The Lord of the Seas - An Isekai Progression Fantasy [ Currently on Volume 2 ]

The procedure when it came to sponsorships was strict. Tradition woven into formality. When more than one sponsorship was offered, the mage in question would be escorted off the stage.

It was a rule designed to grant the mage time—time to weigh the offers, time to consider the futures laid bare before them. And it was a rule now invoked for Lukas.

Magnus waited but there seemed to be no more sponsors stepping forward to throw their hat in the ring. The Head Mage's voice rang out once more, cutting through the growing murmurs of the audience.

"No further offers will be made for Klein."

The declaration silenced the hall. Lukas could feel every eye drilling into him, watching his every breath, every twitch of muscle, as the weight of his decision became the centrepiece of the night.

The attendants approached him, waiting to escort him down from the stage. Lukas reached for the green crystal to place it back on the table but paused as her voice, soft and rich with familiarity, echoed once more through the magical channel, meant for him and him alone.

"There is someone waiting for you. Backstage."

His fingers tightened around the crystal, and for a brief second, Lukas' usually unshakeable composure faltered. He barely masked the flicker of emotion behind his neutral expression. His message had reached them. The one he had risked sending through the Crown, amplified by Magnus' forbidden crystal.

It had worked. The people he cared and loved had known that Lukas had not died at sea, at the hands of the Hero From Another World.

"It's really good to see you again," Lukas' thoughts was sent into the crystal, his voice low, controlled. But inside, his heart hammered against his ribs.

The Countess' laughter was a velvet hum in his ear.

"And it is good to see you too, Lukas. We'll have time to catch up later."

As he lowered the crystal back onto the velvet-lined table, the faintest smile ghosted across his lips. His eyes flicked toward the King of Nozar, still seated high above, his fingers drumming slowly on the armrest. He had not made a final decision yet but he could see the quiet rage beneath those eyes as it peeled away from him and was now directed at the one they call the Head of the Merchant Guild.

With a respectful nod to the Head Mage, Lukas turned and followed the attendants off the stage, leaving behind the silent tension, the expectant eyes, the heavy weight of Hiraeth's most powerful and wealthy watching on; all of them wondering which offer Klein would accept.

As Lukas stepped beyond the curtains, the noise of the grand hall muffled behind velvet and stone, his sharp eyes scanned the dimly lit backstage area. He didn't know who exactly he was expecting—but the moment his gaze landed on the boy waiting there, his breath caught in his throat.

It was Jesse fucking Sterling.

The boy had grown. And he had grown dramatically. Once, the young Sterling boy barely stood past Lukas' knee, a small, scrappy thing with fire in his heart and unpolished draconic blood coursing through his veins. Now, he stood tall—his head brushing against Lukas' elbow, his frame already broadening, his posture proud yet softened by the genuine emotion written across his face.

There was something else, too. A flicker—a deep pulse beneath the surface. Something so familiar but it felt like he had not sensed it for hundreds of years.

The Draconic Flow. Jesse's beat in rhythm with Lukas' own, an undeniable resonance that crossed the space between them like a lightning strike. Lukas had sensed that familiar pull a hundred times before—but to feel it here, to feel it now, was like coming home. And then Jesse launched himself forward and crushed Lukas in a bone-rattling bear hug. Lukas let out a surprised laugh—a rare, open sound he didn't bother to suppress as he embraced Jesse tightly, lifting him slightly off the ground as if to reassure himself that he was real

"Gods," Lukas muttered, ruffling the boy's hair, "what the hell has Velena been feeding you? You've grown my boy, you've grown!"

Jesse laughed too, his voice breaking at the edges with the last tethers of his youth, but there was steel in him now. He pulled back, his eyes shining and Lukas could see he was trying to hold back the river of emotions surging within him.

"We got your message," Jesse said, his voice softer now, choked with something he'd been holding in. "But…a part of me didn't believe it. I always feared that I would never see you again."

Lukas' expression softened, the weight of the past year pressing into him now that he could finally share it with one of his own. Another of the draconic kind.

"I promised that I would return," Lukas said, gripping the boy's shoulders firmly. "And I meant it. It's....wow, it's just good to see you Jesse."

Jesse's grin widened, pride and relief mixing in his draconic blood. He straightened, finally speaking the words he had been desperate to say.

"It's good to have you back too, my Lord."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

For all the time he'd spent in Easthaven, the politics, the lies and the masks—this moment felt real. Lukas did not have to put on a mask. He did not have to act as Klein and Lukas hadn't realized how much that pretence had been begun to weigh on his mental headspace. Reuniting with Jesse was like retrieving a precious shard of his life before the Tower. Before Easthaven. Before Karios Castle.

Lukas let his hand linger on Jesse's shoulder as if grounding himself to this simple, immutable truth:

All of it, all of the Trials he had faced in Kairos Castle, it had been worth it. It had been worth it if it meant that he'd return to his people. Not the people he'd met in Easthaven but his people. The people of Linemall, the Kingdom he called home.

