Chapter 2 Darrokar
DARROKAR
The ring caught the light as I flexed my fingers.
Terra's gift gleamed against my dark scales, the metal bright where it wrapped around my knuckle. I'd worn it since the moment she'd given it to me, and each time I caught sight of it, something warm unfurled in my chest.
She'd marked me as surely as I'd claimed her, and I wore her declaration with more pride than any battle scar.
The corridors leading to the Forge Temple stretched before me, carved from the mountain's heart.
Heat crystals embedded in the walls pulsed with dull red light.
The air grew thicker here, heavy with incense and the weight of centuries.
Every surface bore the marks of devotion: sigils etched into stone, offerings left in alcoves, the bones of the mountain itself shaped into reverence.
I'd never loved this place.
The Temple served its purpose. The priests maintained traditions, blessed warriors before battle, oversaw the sacred rites that bound our society together. But there was something oppressive about these halls, something that made my wings want to spread even though the space wouldn't allow it.
Maybe it was the way sound died here, swallowed by stone and ceremony. Maybe it was knowing that Karyseth walked these passages, her fanaticism seeping into the very rock.
Still, I came. The Skalanth required the Temple's participation, and I wouldn't give Karyseth the satisfaction of thinking I feared her domain.
The preparations should be well underway by now. The blood-flame needed to be readied, the ceremonial chambers prepared, the blessing rites scheduled. Jalliun had assured me everything would be handled, but I preferred to see for myself.
I rounded a corner and stopped.
Voices carried from ahead, raised in a way that violated every protocol of temple grounds. Arguing. Here, where even footsteps were supposed to be measured and soft.
I recognized both speakers immediately.
"You twist the teachings to suit your own agenda." Karyseth's voice could have frozen lava. "The ancestors never intended for our sacred spaces to be contaminated by outsider influence."
"The ancestors valued strength and adaptation." Jalliun's response came quieter but no less firm. "They built Scalvaris to endure, not to stagnate. Refusing to evolve is not preservation, it's suicide."
"Careful, priest. Your words border on heresy."
"Truth often does, in the ears of those who fear it."
The passage opened into a small antechamber, one of dozens that branched off the main temple corridors. Karyseth stood with her back to a carved altar, her scales catching the light. Jalliun faced her, shoulders squared, his deep green coloring almost black in the shadows.
"The humans are here." Jalliun's hands remained steady at his sides. "Mated to our finest warriors. They've proven their worth in combat, in strategy, in healing. Denying their value doesn't erase their presence."
"Their presence is the problem." Karyseth's wings rustled. "Every day they remain, they corrupt. They weaken. They teach our warriors to value softness over strength, sentiment over duty."
"They teach our warriors that strength comes in many forms."
"They teach our warriors to forget what they are."
The venom in her words made my fangs ache.
I'd heard this before, in Council chambers and whispered conversations, but hearing it here, in the Temple's heart, felt different.
More dangerous. Karyseth didn't just disapprove of Terra and her brethren.
She hated them with the kind of cold certainty that led to violence.
"What I am," Jalliun said, "is a priest who serves Scalvaris. All of Scalvaris. Not just the parts that conform to your vision of purity."
Karyseth's laugh was sharp enough to draw blood. "Your vision will destroy us."
I chose that moment to step into the light.
Both priests turned, and I watched the argument drain from their postures. Jalliun's expression shifted to respectful acknowledgment. Karyseth's face could have been carved from the same stone as the altar behind her.
"Warrior Lord." She inclined her head, the gesture technically correct but empty of any real deference. "We did not expect you so early."
"Clearly." I let my gaze move between them, making it obvious I'd heard enough. "I trust the preparations are proceeding smoothly, despite the … theological debate."
Jalliun had the grace to look somewhat abashed. Karyseth simply stared at me, and I felt the exact moment her attention fixed on my hand.
On the ring.
Her eyes narrowed. Something flickered across her face, too quick to name but cold enough to feel. When she spoke again, her voice could have stripped flesh from bone.
"I see you wear your corruption proudly, Warrior Lord."
My claws flexed. The ring caught the light again, deliberate. "I wear a gift from my mate. As is my right."
"A gift of foreign influence worming its way into the highest levels of our leadership.
