Three nights later, the Ebon Citadel was on edge. Isolde felt the atmosphere tighten like a garrote around her throat. Damon had doubled the interior patrols, and the guards silent footsteps echoed everywhere, especially near the human wing.
Damon was absent. He had left shortly after midnight for a tactical meeting, which meant the field was open.
Isolde stood by the frosted window of the Obsidian Suite, wrapped in a shawl. Her stomach was a cold knot of dread and dark anticipation. She could only imagine Draven moving through the freezing shadows of the Citadel's vast, impersonal walls, shedding the guise of Kael the stable hand.
Draven was not after a simple kill. He was after a symbol... a high-ranking target that would send a clear, bloody message to Damon and the Queen. General Seraph was the perfect choice, the Commander of the Northern Defenses, an ancient, uncompromising figurehead of Vampire power.
Isolde closed her eyes, trying to focus her energy. She felt the dull, internal heat... the strange, dormant Witch power the Queen's tonic had awakened... but she couldn't control it. It was simply a terrible, internal pressure, a ticking clock counting down to disaster.
In the depths of the northern wall tunnels, Draven moved. He had shed his rough clothes and was now dressed in a suit of blackened leather, silent and invisible against the stone. The crude scar painted on his cheek was gone, replaced by the natural, sharp lines of the Dragon Prince.
He moved through the hidden maintenance paths he had charted during his weeks as Kael. The path was tight, cold, and smelled of centuries of damp rock, but it led directly to the Northern Wall's Command Tower... Seraph's departure point.
He saw the first set of guards near the armory exit. They were low-caste, tired, their eyes a flat dark hazel. They were complaining about the cold and the endless duty cycles. Draven moved past them like a ghost. He didn't kill them... he didn't want to raise the alarm too early. He needed Seraph to be isolated.
He reached the tower's base just as General Seraph's entourage was preparing to leave. Seraph was a massive figure, encased in silvered armor, flanked by only three close protection guards. They were high-caste, their eyes a keen, intimidating silver-grey.
Seraph paused to issue a final, arrogant command to a junior officer about border protocols. This was Draven's window.
He didn't use a blade or poison. He used his lineage.
With a roar that was silent to the common guard, Draven unleashed a terrifying surge of Dragon power. A focused blast of molten gold energy, raw, consuming heat, exploded from his core. It wasn't a wide plume of fire... it was a narrow, concentrated spear of heat, aimed directly at the heavy, armored figure of Seraph.
The General didn't even have time to activate his own defenses. The focused heat hit the General's center mass. The noise was a sharp crack that echoed through the stone passage. Seraph's silvered armor didn't melt, but the Vampire body inside instantly combusted from the internal thermal shock.
General Seraph collapsed in a steaming, silent heap of metal and ash.
The three guards reacted instantly, drawing their long, curved blades. Draven was already moving. He was faster, fueled by the rage of a thousand years of blood debt. He dodged the first blade, crushing the guard's throat with the blunt force of his elbow. The second guard he kicked straight into the thick stone wall... the sound of the impact was sickening.
The third guard was smarter. He didn't fight... he ran, screaming the high, penetrating alarm word into the silent halls, "DRACONUS!"
Draven let him run. The chaos was necessary. He had what he wanted. He turned back to the remains of Seraph, standing over the silent proof of his vengeance. He then placed a single, polished piece of black obsidian... a Dragon mourning stone on the pile of ash.
He vanished back into the maintenance tunnels, moving with the cold, controlled urgency of a warrior who knew he had just started a war.
The silence in Isolde's chamber didn't last long.
A terrifying, high pitched alarm, a wailing siren that shook the very foundations of the Ebon Citadel, tore through the night. The silence was instantly replaced by panic.
Isolde rushed back to the window. Below, the courtyard was erupting in chaos. Guards were pouring from every doorway, their calls sharp and panicked. They were moving toward the northern walls, torches flaring in the wind.
A heartbeat later, there was a violent, insistent pounding on Isolde's door. It wasn't the slow, formal entry of the patrol. It was the desperate, hard beat of emergency.
Nyx burst in, followed by two armed, silver-eyed guards. Nyx was fully dressed, her face a mask of furious alarm, her hair disheveled.
"What do you know?" Nyx hissed, ignoring the guards. Her eyes were burning with a desperate mixture of fear and rage.
"I know nothing," Isolde replied, forcing herself to stillness, "except that the alarm is sounding."
"General Seraph is dead," Nyx spat the words like venom. "Assassinated in the northern passage! There is a Dragon here! A true Dragon! How did he get past the lines? Did Damon tell you anything?"
Isolde shook her head slowly. "Damon told me nothing. I have been confined to this room, Princess. You know my movements."
Nyx moved closer, her silver eyes blazing with suspicion. "You are the human connection. You are the bait that brought him here! If Damon loses control of this situation, you will pay the price for this invasion, Isolde. Not Draven."
Isolde held the gaze of the future Queen. "Then you had better find the Dragon before Damon returns, Princess. Because if Damon finds out you were here questioning his wife while the walls burned, you will pay a price for distracting his royal guards."
Nyx froze, the threat of Damon's wrath momentarily overriding her fury. She was terrified of Damon's cold, absolute power. She glared at Isolde for one more agonizing moment, then spun around.
"Find the tunnels! Seal the armory!" Nyx screamed at her own guards, and then she was gone, swallowed by the emergency.
Isolde stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard. The sheer scale of the attack, the instant chaos Draven had unleashed, was staggering. A general was ash, and the entire Vampire command structure was in panic.
The door burst open again. It was Silvana. She was shaking, her pale amber eyes wide and terrified, but she was surprisingly functional.
"Isolde, they are sealing the inner Citadel! Damon is returning now, they just got the message! He will be furious!" Silvana rushed to the window, watching the chaos. "They are blaming Draconus. This is war, Isolde, open war!"
"Damon will come straight here," Isolde said, thinking fast. "He will assume I am the key."
"He will want to know if you saw anything," Silvana whispered. "He will use his power to extract the truth."
Isolde looked down at her hands, the heat finally fading. "Then we must give him a truth he can accept."
The doors to the suite suddenly flew open, slamming against the stone wall.
Damon stood in the doorway. He was drenched in the cold rain of the night, his coat slicked to his body. His Crimson blood red eyes were not cold, but utterly incandescent with a terrifying, absolute fury. He was surrounded by his elite, high-caste guard, but his power filled the room, cold and lethal.
"Where is the Dragon?" Damon's voice was a low, dangerous rumble that shook the very air. "Tell me everything, wife. Now."