NOVEL NEXT Vol 3. Chapter 3: Dragon's Eye View
The Divine Knight suddenly gasped for air, her hand trembling as she reached toward him. Her fingers curled weakly, trying to hold on to something—anything—as her body began to give out beneath her. Her eyes found Lukas, and through the blur of pain and blood, she asked the same question she had once whispered in that dark chamber, when she first saw what hid beneath the long sleeve he had worn for so long.
"What…are you?"
There was no point in lying. Not now. Not with the life draining from her body and the truth already unraveling in the air around them.
"My name is Lukas Drakos," he told her quietly. "And I am a Dragon. I am a Lord of Linemall. I am the Lord of Linemall's Seas."
A flicker of something—shock, then dawning comprehension—crossed her face. For a moment, she just stared at him, like she was seeing him for the first time. Then came the disbelief as her head shook, slow at first, then faster. As if rejecting the truth itself, as if the world she had believed in was suddenly collapsing around her.
"No…" Celina whispered hoarsely, voice cracking as the tears welled up and spilled down her blood-smeared cheeks. "He lied to me… It can't be. The prophecy… it can't be…! It's you...it's always been you..."
Lukas leaned closer, his brow furrowing. "Prophecy? What prophecy?"
But Celina didn't answer him. Her breaths were growing more ragged, more shallow. This wasn't delirium. This wasn't the rambling of a woman half-gone. Her pain was real. Her words were real. And that made them all the more terrifying.
Who had lied to her? Was it Daerion? Varian's letter had warned him that both Celina and the Hero had been manipulated the King who sat on Nozar's throne; both of them twisted and molded into weapons loyal only to him. But how? How had Daerion done it? What prophecy had the King of Nozar used to tighten his grip on them? What had Celina been made to believe?
Lukas tried again. "What did Daerion tell you, Celina?"
But the dying Knight only shook her head, harder now, and coughed—violent and wet. Blood burst from her lips, spilling down her chin as her body spasmed in pain.
A sob broke from her throat, ragged and final. There would be no tomorrow for Celina, the Divine Knight.
Celina's trembling hand reached out, grasping at nothing until Lukas gently took it into his own. Her voice, small and broken, barely more than a whisper, escaped through bloodstained lips.
"I'm scared," she murmured. "I'm so scared…"
Lukas stayed by her side. There were far from being allies but that didn't matter now. At the end of the day…Lukas did not hate her. He simply could not bring himself to do so. Because Celina, like so many others, had been a victim of Daerion's twisted schemes—a brilliant mind weaponized by prophecy and lies.
Celina had simply believed in what she fought for. She had believed what she was doing was right. And Lukas understood what belief could do to a person. But he also could not allow her to continue doing Daerion's bidding. Especially when it put his loved ones in danger. But could Lukas blame her? Could Lukas hold hatred in his heart for a woman who had never truly been given a choice?
No. Lukas could not.
He did not have the power to save her from the cold grip of the Underworld. But he did have the choice to stay by her side now in these final moments of the Divine Knight's life.
Tears spilled freely from her eyes, cutting streaks through the blood and dirt on her face. Celina shook her head again and again, as if by sheer will she could stop what was coming.
"I don't want to go," she whispered. "I don't want to die…"
Her voice cracked and dissolved into sobs and Lukas held her hand tighter.
"I'm sorry," Celina told him, again and again, her breath catching on every word. "I'm sorry for everything. I didn't know. I didn't…I didn't understand…"
And then, one final plea: "Save her," one final breath, desperate and filled with hope. "Save Rosalia…"
Her chest rose. And then it fell. And it did not rise again.
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The light in her eyes dimmed, then vanished altogether, leaving nothing but stillness. Her lips parted slightly, as if caught mid-prayer. The youngest Divine Knight in Hiraeth's history—holy warrior of the Church, defender of the people, twisted by a mad king—was gone forever.
Lukas stared at her for just a moment longer.
Then, slowly, he reached down and closed her eyes with two fingers. The lids shut gently, and he laid her down upon the cold ground with a soft thud. He wished he had more time, time to bury her and to give her the dignity she had been denied in life, dignity that she at least deserved in death.
But Lukas did not have the luxury of time on his side.
