The sight filled me with a strange mixture of longing and revulsion.
As I drew closer to the main gate, my heart began to race with anticipation. The guards came into view. Some were young dragons in their human forms, standing alongside trusted human warriors. These were men and women I had chosen personally, each one selected for their loyalty, their skill, and their unwavering dedication to protecting our people. My stomach lurched as I drew closer and their faces became clearer.
Kael stood at the left pillar, his dark hair falling across his forehead in the way that always reminded me of his mother. He was only sixty-three years old, still a child by dragon standards, but his potential had impressed me from the moment I met him. I stumbled as the memory of the [Hero]’s sword piercing his chest filled my vision. Tears threatened to well up in the corners of my eyes.
Next to him stood Meredith, a human woman whose grandfather had served his entire life in the empire’s Army. Her family had served mine for three generations, and I had personally overseen her training. Eight years from now, she would stand beside me, even when most of humanity didn’t. Another wave of grief, and even guilt, washed over me. If I didn’t change things, she’d be torn in half by a bolt of lightning unleashed from a farmer’s hand, as a reward for her loyalty.
For a moment, I wanted nothing more than to run to them and embrace them. To promise that I would save them. That I would save us all. My pride held me back, memories of my mother’s lessons reverberated in my mind.
“An empress does not grovel and grope at her subordinates. She stands tall and demands their respect.”
I straightened my shoulders and approached with the confidence of an empress returning to her throne.
The words were already forming on my lips, a simple announcement of my identity that should clear up any confusion. They wouldn’t expect my human form, yes, but they would know me by my spiritual presence. They would recognize their empress, regardless of the shape she wore.
“Good evening, Kael,” I began, my voice carrying the authority of centuries of rule. “It’s good—”
The words died in my throat.
Kael’s eyes passed over me, with the bored expression of a tired vulture, glancing at a piece of bone that had been picked clean days ago. There was no recognition in his gaze. No spark of awareness. He looked at me the way he might look at any stranger approaching the palace gates: with mild interest and professional detachment.
“Do I know you?” He drawled, leaning forward. I felt his gaze as it washed over every part of my body, inspecting me.
Sadness flushed through me, immediately replaced by fury. How could he not recognize me? I was his Empress. He had spilled blood for me, and I, for him.
Meredith’s expression mirrored Kael’s. Polite, but distant. The other guards showed no signs of recognition, either. To them, I was nothing more than a small, unremarkable human woman standing before them in the dying twilight.
“State your business,” Meredith said, her voice carrying the flat professionalism of a guard who has repeated the same words thousands of times.
State my business? The demand was so absurd that, for a moment, I couldn’t even process it. I was the [Empress of Dragons].
This was my palace. These were my guards. This entire city was my business.
“How dare you speak to me this way!” Despite the rage burning in my chest, the words felt feeble and weak. I continued, unwilling to submit to their stony stares. “I built this—”
A hand lashed out at me, and I tasted leather as my head recoiled to the side.
Meredith stepped back, her leather-gloved hand falling back to the sword hilt at her side. She watched me with stern eyes. Pity flashed across Kael’s.
I flicked my tongue against my lips and tasted… iron? Had she slapped me hard enough to make me bleed?
The realization was a blade to my chest. The audacity of it all was oil on the flames of my anger.
“Touch me again,” I swore, my voice a hissing whisper, “and I will turn your bones to ash.”
I reached deep inside myself, feeling for the transformation that should be as natural as breathing. Reached for the rush of dragonfire that fills one’s spirit, as their body is reshaped from form to form.
If they could not recognize me as a human, if they were so blind they could not recognize their Empress when she stood before them, then they would kneel at my feet, and beg forgiveness.
The shift from human to dragon is something I had done thousands of times. It was a flowing change from one state to another. Like ice melting into water. But when I reached for my dragon form, nothing happened.
I pushed harder, forcing my will into the change. My authority. I was the master of these lands. This kingdom. This entire godsdamned planet. I would not be so disrespected by those beneath me.
My human body should have dissolved, replaced by scales and wings and the terrible majesty of my true self. Instead, lightning shot through my body. Pain, so intense it drove me to my knees. My vision blurred, and the golden window appeared again, its text burning across my sight.
Insufficient Power.
Skill: Dragon Form not unlocked.
My fists clenched with the pain, and sweat beaded on my skin. Confusion ripped through the anger. Anguish filled my gut. What had happened to my dragon form? My dragon form wasn’t a skill. It was part of me. Calling it a skill was like saying breathing was a skill. It isn’t. It’s a necessity.
