NOVEL NEXT Chapter 5: The Missing Lord
To bear the title of Dragon Lord was to shoulder the burden of protecting their race from all who threaten their existence. And with that responsibility, all Lords were to inherit the Three Legacies of a Lord.
Lukas Drakos, heir to the Drakos bloodline, had not merely inherited the throne; he had inherited the history of tens of thousands of years since the first of his kind.
These were the three Legacies:
First, the Crown of the Lord.
To mark their Lordship, each Head of the Great Houses held greater mental powers than the rest of their kind, referred to symbolically as the Crown. With the Crown, each of the Dragon Lords had the innate ability to communicate with telepathy, a skill that increases in scope and ability with time.
This was the reason why the townspeople had greeted him the way they did when he first tried speaking to the young wyvern.
The Crown was one of the signs of Lordship in Linemall. With this Legacy, the Lords of Linemall can telepathically commune with others of their race with ease, and with those they have formed strong bonds with.
The strongest of Lords can telepathically commune with any being, needing only to transfer ideas, and being in a sense omnilingual. In this way, the Lords were able to commune with any of their ilk, and even other Intelligent Familiars, to provide aid. The Crown further granted the Lords incredible mental fortitude, able to resist any mental attack or effect, so that their eyes and heart may lay solely with Linemell.
They exist to serve the draconic race and no one else
Second, the Robes of the Lord; the Legacy that Katrina was referring to.
The Robes of the Lord are symbolic for the scales of the Dragon Lords. Similar to the Crown, this is a further mark of their Lordship.
Each of the three Lords have incredible physical resilience by virtue of their station and bloodline, but beyond this, their scales are immune to elemental attacks and effects that strike against them; such elemental attacks are absorbed. The benefits of this Legacy extended further than just simple defense. If struck with elemental attacks, after absorbing them into their scales, the Lord in question gained temporary control over the element, able to launch attacks with it. How long they maintained this control scaled with the power of the Lord in question.
In this way, the Lords themselves may be a shield for their people. Mages and elementalists, thousands of them can fall upon the the Kingdom of Linemall and the Lords will not fall to them.
Third, the Crest of the Lord.
The third and final mark of Lordship, and the power that allowed the Dragon Lords stand against any invader.
The Crest was also widely known as the least understood Legacy of the Dragon Lords because of the great risk that came with trying to use it.
Their bloodline, and their heritage of the Lords before them, manifested as the Crest of their Lordship. The Dragon Lords could call upon their heritage, and through their bodies, become the embodiment of their bloodline, gaining immense power for as long as they could maintain this state. The length of this ability, like the above, scaling with the Lord in the question.
While in this state, the Lord gains access to the Divinity of their predecessors, able to cast spells at higher power and without a toll on their own Mana Pool which Lukas understood as essentially magical stamina.
Use the Crest for too long and the Lord would lose their sense of self the longer they channeled their heritage through themselves, until they lost themselves completely in the sea of voices, becoming naught but a beast.
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These were the Three Legacies of a Lord, two of which Lukas has already inherited; Katrina explained to him as they walked through the palace.
Sometimes, the offspring of the Dragon Lords were only able to inherit one or maybe, if they were lucky, two of the Legacies. Only the true heirs, the ones who would eventually lead the draconic race inherited all of the Three Legacies; making them the most powerful of their species and in all of Hiraeth itself.
Katrina was a hard-headed one, already up on her feet and immediately requested for another duel.
This girl was most definitely a battle junkie and it would not be the first time Lukas had encountered those type of individuals.
Lukas had simply laughed and told Katrina to show him around which she gladly did, on the condition that they would fight again another day. He found that his niece was full of energy and could not sit still for a single second, swinging her hammer around as she guided him through the palace. It was the same hammer that she had used during their fight. A hammer that she told Lukas had been a gift from her father. A gift from his elder brother.
Lukas asked many questions and Katrina answered every single one.
Yet there was question he was hesitant to ask. But he had to know. He needed answers and right now, Katrina would be the one to give them to him.
"Katrina." Lukas finally called out to her and she turned, recognizing the seriousness in his tone as they walked towards the giant libraries of the palace which Lukas had wanted to see.
"Hmm?" Katrina nodded, showing that she was listening to him loud and clear.
"Where is my brother? Where is your father?"
This was the one thing that Lukas could not make sense of, no matter how hard he thought about it.
If his brother was dead then was there another who ruled over the Seas of Linemall now?
If his brother was alive then why had he not come to greet him?
It was as if they did not want to speak of Katrina's father for not a single other dragonborn had mentioned him. It was like Lukas' brother never existed in the first place.
Katrina's voice trembled with a mix of frustration and sorrow as she met Lukas' gaze, her fists clenched tight around her weapon.
It took her a while to answer him as if she did not want to accept the truth herself. But still, she answered his question.
"For the last ten years, the Seas have been without a Lord. My father has vanished without a trace and we believe that...he is likely dead, Uncle. The tides no longer answer to a master, and in his absence...our enemies have come to feast."
Vanished? Could he have been killed?
Perhaps his brother had been overwhelmed by the weight of his position and abandoned his post; but Lukas would never suggest the possibility out loud.
Lukas wondered how alone Katrina had been, probably fighting off those who wished to take advantage of the power vacuum created by her father's disappearance. She was a fighter after all. But deep down, Katrina was still just a young girl; scared and without a father.
Right now, Katrina needed someone to be there for her.
"We can look for him. We'll do it togeth-" Lukas offered.
"No. I can no longer live in the past, waiting for my father to come back. Our people need someone to lead them and that someone is you. I know it is." Her eyes flashed with defiance now and Lukas took a moment to admire her strength.
For the sake of her people, Katrina was willing to let go of grief for a better future.
To Lukas, the love that Katrina displayed for her people was worth more than any Legacy. A love that went beyond a love for one's father.
Before Lukas could give her a proper reply, a voice behind him interrupted their conversation.
"I am afraid that my granddaughter is right."
Lukas turned to face a woman who was just a little shorter than his mother who was standing right next to her.
The woman's words clicked in his head just a second later and Lukas realized who was standing before him. The woman was Rodan's mother: Lady Kaitlyn Drakos, the wife of Lord Jaren and the Royal Consort herself. This was Katrina's grandmother.
"The Seas of Linemall need a ruler. They need a Lord to lead them, Lukas Drakos, now more than ever. We need you."