"Your uncle...?" Lorraine asked quietly, though her heart already knew the answer.
The reason they had chosen a naïve, wet-behind-the-ears scribe was obvious now: he was ant to vanish once the task was done. n who held knowledge of such deliberate erasures were never allowed to live long enough to speak of them.
Emma’s voice trembled, but she t Lorraine’s gaze. "He escaped in the middle of the night, the mont he understood their intentions. But they caught up with him." She swallowed hard. "He died back in our hotown... The uncle who taught to swim was found drowned in a shallow creek."
Lorraine’s chest tightened. "My condolences," she murmured, reaching to hold Emma’s hand.
"Thank you," Emma whispered. The mory seed to settle like a stone in the room. She finally understood why Aldric had warned her so fiercely. If she had spoken carelessly, she would have shared her uncle’s fate. Perhaps, in his brusque way, Aldric had been trying to protect her.
"The mark wasn’t present on every Dravenholt," Aldric began, drawing their attention. His tone had shifted, and it was calr, but weighty. "Though many prominent n of that House bore it. The earliest known was Tharian Dravenholt himself. His mark resembled a spiral of fla coiled on his left cheek. In his ti, it was celebrated as the Spiral Fla, a symbol of those destined to defend the House of the Dragon with passion and ferocity."
Lorraine leaned forward. "So... its aning changed?"
Aldric nodded slowly. "After the fall of House Dragon, the mark’s aning was twisted... Or the true aning was revealed. What was once a sign of loyalty ca to be called the Mark of the Usurper, the fire that turns inward, consuming its bearer’s loyalty until nothing remains."
"Usurped?" Lorraine repeated, her brow furrowing.
"You’ve all heard the embellished tale," Aldric said bitterly. "The brave Lion and Bear overthrowing a tyrant. A clean story for court poets to sing." He exhaled sharply. "But the truth is far from it. The Dragon King was beloved by commoners and nobles alike. And the Lion and the Bear, his most trusted companions, turned on him. They called his kindness a weakness. They desired his throne."
Lorraine felt the blood drain from her face. So it had been a betrayal.
Aldric’s gaze grew distant, as if he were reciting sothing etched deep in mory. "They invited him to a feast on the banks of the Serathil River. A place sacred to them, the very site where the two had once knelt and sworn their loyalty to the Dragon, sealing the River Pact beneath the starlit sky." His voice softened. "The Dragon ca in good faith, with an open heart. And there, at that sacred riverbank, his friends stabbed him in the back."
Lorraine’s breath caught.
"The River Pact was broken in blood," Aldric continued, his voice resonant and solemn, like the toll of an ancient bell echoing through forgotten halls. "They say that as the Dragon fell, his blood splashed across the treacherous face of the Lion. And with his dying breath, the Dragon cursed the Dravenholt line: that every false heir would bear a mark upon their face, a reminder of betrayal, until the true heir returned bearing the fla of the Dragon to reclaim what was lost."
He paused, wetting his lips as if to steady himself. "From that day onward, every heir of House Dravenholt carried a mark upon their cheek—each one different in shape, yet all appearing in the sa place: beneath the right eye, upon the cheekbone. It was both a legacy and a warning, branding their bloodline for all to see. For the late king, the Dowager’s husband, it was a waning crescent, a symbol many whispered to be an on of the Dravenholt line’s twilight."
Silence gathered in the chamber like a low, settling fog, heavy and inescapable. The old legend of the Lion and the Bear, the River Pact, the betrayal... it no longer felt like so distant fireside tale. Its echoes reached forward through the centuries, curling like unseen hands around their present.
Lorraine closed her eyes. She could almost see it now: the Dragon King on the riverbank, his eyes wide with disbelief as the blades of his trusted companions plunged into him. Did they laugh as they betrayed him? Did they twist their blades to make him suffer? She pictured him reaching toward them, toward friends who had beco executioners, struggling to understand the treachery.
Her chest tightened. It was too cruel to dwell on.
"The mark of the heir..." Lorraine whispered, her voice barely breaking the silence. "A fla." She opened her eyes slowly. That reddish mark on her husband’s pale skin... it had always stood out so vividly. "The usurper bore twin, coiled flas," she said softly. "But the true heir carries the single fla—the symbol of the Great Dragon."
Aldric inclined his head gravely. "No one now rembers the exact banner of House Dragon. The usurpers saw to that. But the old songs speak of a crimson fla on a field of gold. They say that when the armies of the Dragon advanced, the sight of that red and gold banner blazing in the wind struck terror into their enemies long before the clash of steel began."
The silence settled as everything felt real, too close, in the distance they could touch. And the future... it made their heart heavy to think about it. To be part of such a history, and watching it this close...
"Why would he want the true heir to be born from the very lines that betrayed him?" Lorraine asked, bewildered. The thought struck her as cruel—almost tragic.
"Because the Swan Oracle foresaw it," Aldric replied. His tone softened, taking on a rhythm like that of an old ballad as he recited in High Veyrani:
"From Lion and Bear, the bloodline kept veiled,
The heir of the Dragon, by fate now unveiled..."
A faint, almost wry smile curved his lips. "Poetic, isn’t it? That the blood of the Lion and brought up in the traditions of the Bear, from the traitors, the blade that ends them will appear. A fitting retaliation. The Dragon doesn’t rise from the ashes alone; he rises through their blood. The very blood that betrayed him will be the blood that undoes them."
Lorraine exhaled slowly, a weary sigh escaping her. "He isn’t soone who would turn his blade on his family, Aldric. I know him."
Aldric held her gaze in silence. His expression didn’t contradict her, but neither did it agree. His eyes were steady, shadowed by knowledge she perhaps wasn’t ready to face.
He might not be that man... not yet.
But he would be... when his heart was cornered. When everything he loved was threatened.
When she was threatened.
-----
Keeping everything in mind, Lorraine walked back toward her bedchambers. But as soon as she stepped through the archway, she paused—Aralyn was there, locked in a heated argunt with Leroy.
The sight made Lorraine’s lips curve into a small, knowing smile. Of course. It wasn’t difficult to guess the cause. Aralyn’s sharp tone and rigid posture made it clear she wasn’t pleased about Lorraine’s belongings being moved into Leroy’s room. And her husband, equally stubborn, stood his ground, jaw set, refusing to back down.
She knew that look on him all too well. He was seconds away from saying sothing he couldn’t take back.
Before that happened, Lorraine swept forward, skirts whispering against the floor, and caught Leroy’s arm. "Leroy," she murmured urgently, tugging him a few steps aside. She wanted to defuse the situation before the tension between mother and son cut too deep.
After all, Aralyn must have already recognized her son in him, even if Leroy himself remained unaware of the truth. The last thing Lorraine wanted was for careless words to wound either of them.
But before she could speak, Aralyn’s voice cracked through the room: authoritative, cold, and biting.
"Such insolence! You wear him thin with your demands," she said sharply, her tone steeped in the practiced dominance of a matriarch. "Have you forgotten your place in this household? Your conduct reeks of indulgence, not virtue. A husband is to be honored, not harnessed like a beast."
Lorraine blinked.
What did she say?
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