Chapter 1: The Sub-Throne Ash-Vault and the Stolen Sacred Flame
RHIANNON
"Her embers are too weak to warm a beggar's hearth!" sneered my arrogant step-cousin Lord Vane Valorian, kicking my iron ash-bucket across the scorching stone grates of the Sub-Throne Ash-Vault while the twenty-four-pound Pyre-Iron Suppressor Collar around my neck clanked against the furnace chain. "Look at her kneeling in the soot like a singed chimney-mouse while my sister prepares to wed the Dragon-Emperor above her head!"
Hot volcanic cinders scattered across my bruised knees, searing through the frayed hem of my gray ash-tender's tunic.
Not once did I flinch or bow my silver-haired head.
Twenty feet directly above my head—through the five-ton wrought-iron floor-grate of the Primordial Imperial Brazier—glittered the vaulted black-and-gold ceiling of the Obsidian Throne Room atop Spire Six: The Imperial Zenith Aerie.
Up there in the chandelier light, three thousand imperial peers, high regents, and war-commanders had gathered in their velvet and diamond finery for the emergency Sacred Imperial Flame-Rite.
And standing at the rim of the upper brazier—draped in the stolen First-Age Phoenix-Silk Ceremonial Robes that had once belonged to my murdered mother, High Flame-Keeper Lady Seraphis Valorian—stood Vane's vain twin sister, Lady Cordelia Valorian, alongside my treacherous stepmother, Dowager-Regent Morwenna Valorian.
"Keep your ragged voice down, Vane, before the High Regency heralds hear you through the floor-vent!" Dowager-Regent Morwenna hissed, crouching beside the upper rim of the grate so only her jewel-encrusted slippers and cold, painted face were visible through the iron bars above me. "The lookouts on the northern sky-wall just spotted Dragon-Emperor Baelor Drakonis and his hundred-and-five-foot dragon Balerion-Rex returning from the outer siege line! If the Emperor lands on the throne terrace before the Primordial Imperial Brazier is burning with white-gold fire, he will know Cordelia is a fraud!"
"Well, why isn't the wretched girl feeding the grate yet?!" Lady Cordelia whined from above, tapping her white-gloved fingers impatiently against the golden balustrade—careful not to bump the hidden brass tubes of cheap alchemical sulphur-flash powder strapped inside her asbestos-lined sleeves. "My knees are aching in these diamond heels, Mother! Tell Rhiannon to slice her palm and pump the white-gold flame up through the flue before Balerion-Rex touches down!"
Down in the stifling, hundred-and-twenty-degree heat of the Sub-Throne Ash-Vault, my hands curled into tight fists around the handle of my iron ash-shovel.
Six winters.
For six brutal winters since Arch-Prelate Malphas Gilden and his Ashen Wyrm Cabal assassinated my father Lord Aethelgard and my mother Lady Seraphis on the northern mountain pass, Dowager-Regent Morwenna had ruled House Valorian through forgery, bribery, and iron chains.
On the night of my parents' funeral, Morwenna and Vane had drugged my tea with lead-root, locked this twenty-four-pound Pyre-Iron Suppressor Collar around my throat to choke off ninety percent of my draconic aura, and announced to the imperial court that grief had burned out my flame-core—leaving me a "fire-barren outcast" unfit to inherit the High Flame-Keeper's Seat.
Yet they hadn't dared to kill me.
Because neither Morwenna, nor Vane, nor Cordelia possessed a single drop of true First-Age Flame-Keeper Blood.
Every time the great Zenith Solar-Pyre Shield protecting the imperial capital began to falter under Arch-Prelate Malphas Gilden's siege bombardments, my stepmother and step-cousins had dragged me into this hidden vault directly beneath the Obsidian Throne Room, unlocked a single notch of my suppressor collar, and forced me to bleed onto the subterranean ignition-stone while Cordelia stood above the floor-grate waving her sulphur-powdered sleeves and taking credit as the "Miracle Flame-Maiden of Spire Six"!
