Chapter 17: Dragon King Blessing
Fenric looked down at his chest.
Right where Duserdis had touched him, a glowing mark shimmered gently over his heart. It looked like a dragon curled into a spiral, its tail in its mouth like an ouroboros, its eyes closed as if it were deep in sleep. From the symbol, glowing lines stretched outward like slow-moving rivers of light, inching along as if time itself had forgotten about them.
The mark didn’t actually breathe, but it felt alive—like it carried immense power hidden beneath layers of stillness.
Fenric stared. The mark was burned into his skin, glowing faintly as if someone had etched starlight directly into his flesh. The dragon’s spiral pulsed with a rhythm that felt older than time.
Then, all at once, it hit.
A crushing pressure slammed into his mind—not just his head, but deeper. Into his bones. Into the very shape of his soul.
He couldn’t breathe as the knowledge forced itself inside—not kindly, not gently. This wasn’t something offered. It was something imposed. Absolute.
The will of the Dragon King wasn’t something you accepted. It settled into you like a sleeping giant curling up inside your body, making itself comfortable with no intention of ever leaving.
Not memories, exactly. More like raw truths. Pure ideas.
A strange chill ran down his spine as it all sank in—not like learning something new, but like waking up from a dream and realizing you’d always known. Everything fit together, quiet and heavy, until it became something complete.
A name echoed faintly in his thoughts: