Chapter 49: He Looks Like A God And He Marked Me In My Heat! 2
"HE’S COMING DOWN!"
The voice came from somewhere in the festival crowd, and everything that had been building in the last few minutes became irrelevant because the dragon descended.
The sound reached them first.
It was not a dragon roar. It was something lower and more present than that — the sound of something enormous moving through air, the specific pressure change that came before a large body made contact with the ground. The fires across the festival ground flickered all at once in the same direction.
Then he cleared the treeline.
In his dragon form, he was vast. Dark scaled, wingspan that blocked the stars above a wide section of the sky, moving with a precision that was more terrifying than speed would have been. He circled once, low and slow, and the ground below his shadow emptied of people without a single word being said.
Every tribe went to their knees.
Not out of respect alone. Out of weight. His aura dropped on the festival like a physical force, pressing down on the space and everyone in it. Neve heard people around him making sounds under the pressure — heavy groans, the sounds of people managing something their bodies wanted to collapse under.
He felt nothing. He didn’t know why.
Maybe it was because of the mark on his neck that was burning warm.
He sat in his chair while every person around him went to their knees and watched the dragon.
Just before his talons reached the ground, the shift happened.
It was fast. Faster than Cael shifted. Faster than anything Neve had seen in this world. One moment, the dragon was landing, and then it was a man standing where the dragon had been, and the displacement of air that followed pushed everyone’s hair back and rattled the stall displays.
He was tall.
Very tall.
With long dark hair loose around his shoulders. Black fabric wrapped and belted around his body in the way of someone who wore it practically rather than decoratively. He stood in the centre of the cleared space with the absolute stillness of something that had existed long enough that movement was a choice rather than a habit.
He looked like a god.
Neve stared at him. He had dark hair. He had known that. Broad shoulders. He had known that. But looking at him now, standing in the open festival space while every creature within sight pressed their heads toward the ground, Neve registered the face properly for the first time.
This was the person who had put his mouth against his ear in the dark outside a trade city palace and asked if he needed help. But he felt and looked different.
He almost couldn’t match the two things.
"Rise," Vaelthorn said.
The pressure lifted.
Everyone stood. Slowly, the way people stood when their bodies were still recalibrating after being pressed down. Soren straightened and walked forward with the specific courage of a new chief doing his job despite his hands not being entirely steady.
"Greetings, great one. Welcome to the leopard tribe’s territory."
Vaelthorn looked down at him from the difference in their heights. He said nothing for a moment.
"Hm," he said, just that. Even Soren was a bit pleased to get a response from him, even if it was a nod. Then he continued.
"Please..."
Soren pointed to the high podium. The large chair that Neve genuinely had not noticed before, positioned above the rest of the festival space, was built for exactly this purpose.
Vaelthorn walked to it slowly. Everyone watched him. He had that powerful aura around him that no one would even dare to mess with him.
He sat down, crossed one leg over the other and leaned back. He looked exactly like what he was... a person who had been the most powerful thing in any room for so long that furniture just became a formality.
"He looks different from what I expected," Neve whispered, almost to himself.
Cael nodded without taking his eyes off the podium.
"I know you would say that."
"Dragons can shapeshift their size," Cael continued. "In his dragon form, he’s truly enormous. Here he’s reduced it. But not by much. He can even reduce his height further."
"I see," Neve responded, taking his eyes off Vaelthorn. "Seems like the festival is going to start early since the dragon king is here,"
Cael nodded, agreeing with him.
The festival was restarting around them just as they could see. Tribes moving back to their positions, the initial shock settling into awe, settling into the business of the festival continuing. Displays being straightened. Wine being redistributed. The energy shifting from fear into the specific heightened alertness of people performing in front of someone they wanted to impress.
Every tribe was starting to show their goods.
Neve looked at the inventory in front of him.
"I should get the soup out," he said, and stood to leave. He had to find a secret spot for him to take it out.
But as soon as he got off the chair, his legs gave out. It wasn’t enough for him to collapse.
Just... his knees buckled on the way up, and the world tilted, and then Cael’s arms were around him, and they were very close, Neve’s weight caught against Cael’s chest, faces close enough that Neve could see the exact point where Cael’s expression stopped being calm and became something considerably less composed.
"Are you alright?" Cael asked in a very soft voice.
Just as Neve was about to nod, he heard the sound before he understood what it was again.
The pressure landed on the festival like a second drop, heavier than the first. Everyone near them went down again — Soren, the tribe members, Isabella, every person within range.
Cael’s jaw tightened. He stayed upright, barely. He tried with one hand gripping the table edge, but his head was being pressed down by the weight of it. One of his knees was down, and Neve could see that the pressure on Cael was too much.
Worry etched his face as he lifted his eyes against the force and found the podium. He saw Vaelthorn looking directly at them.
"Let them go." Neve’s voice came out rough under the pressure. "Let. Them. Go."