💬 COMMENT BAIT: CORDELIA HAS BEEN WEARING SULPHUR-POWDERED GLOVES ABOVE THE FLOOR-GRATE FOR SIX YEARS WHILE RHIANNON BLEEDS IN THE ASH-VAULT BELOW TO KEEP THE CAPITAL'S SHIELD ALIVE! 🤬🔥⛓️ Drop a ⚔️🔥 if you cannot wait to watch Cordelia, Vane, and Morwenna get destroyed!
"You heard my sister, fire-barren!" Lord Vane barked, prodding the heavy iron chain of my suppressor collar with the butt of his gilded ceremonial spear. "Open your palm on the ignition-spike and send a twenty-foot flare up into the throne room brazier! Once Emperor Baelor sees Cordelia command the Sacred Flame, he will have no choice but to sign the Imperial Betrothal Charter naming Cordelia his Flame-Empress—and tomorrow morning, we are shipping you to the Ashen Salt-Quarries with your tongue in a lead bridle!"
"You really think Dragon-Emperor Baelor Drakonis is going to be fooled by your sister's parlor tricks tonight, Vane?" I said, my voice quiet, steady, and honed like white-hot forge-tempered steel despite the twenty-four pounds of cold pyre-iron crushing my collarbones. "Look at the central volcanic flue beneath the brazier. The Sixth Primordial Dragon Ley-Line isn't just flickering tonight—it's choking on black-ash poison."
I pointed my scarred chin toward the ancient First-Age obsidian conduit rising from the heart of the mountain beneath us.
Instead of the warm golden magma that had flowed through the imperial palace since the dawn of Drakoria, thick, suffocating veins of Ashen Slag-Frost were creeping up the stone pipe—the unmistakable signature of Arch-Prelate Malphas Gilden's thousand-foot Ashen Leviathan Flagship (Mord-Vane), which had just besieged the northern sky-gates of Spire Six!
"Even worse," I continued, fixing my luminous white-gold eyes on Vane's sweaty, arrogant face, "every soldier in the capital knows that Emperor Baelor's chest has been ninety percent encased in Stage-Four Ashen Pyre-Petrification from holding the northern sky-pass alone for three hundred years. He has less than seven days left before the black-ash stone reaches the center of his heart. Your sister's cheap yellow sulphur-powder won't heal a single millimeter of an Emperor's petrified ribs!"
"Who cares whether the Emperor's heart turns to stone next week?!" Lord Vane scoffed, glancing nervously up at the iron grate before leaning down to hiss in my face. "Once Baelor signs the Imperial Betrothal Charter tonight and crowns Cordelia Co-Ruling Flame-Empress, House Valorian inherits the Obsidian Throne whether Baelor lives or dies! In fact, our friends on the High Regency Council—and a certain High Prelate outside the walls—will pay us fifty million gold sovereigns the moment Baelor's chest stops beating!"
My breath caught in my throat, a cold wave of fury crystallizing inside my chest.
Our friends on the High Regency Council—and a certain High Prelate outside the walls.
"You didn't just steal my parents' estate," I whispered, the six-pointed crown birthmark hidden beneath the soot-stained collar of my tunic—Heart-Scale #6: The Imperial Pyre-Crown—suddenly throbbing with a heat so fierce that the twenty-four-pound Pyre-Iron Suppressor Collar around my neck began to hum like a kettle on a stove. "You and Morwenna are working with Arch-Prelate Malphas Gilden! You're letting him poison the Imperial Braziers from the inside!"
"And there isn't a soul in the Six Spires who will ever hear you say it, cousin!" Vane snarled, raising the iron shaft of his spear to strike my shoulders. "Now bleed on that stone and give Cordelia her twenty-foot flame, or I'll break every finger on your right hand!"
Before Vane's spear could descend—
BOOOOOOOM—CRAAAAACK—ROOOOOOAR!
The entire twenty-five-thousand-foot mountain peak of Spire Six shook as if struck by a falling star!
Up in the Obsidian Throne Room, the forty-foot stained-glass sky-doors shattered inward under a hurricane of black-and-gold volcanic wind—and down onto the outer marble landing descended a creature so colossal, ancient, and terrifying that three thousand nobles screamed in unison and dropped to their knees:
Balerion-Rex.
