CHAPTER SEVEN
Ronan
THE ROCKY EXPANSE OF RYUU SPRAWLED beneath a veil of gloom; terrain painted in muted sand and silvered stone.
Above it, stitched into the bruised sky, lay the fortress of Sahfyre—the heart of Ryuu.
From afar, it looked abandoned. Almost forgotten. A lone tower clawing against endless clouds, its spine twisted and unyielding.
To the world beyond, it was a palace of bleak misery. Where the sun never shined, where flame burned in place of warmth.
But to the dragons, whose legends were forged from within its fire, and wings were free to rise above the sea’s madness where fear couldn’t touch them, it was sanctuary.
Colossal statues jutted from the walls, beasts frozen mid-snarl, keeping watch. Their teeth were blades, swords stolen from the hands of warriors who had tried, and failed, to lay claim to dragon territory a lifetime ago.
Ronan moved across the sands of Sahfyre’s hidden shore, each step sinking heavier than the last as he closed in toward his throne. The breeze tugged at his sleeves, a warm, salty contrast against the crisp pine air he had been breathing these past weeks.
He paused and looked up at what his father had built.
The mountain fortress glowed from within, shafts of aureate light cutting through carved-out windows.
His arms hung at his sides, useless, while memory climbed onto his shoulders. He remembered standing here as a boy, dreaming of crowns, of swords. Of futures worthy of the name he carried.
Now he stood here as a man, facing the truth of it all. Every light inside that mountain felt like a pair of eyes, watching, judging.
The dead had long since gone to ash, yet he could still feel their disgust seeping through.
And Ronan D’Vyre, the unworthy heir, could only look down.
He tore his gaze from the castle, from the judgment, from the burden of the obligation he carried. Let the dead look down all they wished.
He had endured worse.
The shore drew him instead, where waves folded endlessly, curling like white talons.
No ship would ever glimpse this territory from the Sapphire Sea. No outsider would ever know this place even existed. The mountain’s bulk sheltered it, cloaked it in illusion.
The last gift from gods who had once favored dragons.
Even in their absence, the ward held.
He kicked off his boots, stepping into the surf where warm waters lapped at his ankles. The sand welcomed his weight, soft and consuming, until he sank into it, legs stretched out, shoulders slowly loosening, his stance easing for the first time in weeks.
A stolen moment of peace. Weak and fleeting, but real.
Smoke bled from his pores, curling around him in a lazy veil. It cloaked his body, blurred his edges, smothered his face as he tilted his head back. The only thing that ever soothed the riot inside him.
He let it drown every thought that screamed too loud. Let it heal in the way only it could.
The ocean moved in slow rhythm. Rising. Falling. A tide that matched his breath, just as it always had.
It broke when movement stirred behind him, sand shifting, a cloak, dark and umber, flowing in the breeze. He didn’t have to look to know who had already found him. The one man who carried his presence like the calm tide.
Aero came to sit beside him, saying nothing at first. Just breathing in the sea with him. Just being there.
Ronan had dreaded this conversation since the moment he’d returned. He let the smoke shroud recede from his face in a slow exhale.
“I know what you’re going to say.” His knees drew up, his arms hanging loose over them. His eyes stay fixed on the horizon, where sea and sky blurred into a smear of gray.
“I doubt that,” Aero answered.
His voice was calm, kind, even now. Even after everything. Even when Ronan had done nothing to deserve it.
Ronan finally looked at him. Gold hair fell down Aero’s back, streaked with silver and deep red—like flame tangled with a lunar flare. The lingering imprint of the crown still marked his brow; even bare of it, the man still wore sovereignty like a second skin.
“They look at you and they see hope, Aero. Strength in more than just fire or fear. Not the kind that conquers, but the kind that makes a king worth embracing, worth following. They bowed for you when you were crowned,” Ronan whispered the words, like it cost him.
“They chose you. They will never bow for me.”
Aero didn’t deny it or soothe him with lies. Only turned those pale blue eyes on Ronan with no pity or punishment, just quiet understanding for a man who could still be more.
Ronan’s jaw flexed as he stood abruptly, pacing where the tide curled along the sand. “He would be so ashamed of who I’ve become.”
He didn’t need to say the name. The word father was already a stone in his stomach, souring everything it touched.
Rhydan lived in every memory of this mountain, every expectation.
Aero rose too, a frown shadowing his face. He had never tried to replace Rhydan; he knew better. Knew that wasn’t what Ronan had needed when Rhydan fell.
Instead, he had offered something else entirely. Guidance, steadiness, a place to land when Ronan’s rage threatened to scald him. And fates burn him down, he had hoped that balance might be enough.
“You think you are unlike him,” Aero said, stepping straight into Ronan’s storm.
His hands closed firm around Ronan’s shoulders, forcing him to stop, to meet his stare.
Smoke wove, twining between them, but it didn’t scorch Aero, didn’t push him back.
“I see so much of him in you.” His grip tightened.
“As I’ve told you, the Rhydan you remember was breaking.
His heart, his soul, his mind… all fractured long before the end.
He didn’t hold you back because you weren’t worthy.
” Aero shook his head once. “He did it because he refused to let you shatter the same way he did.”
Ronan’s face twisted, shoulders knotting tight. “I was forged from that fracture.”
“Not your heart.” Aero jabbed a finger hard into Ronan’s chest. “This?” That same hand swept wide, as if to gather the whole of Ryuu in his palm.