Jesse walked alongside Lukas, his steps just a bit too quick, betraying the excitement he was trying to temper with maturity. But Lukas could feel the weight behind his gaze—Jesse was studying him, piecing together the man who now walked beside him, as if comparing him to the Lukas he had once known.

"You've changed," Jesse said, not unkindly. His voice was thoughtful, measured. "You're different. You seem…older."

Lukas glanced at him, a small knowing smile. "I have returned from the brink of death. And I have stood the tests of time. But I am still the Lukas Drakos that you knew. I promise you that."

There was something sharp behind Jesse's next question.

"…What about Rodan?" Jesse asked, his voice low, as if saying the name too loudly might crack the fragile air between them.

Lukas nodded slowly, the grief soft but steady in his chest, no longer a raw wound but a scar that would never quite fade.

"He...didn't make it." Lukas said, his words gentle, but firm.

Jesse's shoulders sagged slightly, the weight of that truth settling into his bones. He didn't press. He didn't ask for details. He didn't have to.

"But he lives through me," Lukas continued, resting a hand over his heart. "He always will."

And for Jesse, that was enough. His lips trembled—not quite a smile, not quite a frown—as he bowed his head in quiet acceptance.

"I'm sad," Jesse confessed. "But I'm happy too. I'm happy you're alive. I'm happy that I'm actually standing here with you."

Lukas squeezed his shoulder. But as he looked into Jesse's eyes, he saw something else—a hard-earned steel that hadn't been there before. Not just growth, not just time—but experience.

Jesse had seen things. Faced things. Things that had forced him to understand that the world outside Linemall was vast and cruel, filled with choices far heavier than a boy his age should have been forced to carry. Just like the Lady Kaitlyn had warned them before their departure from Linemall, a departure that had occurred lifetimes ago.

Lukas wanted to know what had happened. He wanted to know everything. But not now.

There would be time for that later.

As Lukas and Jesse began to move through the hall, a quiet shuffling of footsteps caught Lukas' attention. He turned just in time to see Rosalia approaching, a small bouquet of pale blue flowers clutched tightly in her hands. She hesitated for a moment when she spotted Jesse at his side, her brow furrowing ever so slightly in confusion—and something else. Something like jealousy.

Rosalia's eyes darted between them, suspicion creeping into her expression as if Jesse's very presence was some puzzle she didn't quite like the shape of.

Still, she pressed forward, chin lifted in that stubborn, prideful way Lukas had come to know well.

"Congratulations," she told Lukas, her voice a little too formal, a little too clipped, as if trying to assert herself. And then she threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly, fiercely—as if she could outmatch Jesse's earlier embrace with her own. As if she needed to.

Lukas couldn't help but chuckle softly as he returned her embrace.

"You didn't have to bring flowers," he said, his voice warm.

Her arms tightened around him briefly. "I wanted to."

When the princess finally pulled away, her gaze flicked back to Jesse, sizing him up again, her curiosity unspoken but loud in the silence between them.

"Well?" Lukas prompted, stepping back and gesturing between them. "Aren't you going to introduce yourselves?"

They both hesitated—Rosalia crossing her arms, Jesse shoving his hands awkwardly into his pockets.

Lukas just smiled and activated the Crown.

"Let me help you the two of you with that."

In a breath, the Crown wove the thread of thought between them, linking their minds just as it had linked Lukas to Jesse moments before.

"Oh." Rosalia's eyes widened in silent realization as her mind brushed against Jesse's—his draconic flow, his presence, his truth.

She saw who he truly was, not just a tall lanky boy but the power that lay dormant within him; a power that could awaken if Jesse willed it to be. The power of a Dragon. She was standing before another of Lukas' kind.

And Jesse, in turn, felt her knowledge—her memories of Lukas, of everything they'd been through together, of their first encounter where the young princess saved Lukas' life, of her learning of Lukas' draconic origins, of her walking beside him as his student and his friend.

"You know." Jesse's mental voice was soft with surprise. "You know who he is. Who...I am."

Lukas didn't know how Jesse would react. When he first revealed his draconic form to Velena in Ilagron Village after the fall of the House of Fortunes, Jesse had been mad. He had thought it foolish to reveal their true nature to a human.

Instead, the young dragonborn smiled and bowed his head to the young girl who now stood before him. And he bowed, not due to respect of her Royal Lineage. But due to gratitude for what she had done for his own Lord.

"You saved him. You're why he's still here. And I thank you for that. Truly."

There was no jealousy in Jesse's thoughts.

Rosalia's gaze softened, her guarded stance easing. "There's no need to thank me. I just did what I thought was right." She said through the shared space between their minds, created by the Crown.

Lukas watched them both, his heart swelling just a little. He hoped they would get along. It was like watching...two worlds collide. And despite the unplanned circumstances, he was glad they did.