Chapter 2
Tristan
Ihave always believed there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who see a locked door and wonder what’s behind it, and those who see a locked door and search for a key.
I have always wanted to see what was hidden, and maybe that’s why I became a professor. I spent years studying history, conflict resolution, and supernatural diplomacy, much to my parents’ dismay.
I’ve always been fascinated by dragons. Not because they could shift or breathe fire, although, admittedly, that part is pretty incredible, but because they are living history. Dragons are a species that remember things humans have only written about.
They preserve the kind of knowledge that gets buried when people stop asking questions. And I have always been a person who asks questions. According to Heston, too many questions.
The first thing I notice when I walk into the mansion is that history has never looked this expensive.
I have studied old civilizations and walked through museums. I’ve stood in places where decisions were made that changed the world, but this is different.
It isn’t preserved history; it’s alive. There are stories here.
In the walls, the art, and the people who call this place theirs.
And I desperately want to know all of them.
“You’re smiling,” Lachlan says quietly beside me.
Heston glances at me. “That’s concerning.”
I laugh. “Why?”
“Because you’re looking at a dragon mansion like a kid in a candy store.”
“That is inaccurate,” I gesture around us. “This is significantly better than candy.”
Heston gives me a flat look, emptying his glass and setting it on a tray and grabbing another as a server hurries past.
I roll my eyes, focusing on a nearby tapestry. We’ve always been opposites. Where Heston analyzes everything, I explore everything. Where Heston sees potential danger, I see potential information.
Both approaches have kept us alive. The military taught us that.
Different people survive different things.
Heston was the person you wanted beside you when everything went wrong.
He could look at chaos and find the pattern.
I was the person who wanted to understand why the chaos happened in the first place.
Lachlan, bless him, was the person who reminded us both that we were still human.
Somehow, it worked. Three completely different people. One brotherhood.
I adjust my mask as we move deeper into the ballroom.
The decorations are beautiful, perfect down to the tiniest detail. Dragons have a reputation for being meticulous. The food wasn’t just expensive. It was carefully chosen. The music is arranged to tell a story.
Even the costumes have meaning. Some represent family histories, others represent cultural traditions, and some are just chosen for their beauty.
“You’re going to ask someone about their mask, aren’t you?” Heston asks.
I look at him. “Possibly. Why?”
“Because every time you get interested in something, people accidentally become part of a three-hour conversation.”
“That happened once,” I protest.
“It happened just last week.”
“The person was interested.”
“The person was trapped and desperate to escape,” Lachlan laughs. “But, to be fair, Tristan, you do have a talent for making strangers feel like lifelong friends.”
I smile.
I’ll take that as a compliment, because I think connection matters. And maybe that’s why I teach. My specialty is supernatural cultural studies and military history, specifically the relationship between humans and dragons during and after the war.
A very specific field. One that didn’t exist when I was a kid. Now I teach future diplomats, historians, and military officers about how two species with centuries of distrust between them learned to stand beside each other. And I love it.
I am halfway through a conversation with an older dragon gentleman about post-war treaties when I feel the room change.
Nothing overt. Just a ripple of awareness.
Every conversation around me lowers slightly, and people look upward.
I follow their gaze and then I forget how to speak. Because something enormous crosses the moon.
At first, I think it’s a shadow. Then silver scales catch the light, gliding toward the balcony that overlooks the cliffs and obsidian lake.
The dragon is massive and impossibly beautiful. Its wings stretch wide enough that the entire room seems to hold its breath. Silver with streaks of lavender shimmering across its scales.
The dragon lands with impossible grace, and the balcony doors open. Cold night air rushes inside, but no one moves or dares to speak as they stare.
For one moment, every person in the ballroom is simply witnessing something ancient. Rare.
The dragon shifts, and the transformation is breathtaking, the magic moving like light across water. Scales become skin, and wings give way to human form. The creature standing on the balcony is no longer a dragon.
She’s a woman, and even from across the room, I understand why everyone is staring.
“Who is that?” I ask quietly, unable to tear my eyes away from her, needing to be closer to drink in every detail.
Nobody answers because everyone is whispering, and I only catch pieces.
“Is that—”
“Impossible!”
“She hasn’t attended one of these in years.”
“That’s Sequoia.”
The name spreads quickly.
“Who is Sequoia?”
Heston looks at me. “You don’t know?”
I shrug. “I know thousands of years of dragon history. I don’t know every member of every family.”
I look back toward the crowd. The woman from the balcony is moving slowly through the ballroom. People part without realizing they’re doing it, turning to look at her.
She doesn’t act like someone who expects, or particularly wants, attention. She stops every few feet, speaking with attendees, smiling as she listens.
The room is fascinated by her, and she seems genuinely interested in everyone, and that tells me more than any rumor could.
“She’s the daughter of the family,” someone near us whispers.
I turn slightly. The speaker is an older woman wearing an elaborate golden mask.
“Youngest daughter,” another person responds.
“She just turned twenty-one.”
“Tonight is likely the announcement.”
“About time.”
“Her family has been waiting.”
Waiting for what? I want to ask, but I don’t. One of the first rules of research is knowing when observation is more valuable than interruption.
I watch Sequoia move through the room.
There is something unusual about the reaction to her.
Dragons are respected, but this is different. People aren’t just impressed. They’re invested.
I glance at Heston, surprised to see that he’s watching her too.
“You’re curious,” I say.
He looks at me. “I’m observing.”
The thing about curiosity is that it doesn’t feel like danger. It feels like possibility.
I feel lucky, like I’m witnessing history standing here, watching a dragon princess—because let’s be honest, that is essentially what she is—walk through a room full of people who have spent generations building bridges between two worlds.
She eventually disappears deeper into the crowd.
The music gets livelier and conversation resumes, but the mood has changed. Everyone knows that something happened, even if nobody knows what.
Something about tonight feels important. Something about this mansion and the crowd. The dragon.
Sequoia.
I don’t know what it means yet, but I have spent my entire adult life studying the moments that changed history. And my instincts are telling me this is one of those moments.
The funny thing is, for once, I don’t want to study it from a distance.
I want to see what happens next.