CHAPTER 264: A DRAGON FIRE REBORN

Leroy looked at Lorraine, and despite the fire raging around them, he smiled.

He had been fighting his way through the emperor’s men on the road when the unease struck him. It wasn’t a thought. It wasn’t logic. It was her. Something deep inside him twisted, a pull that whispered she was in danger. He didn’t question it. He never did when it came to her.

Breaking the formation of trained imperial soldiers had been near impossible, but he found a way, carving his path through blood and smoke. He knew this mansion better than any of the emperor’s men. He had memorized every passage, every hidden route, every drawing of the tunnels beneath their home. And all that knowledge, every instinct in him, led him to one place... her bedchamber.

The moment he entered, the heat nearly blinded him. Flames devoured the silks, the walls, the ceiling and yet all he saw was her dress, the one she had worn that morning, lying in flames on the floor. His heart stopped, until he saw it.

A faint blue shimmer through the smoke. The Dragon Ash. She had not taken it with her when the mansion was in flames. His suspicions were confirmed. She was in danger.

He grabbed the pouch from the wreckage, his pulse steadying as he scanned the burning room. She was not in the tunnels. That could only mean one thing.

She was still there.

And then he saw her... on her knees, cornered, the emperor’s man standing over her with his sword raised high.

Leroy didn’t think. He didn’t feel. He moved.

The fire no longer frightened him. It bowed before him. He charged through it, the inferno parting like it remembered its master. His coat singed, but his skin remained untouched. Anything the warmth of his blood reached refused to burn. The revelation struck him only distantly—his body, his breath, his very being carried the fire of the dragons.

By the time he reached her, it was over. The soldier’s cry echoed once before Leroy’s blade silenced it. The man fell, lifeless, and only then did Leroy look down at his wife... and realize what state she was in. Torn gown. Bare shoulders. Trembling hands.

He regretted giving that man an easy death.

Now, standing before the inferno of the grand staircase, he turned to her once more. He knew, somehow, that the fire would not harm her either. She shared his fate. His flame. Still, he sprinkled the Dragon Ash over her, his touch gentle, reverent. He would not risk her; not for anything in this world.

And when he looked at her again, wondering if she would be willing to take that step with him into the fire... she was smiling. That same smile that had always met him at the edge of battle: steady, defiant, full of love and faith. The same smile she gave even when it was hard for her when he left for battles, the same smile she would give with her eyes wet, when she met him when he returned as a hero.

His wife’s smile.

Leroy held out his hand.

His beloved wife. His anchor. His world. His everything.

-

Lorraine looked at her husband and in that single, smoldering heartbeat, she understood.

Her lips curved, slow and deliberate, a smile forged in the same flame that devoured their home. Her heart was burning, not from fear, but from fury.

The sound of her people screaming in the halls, the crash of glass, the merciless clash of steel... each cry sank into her chest like molten iron. The emperor’s men had come not just to kill, but to erase; to salt the earth beneath her name and burn every trace of what they’d built.

For what?

What sin had they committed that warranted such ruin? Leroy had bled for Vaeloria. He had fought battles that weren’t his, carried the burden of loyalty to a crown that never claimed him. He never asked to be born the bastard of a dead king, branded with the mark of Dravenholt. He never asked to inherit the dragon’s blood, the blood of fire that now roared in his veins.

And yet, they dared to destroy him.

Her fingers trembled, not in weakness, but in wrath. He must feel it too. The injustice. The betrayal. The scorn against the one who bore the mark of the heir. Their desire to destroy the truth with fire.

She could see it flicker in his eyes, glowing gold, molten, and ancient, as the reflection of the fire painted him in shades of wrath and divinity.

He would show them.

He would rise from these flames not as a prince forgotten, but as the king who was always meant to rule.

And who else, but she, had the right to stand at his side when he revealed who he was?

Lorraine’s chest swelled with that fierce, untamed pride. Her smile deepened, soft and dangerous. The fire crackled, casting their shadows like twin monarchs crowned in flame. She thought of every time they had been mocked, exiled, underestimated, and how none of it mattered now.

Because together, they were unstoppable.

Of course, she would walk with him through fire.

Of course, she would help him reclaim what the world had stolen.

Her gaze locked with his, and in that golden storm, there was love, fury, and something ancient... something that whispered of destiny and ruin.

With her eyes glinting with pride and vengeance, Lorraine reached out and took his hand.

Together, they stepped forward.

The fire roared, a wall of molten gold and crimson swallowing the grand staircase. The oak had splintered, the carpet burned to ash, but when Leroy took the first step, the flames bowed back, curling around his boots as though the inferno itself dared not touch him.

He was calm. Unhurried. The flames licked the air, wild and merciless, yet he walked as if through sunlight. His coat fluttered in the rising heat, untouched, his green eyes gleaming with molten flecks of gold, the color of ancient crowns, of dragon fire reborn.

Lorraine followed.

As her feet met the burning stair, the world shifted. Blue flames unfurled around her like a living aura—soft, cool, ethereal. The same hue that shimmered on the portrait she had painted of them—the flame that did not burn, only protected. The Dragon Ash had taken hold, wrapping her in its serene, celestial glow.

And there they were... husband and wife, descending hand in hand through a staircase of fire. He, untouched by the blaze, was the heir of the dragon whose blood defied nature itself. She, haloed in blue light, like the queen of legends walking beside a god.

Below, the emperor’s soldiers froze.

Their armor clattered as their legs gave way beneath them. None dared move. None dared breathe. Their swords trembled in their hands as they stared up at the couple through the smoke and embers.

They had been sent to destroy traitors, to burn rebels, but what they saw descending those steps were no mortals.

They didn’t know of the old prophecies. They didn’t know of the bloodline that fire could not consume. But instinct told them what their minds could not grasp; this was no ordinary man. This was something the world itself had bent knee to once, long ago.

The inferno screamed and yet made way for him.

Even the fire feared its master.

Leroy’s gaze swept the grand hall, his expression cold, divine, his sword still dripping with blood. Lorraine’s hand tightened in his, her blue light mingling with his golden flame. Together, they stood amidst ruin, not as victims of betrayal, but as the heirs of the dragon’s wrath, reborn in fire and legend.

And for the first time that night, the soldiers realized... The ones they had come to destroy were untouchable.

Even fire could not claim them.