“I know it’s what you run from and what you wish to save.
I know it’s why you’ve been absent. But saving them doesn’t mean running.
Stay,” Aero offered. “Be seen. Let them remember who their prince is.” His grip fell away, leaving Ronan exposed to air and truth in equal measure. “They miss you—”
Ronan turned away, stare dragging out to the sea. He didn’t trust the thing reaching up his throat.
“Aelora misses you,” Aero added, quieter now.
The words landed shrill. Ronan flexed his fingers, then squeezed them both into fists.
“It’s not as bad here as you pretend,” Aero said. “Not anymore.”
That was when the darkness surged. Ronan’s power climbed his frame, wrapping him in murk, leaving only his face uncovered. “Aelora deserves better.”
Aero didn’t move, only folded his arms across his chest, as though smoke and threat meant nothing to him. “No kidding,” he added with a scoff. “I remind her every day.” Then, softer, he winked. “Fatherly obligations.”
Thunder rolled overhead, splitting the sky where shadows broke through the clouds. Their vast silhouettes blurred in and out, wings cutting through as they swept against the dusk.
Five, maybe more, rising from Sahfyre’s peak, circling.
Dragons.
Two dove from the cliff’s edge, plummeting before their wings snapped open with bone-deep force.
Beneath Ronan’s skin, his dormant soul stirred, itching along his spine. His heart thudded with the old instinct, the old deprivation.
It had been weeks since he had taken to his true form in Luamis. Weeks since he’d let the clouds claim him.
But twenty years since he’s felt his own kingdom’s air beneath him.
The sea called to him now. But the sky... the sky dared.
Even one flight over Ryuu would be enough, to signal the message he was not here to spread.
That the heir prince had returned. That he was prepared to claim what waited on the throne.
Vapor curled tighter around him, then retreated, sliding back to unveil his shoulders, his chest. They lingered there, like hands. Like chains.
He opened his mouth to speak, knowing it was the reason Aero sought him out in the first place. “Elysian tells me more of the Kaida have gone missing.”
The vapor slithered downward, around his legs, his feet, ready to lift him skyward if he so much as commanded.
Aero’s face shuttered, the calm at last replaced by hardness. “Did he also tell you how many reports I’ve sent?”
He had. Every damned one. If Ronan had believed any of them dire enough to force his return, he would have come sooner.
Aero exhaled, gaze shifting toward the fortress. “It’s not just the Kaida anymore.” Ronan’s head snapped toward him. “Mimics too,” Aero noted. “They’ve started vanishing the same way. Quiet. Untraceable. As though they were never there.”
The words sank, bitter seawater as Ronan swallowed, falling into step with Aero as they coasted along the shoreline. “How are you sure?”
“Mimics are vastly misunderstood,” Aero murmured, almost to himself. “I used to watch them in the Firen Forest. Wondrous creatures, so curious and clever. Shifting into whatever form amused them—”
Ronan’s snort cut him clean. “Interesting. I know another breed who was imprisoned for such a trait.”
Aero’s eyes narrowed. “Elysian was rightfully freed.”
Ronan bared teeth, just a flash, reminding him who tore the kingdom apart, who sacrificed, to buy that freedom.
Aero sucked in a sharp breath, shoulders rising.
“I know they don’t compare. I know the mimics are overpopulated, that they can drive breeds to extinction.
That’s not the point.” His tone softened, pride finding its way in despite the grim topic.
“I studied them, I learned their patterns, their quirks. Even their weaknesses. I can spot a mimic in any crowd, in any form. That is how I noticed the sudden decline.”
Ronan’s silence said enough about his disinterest on the topic. Aero caught it, the tension written across Ronan’s jaw, but pressed on anyway.
“Regardless,” he continued, “I’ll be sending a small team after the Kaida. The mimics won’t tip the balance, but the Kaida…” Air eased from his chest. “If they vanish, the realm will feel it. You will feel it too, Ronan.”
A wave broke higher along the sand, brushing Ronan’s ankles, whispering in its pull. All he gave was a curt nod.
“I wish to send Inessa and Kanoa.” Aero moved back from the tide. “Perhaps one or two others. To search, quietly.”
Ronan inhaled softly, exhaling heavily. “Why such an elite group?”
Aero blinked, taken aback. “Why...Ronan, no one can find them. This is unlikely an attack on the Kaida themselves. They’re not prey in this moment. If their essence was spilling, the realm itself would show it. I fear this is something far worse—”
“I know what the Kaida are,” Ronan cut in. “But send newbloods. Not my warriors.”
Obsidian breath rose, rolling up Ronan’s torso, cloaking him in living shadow. When it peeled back, Aero cursed, averting his eyes.
What stood before him now wasn’t a prince, but a power the mountain had forged itself.
Ronan stepped deeper into the surf, a sheer curtain of darkness still moving with him as water reached for his thighs.
Over his shoulder, he said, “Send one high-ranked if you must. But keep Inessa and Kanoa here. I may have need for them.”
Aero opened his mouth to protest, but Ronan was already gone, a blur of dusk and muscle diving into the white-crest waves. The sea closed over him, its surface already stilling, calm again as the half-moon lulled it to sleep.
Aero remained on the shoreline, waiting, watching what the ocean refused to give back. Listening to the hush that followed.
Only then did he whisper, words meant for the deep, “They’re not just disappearing, Ronan. They’re being hunted.”