Magma Dragon's Heir

59th of Season of Earth, Year 16 AL

Yew, better known as the Grand Scholar, and less known as the grandson of the emperor famously known as the Sage for uprooting the Sage’s Association, entered the city of those he had fed information over the eras.

Forgetting to turn on the privacy wards wasn’t an issue if it happened once every century or two. The bigger problem was finding enough candidates worth telling the tale to in the presence of those who might do something about it.

It was a cowardly approach that required orchestrating deaths of family members, but considering those members were likely to become exalts and join the wrong side, there was little he could do.

After all, he wasn’t his grandfather, who had managed to arrange the cults against the family members who were set on destroying the world, killing just about everyone. Had the few high-realm cultists not made their escape, and had the grandfather not been mortally wounded, perhaps the empire would have been different.

But as things were, he died only confessing his intentions to Yew, the only one other than him who had the presence of mind to think about the consequences and potential problems of entering an unknown, unexplored world.

Had his grandfather remained in power another two to three thousand years, perhaps he would have managed to change the world and change the trajectory of the empire and the human race. Perhaps, had Yew become an exalt before his cousin, he could have done it personally.

If wishes were fishes.

Yew’s method was subtle. He was far from the strongest member of his family, and the few he had managed to feel out, he brought into his fold and extracted. The same went for the heresy hunters. The good ones, he brought along on his expedition with the excuse that they would have thousands of prisoners they needed to return to the empire for ritual executions.

Taking the heresy hunters’ resources was a bit more questionable, but his impeccable, incorruptible reputation, combined with vouching by the other exalts on his side, made it easy to smuggle enough resources from the empire that they put royal treasuries to shame. And unlike the royals, he focused on all tiers of resources and ingredients, aware that high-realm treasures would see less demand than first and second realm manarium everyone’s children needed.

“Ancestor, what do you think?” a great-grandson’s grandson asked Yew, who shrugged.

“What I think is irrelevant. This is the best chance in a very long while. The best one since my grandfather nearly succeeded.” He looked at his oldest living descendant and sighed. “Yes, this will give us a position of strength to negotiate; no, don’t even think of making contact and suing for peace. And yes, the cults will go on a rampage now.”

It was unfortunate, but the two sides had completely different approaches to satisfying their gods’ thirst for power. The cults were hunters, slaying without caring, while the imperial family were farmers. Where the cults saw tens of thousands of their centennial sacrifices, the imperial family saw millions of lives wasted over twenty generations.

“Won’t that make matters worse for our cause?”

Yew considered the question. He had done so multiple times so far, and he said what he had concluded in private. “The movements on the board are too big. Neither side knows the other’s power. But… the cults wouldn’t be skulking in the shadows had they the confidence and power to walk openly.”

A fraction of a second passed with nothing but the slow clacking of the magical engines that sounded like humming to slower minds and ears.

“And will these people be able to walk openly?”

“I understand your worry, Highcloud. Our family won’t tolerate these people, us,” he corrected himself. “They won’t tolerate a threat to their interests, and with us here, the rebellion has grown into an actual threat. The people we have extracted are the ones that will escape; the rest will die in the purges. My grandfather’s deception had gone by unnoticed, since it furthered our interests. Mine won’t.”

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Rather than through telepathy, Yew shared his thoughts aloud so that the other exalts could hear them. He sensed the Explorer’s Gate’s exalt lose control of his mana. It was a minor fluctuation, but a clear sign of his lack of control. The man had never been surrounded by enemies, having to watch every minute gesture.

People thought his calm and muted reactions to everything were a show of composed character. In reality, always muting his reactions was a defensive mechanism.

“What are the next steps, Patriarch Swordpeak?” Yew asked.

“We’re going down and having a meeting with all our exalts.”

The man had kept his composure throughout the flight, and Yew could tell he was ready to fight at a moment’s notice. Commendable, even if unnecessary.

With the airships so close to the city, the exalts descended. Mana welled out from Windcutter, subtle enough for most not to notice, but Yew stealthily followed the wave with threads of his own mana as it washed over the city. In the next moment, several threads flowed from the Swordpeak Patriarch, either a show of trust, or the lack of knowledge that someone could follow and even listen in on his conversation.

Yew held back from the latter. It was common courtesy; besides, if discovered, his action would antagonize his allies for no good reason.

Five minutes later, they were seated in a large room with a large circular table. Highcloud and Sunray sat to his either side, the others scrutinizing them with no small amount of distrust as he shared the history of his family’s secret schism.

“Now, with that out of the way,” Yew smiled his one smile, both relaxed and unnerving at the same time as it showed his absolute confidence regardless of the situation, “would you care to explain how you have carved a large plot of land so deep in a saurian weald?”

“By paying taxes to the local dragon exalt,” Windcutter Swordpeak said with the intent to shock.

To an extent, he had succeeded. Yew was surprised that humans and saurians had reached a deal. His family had never achieved anything similar, but his face and aura didn’t change one bit.

“I see. There must be some extraordinary circumstances there, but I won’t pry unless you wish to tell me.”

The council members exchanged glances. There were fifteen of them, so the odds of someone secretly approaching him to get in his good graces after the meeting were huge. Yew watched politics and conflicts make cracks even in what was possibly mankind’s last chance at survival. It was pitiful, and just went to show how his species was doomed, no matter what he tried.

All fifteen of them reached the same conclusion and arrived at a compromise.

“We have a person capable of speaking with dragons.” Windcutter said in front of everyone.

It wasn’t quite a unique gift. Certainly rare, but not unique. Yew could call to memory half a dozen people who had achieved complex communication with saurians through mana. Something else was an obstacle there.

“And a dragon exalt listened to this extraordinary individual?”

Even if someone could speak with saurians, it was just a gimmick to the lizards, unless the person had the might to back up their words. And for someone to intimidate a dragon exalt all on their own required more strength than Yew had ever seen in a single human.

“We are here, aren’t we?” A light smile adorned Windcutter Swordpeak’s face. A hint of smugness for knowing something Yew didn’t.

Yew inclined his head slightly.

“I would like to meet this extraordinary person. I can tell they aren’t on the council; that either means they rule this settlement from the shadows, or that they are at the ninth realm, which makes their achievement even more impressive.”

A moment later, Gatemaster Greenthorn stood and left the room. Silence descended upon people used to not speaking for years at a time, and time passed until Yew picked out the gatemaster returning with a person shrouded in a privacy aura not at the ninth realm, but the eighth.

The old man found himself intrigued. A ninth-realm human making a tenth-realm saurian listen to them was extremely impressive. That saurian being a dragon made the scenario next to impossible. Some would think that perhaps the human had saved the dragon’s offspring, returned their egg, or something similar, but dragons and saurians in general cared little for their young.

They laid huge clutches of eggs; the failures didn’t even hatch before their siblings devoured them. The weak died, and the strong lived. To save a weak saurian was more an offense to the parent than a favor.

So what could an eighth realm human have done to garner a dragon’s attention long enough to speak? And what could they offer that would make a dragon consider letting their ancestral enemy make a city right next to its own territory?

Then the door opened, and for the first time in ages, Yew feared his perfect mask had cracked. The human wasn’t at the eighth realm, but at the seventh.