" She took a step forward, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop despite the heat crystals.
"How long before foreign ideas follow? Foreign loyalties?
How long before Scalvaris becomes something unrecognizable, led by a Warrior Lord who values his human's trinkets over his people's traditions? "
The accusation hung in the air.
I could have roared. Could have reminded her exactly who led Scalvaris, who commanded the Blade Council, who'd earned his position through blood and victory and years of service. Could have put her in her place with the kind of authority that left no room for question.
Instead, I smiled.
"My mate," I said, voice soft, "crafted this ring with her own hands.
Worked the forge alongside Vyne, learned our techniques, honored our methods.
She took metal from her fallen ship, the last piece of her old world, and shaped it into something new.
Something that bridges what was with what is.
" I held up my hand, letting the ring gleam.
"If you see corruption in that, High Priestess, perhaps the problem lies not with the gift, but with the eyes that view it. "
Karyseth's scales rippled—a tell she couldn't quite control. Fury. But she was too calculated to let it loose, not here, not now. Instead, she drew herself up, wings folding tight against her back.
"The Skalanth will proceed as tradition demands," she said. "The Temple will fulfill its duties, as we always have. I trust the Warrior Lord will do the same."
It wasn't quite a dismissal. She didn't have the authority for that. But it was close enough to make the insult clear.
She turned and swept from the antechamber, her tail leaving a trail in the dust. I watched her go, tracking the rigid line of her spine, the controlled fury in every movement. She'd retreat now, regroup, plan. Karyseth never acted on impulse. That's what made her dangerous.
When her footsteps finally faded, Jalliun released a breath.
"My apologies, Warrior Lord. That was … unseemly."
I waved off his concern. "Karyseth's opinions are no secret. Better to hear them directly than whispered behind closed doors."
"Still. The Temple should present a unified front, especially during the Skalanth." He moved to one of the wall alcoves, adjusting an offering that had been knocked askew during the argument. "The discord serves no one."
"Discord has always existed. We just pretend otherwise during ceremonies."
That earned me a slight smile. "A cynical view for a Warrior Lord."
"Sit through a council meeting and tell me otherwise."
Jalliun's smile widened fractionally. He was younger than Karyseth by at least two decades, his scales still vibrant green without the fading that came with age. But his eyes held the kind of weariness that had nothing to do with years.
Fighting battles within your own institution did that.
"The preparations are nearly complete," he said, shifting to safer ground. "The ceremonial chamber has been cleansed and blessed. The offering stones have been placed. All that remains is the blood-flame itself."
"And that's ready?"
"Nyx has been overseeing the final stages. You know how particular he is about the work." Jalliun gestured deeper into the temple. "He should be in the preparation chamber now, if you wish to inspect it yourself."
I did. Not because I doubted Nyx's competence, but because seeing the blood-flame, holding it, feeling its heat, made the Skalanth real in a way that reports and schedules couldn't match.
"Thank you, Jalliun." I started toward the passage he'd indicated, then paused. "Your position can't be easy."
He met my gaze steadily. "My position is to serve the Temple and the city. Sometimes those duties align. Sometimes they don't. I do what I believe is right."
I left him there, his silhouette dark against the crystal's light, and headed deeper into the Temple's warren.
The preparation chamber sat at the end of a corridor that sloped downward, taking me closer to the mountain's molten heart.
The heat intensified with every step, pressing against my scales.
Most Drakarn found it uncomfortable. I'd always liked it.
Heat meant the forge, and the forge meant creation. Weapons born from fire and will.
I stepped through and found Nyx bent over the sacred forge, his steel-gray scales slicked with sweat and soot. He didn't look up, focused entirely on the piece before him. The blood-flame rested in a cradle of heat-resistant stone, glowing with an inner light born of forge fire.
Beautiful.
The gem was the size of my fist, multifaceted, each surface catching and throwing light in shades of red and gold.
It pulsed like a heartbeat, warm and alive.
Legend said it had been cut from the mountain's core when Scalvaris was first founded, blessed by the original priests, bathed in the blood of the first Warrior Lord.
The blood-flame was sacred, and retrieving it from the Temple's heart was the goal of the Skalanth.