The guards stared at me, their expressions shifting from boredom to alert and curious. Kael took a step forward, his hand moving to the sword at his side.
“Fancy yourself a dragon, do you?” His gaze shifted from pity to anger.
I winced at the accusation. At the words written on the golden window that filled my vision. Kael leaned closer, golden light surrounding him as he leaned through it, his narrowed eyes inches from mine.
“I suggest you clear out of here before I have to show you what a real dragon is capable of.”
My anger still burned, but I knew from the way the pain still filled my body that I couldn’t force those words back down his throat. Heat flushed through my cheeks, my humiliation painted for all to see.
I pushed away from them, stumbling to my feet. Kael straightened as I shuffled backward, my boots catching on the cobblestones of the street.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, and I turned away, stumbling toward a street that led away from the palace. Away from my home. I wasn’t sure how far my feet carried me, the tears leaking down my cheeks as I ran.
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I didn’t see the big man until it was too late.
I crashed into him, sending us both sprawling to the stones with grunts and his exclamation of “What in the seven hells?”
I swiped at my face as I tried to clear my vision.
“Well, what do we have here, boys?” I heard the voice say. I turned my gaze to the big man, who was standing again, his broad-shouldered form looming over me. In that moment, I felt smaller than I ever had.
“Apologies,” I stammered, trying to dampen the anger and sadness battling within me. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
The words were like ash in my mouth, my tongue dry as I spoke them. Something screamed within me that he should be the one groveling, not me.
“It’s okay,” the big man said.
I’d managed to blink away most of the tears now and could see the smile that had stretched across his face. Dirty. Missing teeth stared back at me, a large scar cut the skin across his face. It had healed long ago, leaving only a mark against his features.
“The boys and I were just having ?a pleasant stroll through the city. We were looking for a little more fun, how good we ran into you.”
Panic spiked through me, my vision focusing fully for the first time since our collision as my body moved into an alerted state. There were six of them, including the big man. And they all had a hazy look in their eyes, as if they’d been out drinking.
Gold glimmered in my vision.
New Quest: Escape.
Quest Objective: You are in danger. You should run.
Where could I run? The palace was back the way I’d come—a path now blocked by six drunken men.
“Again, my apologies,” I muttered, pushing myself to my feet. The words were bitter each time I spoke them. I should not have to apologize to men. “I have somewhere to be.”
With that, I turned and ran, pushing my feet hard against the cobbles as I did. I heard them yell behind me, but I didn’t turn to see if they gave chase. I needed to get away. I wasn’t sure why the System had warned me about those men, but the implications in their words and its warning were all I needed to know to give them space.
My stomach twisted as I careened around a corner, slamming into a building’s wall with a thud. The cool air stung against my throat as I breathed in deeply, my feet still carrying me onward. I was further from the palace now, but if I could just get back to the gate, the guards would protect me. Even if they didn’t know me. They would not let these men take me.
I ran for several minutes, trying to double around to the palace. But in my haste the streets were a maze. My perspective skewed by my smaller form. I'd become so used to seeing everything from above.
I took another turn, this time stumbling into one of the public gardens that dotted the city. It was a closed-in affair, one with a single entrance. I pulled myself to a stop, trying to catch my breath as my heart pounded in my ears.
Had I lost them?
I listened closely, and when I didn’t hear exclamations or the sound of running footsteps, I let myself collapse against the wall. Maybe I didn’t need to make it back to the palace gate after all.
Still breathing heavily, I turned my attention to the garden around me. Maybe there was somewhere I could hide for the rest of the night. The idea was despicable, to say the least, but I entertained it anyway. I had nothing to my name at that moment in time, and no idea what I had somehow managed to get myself into.
The drunken brutes aside, I had an entire otherworldly thing sending me messages in my head. At least, I was almost positive they were in my head, as the men hadn’t responded to the glowing golden letters that had appeared between us. Giving myself time to figure that out was the smartest move, so I began to move through the garden, taking everything in.
The space was dedicated to the memory of the Third Age, when dragons and humans first stood together against the demon incursions that would become a lasting part of our legacy to protect humanity.
A statue of my father dominated the center of the space, his bronze form frozen in the moment of breathing fire against a host of shadow creatures. The tears welled up greater at the sight of it. It was more than a reminder of the legacy he had left behind. It was a stake in my heart. A cruel reminder of my lost form.
