Starting out as a Dragon Slave

The air twisted.

The updrafts, heated by bursts of black flames, mingled with the icy coolness of altitude. Each beat of Maélor's wings shook the atmosphere like a thunderclap. Mordred's translucent and nervous mana feathers vibrated with such condensed energy that they left in their wake a scent of storm.

They were no longer fighting above the palace. They were fighting above the world.

Maélor turned his head slightly, following Mordred with his gaze. His slit pupils adjusted to every movement like a predator assessing the perfect trajectory. The black blood flowing down his thigh scattered into fine droplets, tracing behind him a wake of wounds.

Mordred, for his part, advanced. His fingers clenched around the handle of his katana did not tremble, but his arms were heavy, burning. Each breath cost him. He knew he was playing against time: against a dragon-king, the slightest slowdown, the slightest hesitation would be his end.

Their auras brushed against each other. And the air screamed.

Maélor attacked first.

A sharp beat of wings, and he projected himself like an arrow of ivory and gold. His right claw split the space, a perfect arc aimed at Mordred's throat. The speed tore through the clouds, even froze them in its passage. Mordred raised the blade, absorbed the shock — the vibration traveled up to his teeth. His arms cried out in pain. But he held.

And he responded.

Not in brute force. In precision.

A pivot. A wing step. The tip of his katana grazed the line of scales under Maélor's left arm. A flash. A cut. Blood.

Maélor retreated half a meter. No more.

But his eyes... had changed. Narrower. More dangerous.

- "You allow yourself much, human," he growled.

Mordred did not respond. His breath formed white mist in the frozen air. His gaze remained fixed on the wound. He knew his adversary: he was bleeding, so he could fall.

The following seconds were pure chaos.

Shock. Lightning. Impact.

Their trajectories crossed, collided, bypassed each other. Mordred felt the void engulf him with each dodge, his mana wings snapping like a whip to bring him back into trajectory. Maélor, for his part, used gravity as a weapon, diving then climbing back up by exploiting the enormous mass of his body to create blows delivered like tides.

Then...

Their bodies froze, a few meters from each other. Suspended.

Maélor's blood floated in the air between them, bursting into small black pearls under the sunlight filtering through the clouds.

Mordred took a long breath.

Maélor let out a growl.

The air was a battlefield.

At this altitude, the world was nothing more than a sea of clouds torn by updrafts and contrary winds. The void below seemed to suck in every movement, ready to swallow the slightest misstep. The wind whistled in Mordred's ears like a steel blade. The cold bit his skin burned by the heat of Maélor's flames, creating a paradoxical sensation, a double torment where ice and fire disputed his nerves.

His mana wings vibrated.

The energy filaments that composed them crackled with unstable light, like a miniaturized storm. Each beat sent an invisible shock wave that pushed back the air around him, allowing him to change direction at speeds that even an adult dragon could not anticipate. But each movement cost. His shoulders pulled, his abdominal muscles knotted from compensating for the wind. The mana burned in his veins like burning oil.

Opposite, Maélor seemed both motionless and omnipresent.

His immense white-gold wings deployed caught the light of the setting sun, and each beat made the air vibrate with a deep bass, almost musical. The scales covering his body reflected light like blade fragments. Even wounded, he projected this impression of absolute invulnerability, as if the sky had belonged to him since the creation of the world.

The black blood flowing from his thigh dispersed into droplets that, at this height, froze almost instantly before falling toward the city like cursed rain. But the pain did not slow his gestures: it fueled his fury.

They circled around each other, describing wide circles.

Two predators, each seeking the instant when the other would open a breach.

Below, the city was only a distant backdrop: gutted towers, avenues engulfed in dust, fleeing silhouettes. Paris no longer mattered. There existed only this space between them, saturated with tension and mana.

Maélor moved first.

Not a grand gesture. Not a blind charge.

He let himself glide on a mass of warm air, using his left wing as a rudder, and in this almost lazy movement, his right front claw deployed slow, calculated, but carried by a force capable of splitting a stone tower in two.

Mordred dove to the side.

The attack passed so close that he felt the air displacement suck at his shoulder, as if the claw wanted to tear it from his body. His left mana wing folded by itself to reduce wind resistance, and he took advantage to climb back up in a tight arc on the wounded flank of the dragon-king.

The counter-attack was surgical.

A beat, a concentrated mana impulse, and he shot like an arrow toward the scale junction, where thigh and pelvis met. His blade split the air with a sharp whistle, a sound that belonged only to weapons wielded at this speed.

