Chapter 177: What the Traitors Were Really Fighting For — Part 2.
Drakovitch looked down at the huddle of broken men, and for a rare moment, the cold certainty in his eyes wavered. He shared a silent, sharp glance with Morgant. In that single look, a quiet realization passed between them. These weren’t the masterminds who had conspired with the demigods.
Drakovitch tightened his hand on the arm of his throne. He thought,
"They didn’t betray me for power. They betrayed me for their mothers, their sisters... for his daughter. For fathers lost, and for lives claimed by the war... They were driven by a love I reduced to a casualty of war."
He looked at Luavier’s shaking shoulders. He knew the world saw him as a tyrant, and in this moment, he didn’t even try to argue with the reflection in their eyes. The Dragonborn Restoration was a monstrosity—a cold, mechanical harvesting of life to ensure the survival of a species. It was a factory of flesh, and he was its architect.
"But what else could I have done?"
He asked himself, the thought a dark, silent roar in his mind.
"The lineage is thinning. My own heart ticks like a clock. If I don’t mass produce the White Blood now, other Primordial blooded kingdoms will be the ones to thin us out..."
He continued, voice low and measured,
"It was the only choice... the fastest way to rebuild, the only way to survive."
Drakovitch closed his eyes for a heartbeat, hearing the "Legend Dragonguard" Percieval’s heavy breathing beside him. Even his most loyal general was beginning to recoil from the frost of his methods.
"Morgant, take them away. Not to the dungeons. Put them in the barracks under guard."
The House Leader looked up, shock flickering through his tear-stained face.
"You... you aren’t going to kill us?"
Drakovitch turned slowly, his eyes devoid of the mercy the old man had hoped for.
"I never said that."
Before anyone could blink, Drakovitch raised a single finger. With a sickening crack of shifting bone, his index finger lengthened into a jagged, ivory needle that shot forward like a lightning strike. It pierced the House Leader’s shoulder, pinning him to the floor with enough precision to avoid his heart but enough force to make him howl in agony.
The room erupted in gasps. The young warriors flinched, their eyes wide with terror as they watched their leader writhe.
"Percieval," Drakovitch commanded. "Prepare the public square. I want the kingdom to see what happens when you defy the Dragonborn. Let them witness the cost of rebellion. Let them understand the weight of loyalty and the price of defiance."
He then turned his gaze toward Luavier and the trembling young warriors. A dark, twisted smile played on his lips.
"As for you... you claimed to be nothing but a supply of bodies, didn’t you?" the King mused, walking toward them. "You are young. Your blood is still hot. It would be a waste to throw away such ’STOCK’ when the Restoration requires so much."
He leaned down, his shadow swallowing Luavier whole. "
"Think carefully, boy. Your fathers rot in the dirt from the last war. Your mothers—the ’vessels’ you weep for—don’t even remember them now. All they see is the duty to bear a child for me. If you follow your leader to the grave today, your fathers’ memory dies with you. No one will be left to whisper that they ever existed... not even you."
The King’s voice became a seductive, terrifying crawl.
"So, choose. Do you want to die as forgotten traitors, or will you accept your role as my supply? Live as my weapons, and perhaps one day you will have the strength to reach the sky you so desperately crave, Verdantwings."
Luavier looked at the pinned House Leader, then at his fellow warriors. The crushing weight of being the last of their line—the only ones left to remember their fathers’ real faces—broke their remaining spirit. One by one, they bowed their heads into the blood-stained marble.
"We... we will be your supply," Luavier whispered, his voice dead and hollow. "Just... don’t let family names die!"
Drakovitch didn’t offer a nod or a comforting word. He simply turned his back, the heavy fabric of his royal mantle sweeping over the blood stained floor.
"A name is only as strong as the hand that carries the sword. See that yours doesn’t falter again."
The transition of the city was as jarring as a blade’s edge. The somber, suffocating silence of the throne room vanished, replaced by the roar of a thousand hungry voices.
In the center of the square, a massive pyre of white oak had been erected. The House Leader of the Verdantwings was chained to the central stake, the bone needle still protruding from his shoulder as a gruesome mark of the King’s hand.
The citizens—the very people he claimed to be "freeing"—did not look at him with pity.
"Traitor!"
Awoman screamed, hurling a jagged stone that clipped the Leader’s temple.
"Burn the rat! Burn the one who brought the Giant!"
The crowd bellowed, their collective voice a terrifying, singular beast. As the torches were tossed into the oil soaked wood, the flames roared upward. The House Leader’s screams were quickly swallowed by the crackle of the heat and the deafening cheers of the populace.
Standing on the high balcony overlooking the square, the young warriors—now the King’s "Supply"—watched in frozen horror. Luavier gripped the stone railing until his knuckles turned white, the orange glow of the execution reflecting in his tear filled eyes.
Beside them, Morgant fanned himself lazily, a small, dark smile playing on his lips as he watched the smoke rise.
"Listen to that music, boys. The people don’t want freedom. They want a villain to blame for their pain. Today, your Leader is that villain. Tomorrow... well, tomorrow depends on how well you serve."
The pyre’s heat shimmered, turning the screaming figure into a black silhouette against a wall of orange. As the flames peaked, the House Leader’s voice died, replaced by the crackling wood and the citizens’ rhythmic chants—an exorcism of their own fear, burying trauma in his destruction.
When the fire waned, only white-hot coals and grey dust remained. Chains clattered against stone, glowing cherry-red.
Of the House Leader, nothing remained...
Except one thing: Drakovitch’s bone needle, standing untouched in the center of the ash.