The hundred-and-five-foot Black-Gold Sovereign Dragon-Emperor of Drakoria!
💬 COMMENT BAIT: 105-FOOT BLACK-GOLD DRAGON-EMPEROR BALERION-REX JUST LANDED ON THE THRONE TERRACE! 🐉👑⚡🖤 Drop a 🔥🐉 for the arrival of Dragon-Emperor Baelor Drakonis!
Even through five tons of iron grating and twenty feet of volcanic stone, the sheer draconic pressure of Balerion-Rex shifting into six-foot-seven Dragon-Emperor Baelor Drakonis hit the sub-throne vault like a physical shockwave.
Right at the same second, a barrage of Ashen Slag-Mortars from Malphas Gilden's siege fleet struck the outer palace dome—and the central flame of the Primordial Imperial Brazier above my head guttered out into black smoke!
"The Sacred Brazier is dying!" Dowager-Regent Morwenna shrieked from above the grate as Emperor Baelor's heavy, black-armored boots echoed across the Obsidian Throne Room floor. "Cordelia, strike your sulphur-gloves! Vane, make Rhiannon light the flue NOW!"
Up above the grate, Lady Cordelia frantically clapped her asbestos-lined gloves together—producing a pathetic, sputtering puff of yellow, rotten-egg-smelling sulphur smoke that barely rose six inches above the cold iron coals!
Down in the vault, Lord Vane grabbed the iron chain of my suppressor collar and yanked backward with all his might, dragging my knees across the jagged volcanic stone toward the central ignition-spike.
"Give her a small, quiet flame, you useless drudge!" Vane hissed, shoving my right palm down onto the serrated obsidian spike at the base of the flue. "Just enough to hide the sulphur smell—don't you dare let your aura show!"
As the razor-sharp obsidian spike sliced across my palm and my warm, red-gold blood spilled over the ancient First-Age runes, I felt the dying, agonizing heartbeat of Dragon-Emperor Baelor Drakonis directly above my head.
His chest was ninety percent encased in freezing, suffocating black-ash stone—and yet he had just flown straight through a hundred Ashen siege-barges with a dying heart to shield the people of this city.
Give Cordelia a small, quiet flame so she can betray the Emperor to Malphas Gilden?
Not in this lifetime.
Instead of holding back my soul the way I had been forced to do for six dark winters, I closed both of my bloodied hands around the base of the Primordial Imperial Flue, locked my white-gold eyes on the iron grate above my head, and unleashed the full, unbridled Seventh-Harmonic Creation Fire of Heart-Scale #6: The Imperial Pyre-Crown!
WHOOOOOOOSH—CHIIIIIIIME—ROOOOOOAR!
The twenty-four-pound Pyre-Iron Suppressor Collar around my neck turned cherry-red and cracked down the center as a blinding, three-hundred-foot pillar of pure First-Age White-Gold & Diamond Sovereign Dragon-Fire erupted straight up through the floor-grate—incinerating Cordelia's fake asbestos sleeves to ash, blowing the roof-shutters of the Obsidian Throne Room wide open, and washing across Dragon-Emperor Baelor Drakonis's petrified chest in a tidal wave of living lotus-scented sunlight!
And up on the edge of the shattered brazier, ignoring the three thousand gasping nobles and the shrieking, sleeve-singed Cordelia, six-foot-seven Dragon-Emperor Baelor Drakonis froze dead in his tracks—his molten black-and-gold dragon eyes locking straight down through the glowing iron bars onto my face!
💬 COMMENT BAIT: RHIANNON JUST UNLEASHED A 300-FOOT PILLAR OF WHITE-GOLD CREATION FIRE THAT BURNED CORDELIA'S FAKE SLEEVES OFF AND LOCKED EMPEROR BAELOR'S EYES STRAIGHT ONTO HER THROUGH THE GRATE! 🔥👑🐉😱 Flip straight to Chapter 2 (BAELOR POV) to experience the moment Baelor scents his Flame-Empress!
Author's Note: Tap Follow on Bear With Me and add this story to your Reading List as Baelor descends into the Ash-Vault to claim his Flame-Empress! — Bear With Me 🐾
