemed to swallow all light and warmth from the air.

The throne room stretched before us like a cathedral built to worship power itself. Black marble floors reflected the cold morning sun that streamed through narrow windows set high in the vaulted ceiling. The throne—carved from a single piece of volcanic glass—dominated the far end of the hall, and sitting upon it was the youngest Dragon King in Asgalian history.

Augustus Ashenwing, who had slaughtered the old Dragon King and locked his own twin brother in the Glacial Abyss just one week ago. He was twenty-two years old, black-haired with gold reptilian eyes that tracked our approach with predatory focus, and an aura of barely contained violence that made the air itself feel hard to breathe.

Father's hand clamped down on my shoulder, and he shoved me to my knees on the freezing marble floor.

"Father?" I tried to twist around, confusion and the first sharp edges of fear cutting through my chest. "What are you—"

"Kneel," he hissed, pressing down harder. "Stay down and be silent."

I knelt there, my white dress pooling around me like a shroud, and watched my father prostrate himself before the Dragon King with a deference.

"Your Majesty." His voice cracked on the title, and I saw his hands trembling where they pressed flat against the marble. "I know I have wronged you. We... we chose poorly, and for that transgression, I throw myself upon your mercy."

"I have brought you my other daughter." Father's voice dropped to something raw and pleading, and I felt the first real threads of panic beginning to coil around my lungs. "She is... half-blooded, yes, born of a human mother, but she carries my blood nonetheless. I offer her to you, Your Majesty, to do with as you see fit. As a servant, a slave, whatever you require. I ask only that you show mercy to my house, that you allow my family to continue serving the crown."

The words hit me like physical blows. This wasn't a homecoming. This wasn't my father finally claiming me as his daughter.

This was a transaction. A desperate bid to save his own skin by offering up the daughter he'd kept hidden in the slums, the dirty little secret he could sacrifice without consequence.

The throne room spun around me, all that cold marble and oppressive grandeur blurring together. I was twelve years old, kneeling on stone that leached all warmth from my body, and I finally understood what I was worth to the man whose name I carried.

"Leave her," the Dragon King said, his voice devoid of any emotion I could identify—not cruelty, not kindness, just cold, absolute authority.

"Thank you, Your Majesty! Thank you!" Father scrambled to his feet, bowing so deeply his forehead nearly touched the floor, and then he turned and walked away. He didn't look back. Didn't offer me a word of comfort or explanation. Didn't even hesitate.

I stayed frozen on the marble, knees aching, hands clenched so tight my nails drew blood. Tears slid down my cheeks in silent tracks, but I didn't make a sound. Some instinct warned me that showing weakness here, in this hall of predators, would be fatal.

I watched my father's retreating back until the doors swung shut.

Not a daughter. Not even a person. Just a bargaining chip to settle a debt I didn't know existed.

Half-blood. Bastard. Tool.

These were the only words that defined me.

I didn't know this was only the beginning—that the ten years ahead would be a descent into hell beyond my darkest nightmares, stripping away everything I was until only the will to endure remained.