Talen stood in the great hall of Eldenhold, the weight of silence pressing down like stone.
Before him, the king sat rigid upon his gilded throne, eyes dark with calculation. Around them, nobles whispered behind gloved hands, their smiles frozen masks of disbelief. Outside, the people waited—eager for celebration, unaware that their savior had returned not with glory, but with truth.
Truth was never welcome in palaces.
"You remember," the king said at last, voice low, measured.
Talen nodded.
"I remember everything."
A flicker passed across the king's face—something between fear and resignation.
"Then you know what must be done."
Talen stepped forward, boots echoing against marble.
"No," he said. "I know what should have been done long ago."
He turned to the gathered lords and ladies, raising his voice so it carried through the chamber.
"This kingdom was built on lies. On blood. On the rewriting of men into myths."
Gasps rippled through the court.
"The dragon was never our enemy," Talen continued. "It was our prisoner. Our scapegoat. Our punishment for sins we buried beneath stories of heroes."
Murmurs swelled into chaos.
Some laughed, dismissing his words as madness.
Others looked afraid.
And some—those closest to the throne—looked guilty.
The king rose slowly.
"Enough," he commanded.
Guards moved to flank Talen.
But he did not flinch.
Instead, he reached into his cloak and pulled out a small, worn book.
The journal of the first Talen.
The real one.
Bound in leather, stained with age, filled with entries written in shaking hands—confessions of betrayal, rituals of forgetting, and the names of those who had orchestrated it all.
He tossed it onto the marble floor.
Pages spilled open.
Names were read.
Secrets bled into the air like poison.
And for the first time in generations, the kingdom saw its rulers not as protectors…
But as architects of a lie.
The Storm Rises
That night, the city burned—not with dragonfire, but with rebellion.
The people, once blind, now saw.
They tore banners from walls.
They shattered statues.
They stormed the palace gates.
Talen watched from the balcony above, wind tugging at his cloak.
Kaela found him there.
She didn't speak at first.
Only looked at him, searching his face for the boy she thought she knew.
"You could have walked away," she said finally.
"I tried," he admitted. "But I couldn't forget."
She sighed.
"And now what?"
He looked out over the city, flames dancing in the distance.
"Now we see what grows from the ashes."
And deep beneath the castle, the real dragon opened both eyes, smiled wide, and whispered, "At last… the game begins."