What he could do—what he would do—was respect her final wish: Lukas was going to save Rosalia. He rose, gaze lifting to the ceiling above as the Kraken stirred within. The Kraken felt it immediately—the shift; the Flow of magic within Lukas, always calm and dormant; now surged and twisted, restless like a storm-tossed sea.
There was no time to mourn. No time to think. Only time to act.
Rosalia was somewhere out there. And he had no idea where to begin.
Lukas needed a bird's eye view. No…he needed a dragon's eye view.
Lukas staggered back from Celina's lifeless body as something ancient began to stir in his blood. The air around him thickened, buzzing with raw magic as the Draconic Flow surged like a storm tide.
His breath caught—sharp, ragged—and then his body convulsed.
His veins bulged and his bones racked. His spine bent backward with a sickening snap as the first black scales tore through his skin, splitting it open like fragile parchment. Steam hissed from his pores as muscle swelled grotesquely, stretching past the limits of human anatomy. His fingers curled into claws, nails blackening and thickening into talons. His jaw unhinged with a sickening pop, elongating as rows of serrated teeth pushed past bloody gums.
Lukas did not scream. He could not. His throat split open from within, reshaping itself into something that could no longer speak words—only thunder. More scales erupted across his shoulders and chest, dragging behind them sinew and bone, reshaping his frame into something towering, monstrous, and divine. A second spine formed—twin ridges that cracked out of his back like jagged mountains as his wings burst forth, leathery and slick with fluid, still trembling from the sheer force of their violent birth.
His legs bowed, knees snapping forward in reverse before reforming into something powerful, predatory. His tail slammed against the ground, coiling and thrashing, flattening the stones beneath him into dust. His once-human eyes burned away, replaced by sea-green slits glowing with primeval fury.
The Kraken too channeled the technique that Rodan himself had taught him, through his body simultaneously. Tentacles snapped and elongated, becoming something more proportional to Lukas' full draconic form. The Cthulu's form rippled and warped, his own body convulsing as the Draconic Flow coursed through it.
When it was over, Lukas stood tall; a behemoth of a dragon with his wings stretching across the shattered chamber like black sails blotting out the sky.
Lukas inhaled once, deeply, and exhaled a wave of steam that hissed from his maw like smoke from a volcanic rift.
For the first time in what was years, he felt truly whole.
The weight—the unbearable weight—of living as someone else, of pretending to be Klein of the Magic Tower, apprentice of the Head Mage, vanished like mist under sunlight. It had always been a mask. A costume stitched together by necessity. But he would wear that mask no more.
There was no need for it now.
He was Lukas Drakos. And he was the Dragon Lord of the Seas.
With a low rumble that built into a deafening thunder, Lukas crouched low and launched himself into the air. The force of his leap shattered the floor beneath him. His wings flared wide—once, then twice—and with a single beat, he surged upward, crashing through the cathedral's stone ceiling in an explosion of rubble and dust. Stone, glass, and sacred relics rained down like ash as the Church collapsed behind him, quite literally torn apart by the sheer force of his ascent.
Lukas did not look back. Above him, the sky opened wide and cold, and he rose into it, cutting through clouds like a blade.
Then came the roar that erupted from within him. It shook windows, shattering them. It cracked towers and silenced the streets. It echoed through every alley, across every courtyard, and down every corridor of the once-proud city of Easthaven.
The people looked up.
The Nozari Navy, now marching through the streets with Daerion's blessing, halted mid-step. Even the seasoned veterans, those who had fought monsters and mages alike, could do nothing but stare in absolute awe and horror at the sky.
Because what flew above them was not a beast of burden. It was not a broken dragon bound in iron chains, paraded for coin or slaughtered in a coliseum for sport. It was not some trophy that the rich and powerful showed off to remind them of the victory their ancestors had won all those years ago.
This was not just any dragon.
This was a Dragon Lord of Linemall, one of the most powerful beings in all of Hiraeth. This was a strength that rivalled Kingdoms, a power that brought armies to its knees. A sovereign. He was Seas itself, living and breathing for the world to see. And as Lukas flew above the city, black wings eclipsing the moon itself, a single truth swept across not only Easthaven but Hiraeth itself like wildfire.
His roar had been the sound of something ancient.
His roar was the sound of return, the return of the Age of Dragons.