I caught my reflection in the muted colors of his front foot. Despite the dim magelight, I could see my reflection clearly enough. Confusion spiked through my emotions once more. The tears slowed, as I reached a trembling hand up to my face.
A face I did not recognize stared back at me. Fury. Anguish. Disgust. More emotions welled up in me than I had ever felt at once, each one fighting to be the most pervasive.
Who am I?
The question echoed through my mind like a shout in an empty canyon. Confusion seeped into my earlier determination. How was I supposed to garner support to stop the [Hero] from fulfilling his goals if nobody could recognize me? Before, I had still seen myself as the [Empress of Dragons]. But now… now what was I?
Any hope I had of hoarding treasures and knowledge and connections felt so far out of reach with that realization. I was nothing more than just another human, in a nation of millions.
I collapsed onto a bench beneath my father’s shadow, my human body trembling with exhaustion and shock. The garden was quiet, except for the gentle burble of a fountain, the drip of rain, and the distant sounds of the city as it settled deeper into evening.
I needed to understand this System. I needed to know what had been done to me, and how to undo it. If I wanted any chance of stopping the destruction coming six years from now, I had to figure out the way forward.
“What am I supposed to do?” I whispered into the darkness.
A golden window materialized immediately, as if it had been waiting for my question.
Skill: Dragon Form. Shed your human skin and take on the true form of a dragon. Requirement: Level 35.
Level 35? That number felt impossibly large. I had no idea what levels were supposed to mean, so I asked the next logical question.
“What Level am I?”
Current Level: 1 — Experience to next level: 0/500XP
The absurdity of it would have been laughable, if it wasn’t so horrifying. Thirty-four ‘Levels’ between me and my true form. Thirty-four Levels between me and a power that couldn’t even stand against Marcus Ashworth.
What are experience points? The thought formed in my mind, but before I could voice it, laughter echoed from the street outside the garden’s entrance.
Six men stepped into the circle of light cast by the magelight fountain. My heart dropped as I recognized the big man in the center.
Now that I could see them more clearly, I understood why the System had warned me about them. There was something in their movements that spoke of violence barely held in check. I could see it in how they walked. How their shoulders rolled and their fists clenched at their sides.
Like predators stalking their prey. I’d seen it too many times in soldiers who enjoyed killing for sport.
The big man grinned as his eyes found me.
“I thought you came this way. What did I say boys?” His voice was low, almost growling. The way it grated against my ears sent gooseflesh rippling across my skin.
The others voiced their affirmations, spreading out around him. Most of them moved with clumsy steps, as if they had never done something like this. One of them, a thin man with nervous eyes, looked toward the garden’s entrance as if watching for witnesses.
“You are a pretty thing, aren’t you?” another one purred, his gaze traveling over my human form in a way that made my skin crawl even more.
Anger flared through me like hot dragonfire, ready to explode. I’d always known that people who only sought to prey upon the weak existed. But I’d trusted others to take care of that. Perhaps a part of me had spent too long with my mind focused on other matters, those which had felt more important in the moment.
Now, though… Here, in this moment, I would do something about it.
I raised my hand, feeling for the familiar sensation of dragonfire building in my palm. I should have felt the sharp release of flame boiling up through my arm. The spark as the flames coalesced into existence at the center of my palm. Manifesting flames is one of the most basic powers afforded to dragons. I had learned to create them before my wings were strong enough to carry me.
I reached for that fire within me and felt nothing. Emptiness as vast as the southern oceans met my groping senses.
I tried again. Pushing harder, as I grabbled for the wellspring of fire that should live in my core. The golden window flashed into view once more.
Insufficient Power. Skill: Dragon’s Palm not unlocked.
Anguish flooded through me. I wanted to scream and curse. To flail my arms like a child who hadn’t been given what she asked for. But I was an Empress. I was no child. And acting as one would only fuel these men even more. They already saw someone weak. Someone they could prey upon.
They took my raised hand as some kind of threat and laughed among themselves. The scarred leader stepped closer, his grin widening.
“What are you gonna do? Cast a spell on us?”
Anger, righteous and hot, boiled up within me. If they knew who I truly was, they would have prostrated themselves in terror.
But they didn’t. And in this form, with my power locked away, I was exactly what they saw; a small, vulnerable human woman, alone in a garden at night.
The System spat out another message for me, the letters burning with golden light.
Quest Updated: Defeat The Thugs.
Quest Objective: They have found you. Kill or disarm the thugs.
Remaining enemies: 6/6