A Winter Dragon Daddy (The Everflame Dragon Daddies #1)

Prologue

Ten thousand years ago, the world was fire and frost.

From the volcanic peaks of the Emberfall Range, dragons ruled the skies—ancient, proud, their wings blotting the sun.

In the endless emerald depths of the Verdant Glades, elves wove light and song into living magic, their cities grown from seed and starlight.

Between them stretched the Ashen Marches, a wasteland of cracked earth and forgotten gods.

Then came the Harsh Winter.

Ice wights—mindless, endless—poured from the shattered north, freezing rivers, cracking mountains, devouring all in their path.

Dragons fell first, their fire no match for eternal cold.

Elves watched from crystal spires, debating intervention.

It was Lirael who broke the stalemate, flying on wings of woven light to the Emberfall Aerie.

There, she cut her palm over the Heartforge and offered alliance to Queen Veyra.

“Together,” she said, “we are unstoppable.”

Thus was born the Pact of Ember and Vine.

Dragon blood and elf-song forged the Emberflame—a weapon of pure creation that turned wights to steam.

For a millennium, the races were one people.

Dragon riders bore elf mages into battle on wings of scale and light.

Elf song-weavers tempered dragon fire into precision.

Cities rose where none had stood: sky-bridges of living vine and stone, forges that burned with eternal flame.

Children were born with scales and pointed ears, speaking both tongues.

The world healed.

But peace breeds complacency.

When the wights were gone, old grudges returned.

Dragons hoarded knowledge; elves hoarded land.

The Pact frayed. On the night of the Crimson Moon, elf High Mages lured the Emberfall clan to parley under false truce.

They bound them with blood-chains and drained them to fuel a spell meant to sever the Pact forever.

Queen Isolde broke free long enough to burn the spell—and herself—with it.

The betrayal shattered trust. Dragons retreated to the high peaks.

Elves sealed their borders. The Emberflame was lost.

Centuries passed.

The Ashen Marches birthed Revaster, a scribe who survived Isolde’s fire and stole the Emberflame’s echo.

He twisted it into the fire stone—a soul-leech that siphons life to feed his immortality.

With it, he conquered the southern kingdoms, cursing villages, binding bloodlines, seeking to finish what the Crimson Moon began: the annihilation of dragonkind and the subjugation of elves.

Now, in the shadow of the ruined Drak’Vahl, a thief and a dragon stand at the crossroads of history.

One cursed stone. One fragile bond.

The Pact of Ember and Vine hangs by a thread.

And the world waits to see if love can mend what betrayal broke.