I have watched civilizations starve themselves to death believing hunger was weakness. I have watched kings trade their children for peace and call it wisdom. I have watched beasts wear crowns and crowns wear beasts.
But there are moments when survival itself becomes a choice.
This is one of them.
The house Kaelen called home was little more than a wound in the forest a structure clinging to existence because no one had bothered to tear it down. Smoke-darkened stone. A roof bowed by years of rain. A door that never closed properly. It should not have sheltered life.
Yet it did.
Inside, the air was thin with hunger.
Kaelen moved quietly, though pain dragged at his bones. He closed the broken door behind him and crossed the room without looking back. His mother lay on the mattress where she had not risen for days, her body lightened by starvation, her spirit dimmed but unbroken.
She stirred when he knelt beside her.
"You're back," she murmured.
Relief moved through her like a fading echo.
He reached into his coat and produced the fruit. Bright. Whole. Stolen at cost.
Her eyes widened.
"Kaelen…" she whispered.
"Eat," he said. "Please."
She tried to protest. She always did. But hunger is louder than pride. She peeled the fruit slowly, hands trembling, and took the first bite like it was something holy.
Kaelen watched.
For a moment, the Cradle held its breath.
Then the door exploded inward.
Wood shattered. Stone cracked. Cold rushed in carrying rot, soil, and predatory intent.
The beast entered without hesitation.
It was older than the village. Older than the house. Its hide was hardened by centuries of feeding on the weak edges of the Cradle. Its eyes were sharp with contempt.
"You Cradlings," it said, voice thick with mockery. "You never learn when to stay in your place."
Kaelen turned.
He did not run.
He seized a stick leaning against the wall too heavy, too large and dragged it upright with shaking arms. He stepped between the beast and his mother, legs braced, breath uneven.
"Get away from her."
His voice broke.
But he did not move.
The beast laughed.
"Even when weak," it said, advancing, "you bare your teeth. I suppose that makes you strong, by your kind's measure."
It crouched.
Kaelen raised the stick.
Instinct guided him. Not skill. Not training.
The beast leapt.
The stick struck bone and muscle, glancing off uselessly.
Then the beast ignored him.
It moved past the boy as though he were nothing.
One clawed hand swept outward.
There was no struggle. No pause.
Only blood.
Kaelen turned in time to see his mother fall.
Her body struck the floor softly. Too softly. Blood spread beneath her, dark and final. Her eyes were open, unseeing, fixed on a future she would never reach.
The beast stood upright again, flexing fingers slick with red.
In that instant, something inside Kaelen ended.
The scream that tore from him was not learned.
It was remembered.
It tore through the house, through the forest, through the Cradle itself. Dragon Warriors across distant kingdoms stiffened as something ancient answered in their blood.
Not pain.
Recognition.
Kaelen screamed again.
His eyes turned white.
Not light. Not glow. Absence.
His feet lifted from the floor.
Power surged through him without restraint, without permission. Ashen-blue flame erupted around his body, edged with threads of gold the dying memory of a god who refused to vanish cleanly.
The walls cracked.
The air bent.
The beast recoiled, fear shattering its arrogance.
"What are you" it snarled, turning to flee.
Kaelen did not pursue.
He pointed.
Flame obeyed.
The beast was consumed in an instant, its scream swallowed by fire, its body erased until nothing remained but scorched stone and silence.
Then the power faltered.
Kaelen collapsed, sobbing, the fire breaking apart around him like falling embers.
That was when the hooded man entered.
He saw everything.
The blood. The boy. The unmistakable signature of Xaryon's essence raging without vessel.
His breath caught.
"So it's true," he whispered. "You are the heir."
Kaelen screamed again, clutching his head as power surged uncontrollably.
The hooded man did not strike.
He sang.
The song was old older than kingdoms, older than fear. It was passed down by Dragon Warriors not to glorify power, but to survive it. A rhythm meant to anchor flame to flesh, to remind essence that it lived inside bone and breath.
As the song filled the house, the flames trembled. Gold threads vanished. The blue dimmed.
Kaelen fell fully to the floor, sobbing, the scream breaking into grief.
The song continued until the power slept.
Until the boy was only a boy again.
He curled beside his mother, shaking, pressing his face into the blood-soaked boards as if he could still feel her warmth.
The hooded man knelt behind him, voice steady, unbroken.
I watched.
I did not stop the beast.I did not spare the mother.I did not guide the flame.
I only bore witness.
For the Cradle had taken its due.
And the last heir of Xaryon had awakened.