Chapter Text
She woke up screaming.
It wasn’t a quick cry or a startled gasp torn loose by surprise. It was long and raw and guttural, ripped from somewhere deep in her chest, as if her body itself were trying to purge centuries of grief in a single breath. The scream scraped her throat bloody and echoed endlessly, ricocheting off unseen walls until it came back to her distorted and monstrous. It sounded inhuman. It sounded like something wounded beyond repair.
When it finally broke apart into harsh, shuddering breaths, silence rushed in to replace it. Thick, cold, suffocating.
The first thing she noticed was the cold beneath her.
Not the gentle chill of a stone floor at dawn, not the cool comfort of palace marble polished by generations of careful hands. This was a brutal, unforgiving cold that seeped through cloth and bone alike, biting deep and refusing to let go. It crawled up her spine and settled in her lungs.
Then pain followed.
A sharp, nauseating sting flared in her knees where they had struck the marble hard enough to jar her teeth. Her palms burned too, scraped raw, fingers curled uselessly against the floor. She tried to push herself upright, and failed. Her arms trembled violently before collapsing beneath her weight. Weakness clung to her like a living thing, heavy and disorienting, wrapping her thoughts in thick fog.
Her head lolled sideways. Her vision swam. Shapes bled into one another, light smearing at the edges.
“Daphne,” she croaked.
The word barely made it past her lips, scraped raw by the scream that had come before it. Still, she forced it out again, clinging to the name like a lifeline.
“Daphne.”
Around her, figures crowded close.
Too close.
Men and women, young, her age or close to it, hovered in a loose circle, their silhouettes blurred and indistinct. Their clothes were wrong. The cut, the fabric, the colors, none of it matched anything she recognized. They murmured anxiously to one another, their voices rising and falling in a language that slid past her ears without meaning, like water over stone.
Foreign. All of it was foreign.
“Daphne,” she said again, louder this time, trying to focus through the haze. Panic fluttered in her chest, sharp and erratic. Where was her sister? Why couldn’t she feel her?
A deep, gravelly voice cut cleanly through the murmurs.
“You’re safe.”
The sound anchored her.
The man stepped forward into clearer view. His features were sharp, almost carved, cheekbones catching the faint light. Along the sides of his neck and disappearing beneath his collar, light blue scales shimmered softly, reflecting like frost under moonlight. There was an accent to his words. Thick, unfamiliar, but beneath it lay something steady. Controlled. Grounded.
Mine, the dragon within her purred softly.
The sound reverberated through her chest, ancient and possessive, and for the first time since waking, a flicker of relief warmed her frozen limbs.
“Khal’thera,” she breathed without thinking.
The name slipped free as naturally as breath.
His brow furrowed, eyes sharpening with recognition, but he didn’t correct her. Didn’t deny it.
“Where… where are we?” she asked, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it. “What has happened to Sparx?”
His response came quickly, but it might as well have been nonsense. The words tangled together, harsh consonants and rolling vowels that meant nothing to her. Confusion spiked, sharp and disorienting.
She grimaced, frustration flashing hot beneath her skin.
The man turned to two girls standing nearby. Enchantix fairies, she realized dimly, their wings faintly aglow. They answered him in the same strange tongue, speaking urgently. He nodded once before turning back to her.
“My friends,” he said slowly, carefully, as if testing each word. “They help.”
She swallowed and nodded, trusting the reassurance despite the chaos buzzing in her head.
Then magic brushed against her skin.
A rush of cool air swept over her, crisp and clean, carrying the scent of leaves and water, like the springs of Linphea after rain. It threaded through her senses, soothing and clarifying. Slowly, the incomprehensible sounds around her began to shift. The cadence remained strange, but meaning bled through the confusion, settling into place.
The murmurs sharpened into voices.
“Did it work?” a blonde girl asked, her voice tight with nerves.
Another answered too quickly. “It should have—”
Her gaze snapped fully into focus.
“Your words,” she said slowly, testing the sound of her own voice, “are wrong… but I understand them.”
Silence fell like a dropped curtain.
Every eye turned toward her.
“Who are you?” she demanded, pushing herself upright despite the tremor in her limbs. Her tone hardened, command cutting through exhaustion. “Where is my sister?”
Uneasy glances passed between them.
Finally, a tall, blonde man stepped forward. He carried himself like royalty. Straight-backed, composed, his presence heavy with authority. “You’re safe,” he began gently. “I am Prince Sky of Eraklyon. We—”
She laughed.
It was harsh and sharp, stripped of humor entirely.
“You lie,” she spat, disbelief burning through the pain. “There is no Prince of Eraklyon.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “You must think me a fool, assuming I wouldn’t recognize my own allies.”
“But it’s true!” a different blonde girl burst out, stepping forward. Her voice trembled with urgency. “I am Princess Stella of Solaria—”
“And I, Princess Aisha of Andros,” another added, steady and unflinching.
Her laugh came again, bitter and broken.
Her legs shook as she tried to stand fully this time. Pain flared through her knees, and she swayed, only to be caught by the scaled man before she could fall. His grip was firm but gentle, anchoring.
She leaned against him, breathing hard, then lifted one trembling hand.
Fire answered her call.
A small flame bloomed in her palm, weak but unmistakable, its warmth licking at her skin. Her eyes blazed brighter in response. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Citizens under Valtor’s control… or willing collaborators?”
A sharp gasp cut through the air.
“You know Valtor?”
Her teeth clenched. “Know him?” Her voice dropped to a deadly calm. “I will not rest until I see his head on a spike.”
“Oh, Great Dragon,” someone whispered, horrified.
The dragon-borne tightened his grip slightly, leaning close. His voice was low and grim. “It’s true. They are who they say they are.”
Her fire faltered.
“Domino has fallen,” he said quietly, eyes never leaving hers.
The world tilted.
A strangled sound tore from her throat as her knees gave out again. He eased her down carefully, one arm firm around her shoulders.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That’s not— It can’t be… Daphne—”
“Has fallen too,” he said softly.
Her breath shuddered out of her in a slow, broken exhale.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then, with visible effort, she straightened. She rose once more, ignoring the tremble in her legs, shrugging off his support. Her face hardened into something cold and impenetrable.
She would not break in front of strangers.
“I don’t trust any of you,” she said at last, her voice low and edged with steel, “but it seems you know more than I do.”
“That’s fair,” the dragon-borne replied.
“Except for you,” she added sharply, eyes flicking back to him. A ripple of surprise moved through the group.
“Trusting Riven and not us is crazy,” Stella said lightly, nudging one of the others as if this were some shared joke.
Her gaze cooled further. “He is mine.”
One of the Enchantix fairies bristled. “What do you mean, yours?” she snapped. “He is not a pet—”
“Silly girl.” She rolled her eyes, inelegant and unapologetic. “That’s not what I meant.”
She straightened fully now, fire coiling faintly beneath her skin.
“He is mine. He is a subject of Domino. If he betrayed me, he would be dead.”
The fairy stepped forward, furious. “Is that a threat?”
She snorted. “No. Just fact.” Her eyes glinted dangerously. “Any citizen of Domino who betrays the Dragon’s family will burn.”
Stunned silence followed.
“Dragon’s family?” a bespectacled boy echoed faintly.
“Just who are you?” a dark-haired man demanded.
She smiled.
It was wild and sharp, all teeth and fire. Her red hair framed her face like the horns of a dragon reborn, smoke curling faintly from her nostrils as the Dragon Flame stirred awake at last.
“I am Princess Bloom of Domino,” she declared, voice ringing through the chamber, ancient and absolute.
“Carrier of the Dragon Flame.”