Maélor sensed the danger.

He abruptly folded his rear paw, twisting in an impossible movement for a body of this size, and struck with his tail. The shock hit the katana's guard. Mordred felt the vibration cross his forearm, then his shoulder, then his entire left flank. He retreated, panting.

But he had seen something.

Under the fractured scales, black blood flowed faster. The wound on the thigh was not closed. Each wing beat opened it a little more.

- "You're tiring," Mordred called out, his voice low, almost lost in the wind.

Maélor responded with a growl that resonated in the half-dragon's bones.

Then the king attacked for real.

With a violent beat, he created a shock wave that burst the clouds around them, revealing the blood-orange sky of twilight. He dove at Mordred with the speed of a comet, black flames on his lips. The heat was such that the air vibrated before the breath was even released.

Mordred crossed his mana wings in front of him, absorbing the initial shock, but the breath came anyway, rolling over him like a molten avalanche. The light turned red around him, his lungs burned, his eyes wept.

And yet... he remained.

When the wave of flames dissipated, he was still there. The katana pointed toward the king.

Then he charged.

No flourishes. No feints. A straight line, pure, taut like a steel wire.

The collision was inevitable.

They collided in the middle of the sky in a din that made windows tremble several kilometers around. The shock wave descended to the palace ruins, tearing away the last stones still standing. The clouds themselves tore, opening a gaping hole in the firmament.

And in that hole... the light changed.

A vibration, deep, ancient, ran through the air.

Something was giving way.

A dull crack spread throughout the celestial vault.

For a heartbeat, Mordred and Maélor remained frozen, facing each other, wings spread, bodies tense. Then the vibration became a rumble, and finally, a deafening crash.

The barrier gave way.

It shattered like glass under a club, but it wasn't glass: it was an ancient canvas, woven from magic and oaths. The invisible fragments scattered into thousands of ethereal shards, falling like a rain of light on Paris.

And with this rupture... the mana began to flee.

At first, it was a subtle sensation, like breath torn from their lungs. Then the drain became brutal. Mordred felt his mana wings lose their density, the bluish filaments tearing and dissipating in the air. Maélor still beat his wings, but the golden light that haloed them was dimming visibly.

They fell.

Not like a stone. Not yet. But flight became heavier, less controlled. Each beat became a titanic effort. The contrary winds, which their bodies had dominated moments before, began to batter them.

They descended in a spiral, each trying to keep the other in their field of vision. The gutted palace approached. The broken columns, shattered slabs, overturned statues... a field of ruins ready to become their new arena.

Mordred was the first to touch the ground.

He rolled in the dust, straightened immediately, katana in hand. But his blade was heavy, almost foreign in his hand. His muscles protested. Each breath lifted his chest in a burning effort.

Maélor crashed a few meters away, the impact pulverizing the ground under his feet. Wings hanging, he slowly straightened, his claws dragging a furrow in the stone. His gaze, however, had lost none of its clarity. He stared at Mordred, and in that gaze... there was something else than before. More curiosity. Less distance.

They both knew.

No more mana.

No more lightning leaps. No more blades haloed with thunder.

There remained only brute force, naked technique, and will.

Mordred sheathed his katana.

Not out of respect, but because each weapon movement would cost him more than a direct blow.

Maélor let his wings fold against his back.

Their silhouettes, suddenly, seemed closer, almost at the same scale. As if, deprived of their magic, they became two fighters on the same ring again.

One step.

Then another.

And they threw themselves at each other.

The impact was dry, animal.

Mordred planted his shoulder in Maélor's chest, trying to push him backward, but the dragon-king's mass was a living wall. Maélor retaliated with a knee to the flank, and Mordred grimaced, feeling the pain rise to his ribcage. He responded with a right hook, slapping against the scaly jaw. The wave traveled back up his fist, numbing his knuckles.

They chained.

Fist against claw. Knee against knee. Body against body.

Dust rose with each step. Their hoarse breathing covered the silence of the ruins. Each blow delivered left a mark: a cut on Mordred's cheek, a crack in one of Maélor's scales. The fight lost its speed but gained in weight, in density. There was no more room for errors.

Mordred seized Maélor's right wrist, tried to pull him toward him to unbalance him, but the king planted his feet in the stone, pivoting with frightening precision, and sent him flying three meters. Mordred rolled, got back up. He was spitting blood. He was smiling.

- "It looks like... this is finally... a real fight," he panted.

Maélor responded with a growl that had nothing magical about it. It was that of a warrior who recognized the adversary before him.

They went at it again.