The darkness of the forest swallowed Aerion whole. Moonlight, filtering through gaps in the tree canopy, barely illuminated the roots on the ground, which readily tripped him.
Branches tore at his tunic as he stumbled through the bushes, and the sound of his ragged breaths echoed loudly in the stillness of the border between Vaelgard and Veridian, forming thin clouds in the cold night air.
His bare feet, wounded from the long walk, left trails of blood on the moss.
Hold on. Keep moving... don't stop...
The thought pounded in his head in rhythm with his heartbeat. In the distance, the howls and barks of hunting dogs from his pursuers could be heard.
Now he no longer cared who was chasing him, whether it was Therion's men or Vaelgard's soldiers.
At this point, it made no difference. Both wanted him dead.
Aerion staggered into a small clearing in the forest, his knees trembling. A shallow, black-watered river split the land before him.
He fell to his knees at the river's edge, scooping water with his wounded hands and drinking. Accidentally, he saw a reflection staring back at him in the moonlight.
A face unfamiliar to him, hollowed cheeks stained with dirt, and pale blue eyes that looked like a bewildered person constantly in fear.
Suddenly, the sound of a snapping twig broke the silence behind him.
Aerion froze, his heart seemingly stopping for a moment. Slowly, he turned towards the source of the sound, the water he had just scooped spilling from his trembling fingers.
Someone was leaning against an oak tree at the edge of the clearing, their arms crossed. Moonlight glinted off the head of a throwing axe and a serrated dagger tucked into their waist.
Their face, partially covered by a mask, was scarred here and there. Most terrifying was a curving scar from their covered lip to their ear.
"Prince Aerion Veridian," the man said, stepping forward lazily. His thick Vaelgardian accent was evident in his words. "Or what's left of you."
Aerion slowly crawled backward, his wounded hands digging into the muddy riverbank to push his body away.
"I have no quarrel with Vaelgard..." he said, his voice hoarse and desperate. "This is a misunderstanding..."
But suddenly, the axe that had been at the man's waist was now embedded in Aerion's shoulder, before he could finish his sentence.
An intense pain wracked Aerion, stealing his breath. The world around him spun before he finally collapsed into the river.
The cold water enveloped his body, but it could not alleviate the pain in his shoulder where the axe was lodged.
Frantically, his trembling hands tried to pull the axe free, but each touch only intensified the unbearable pain.
The man, who was indeed a Vaelgardian, stood towering over him. He bent down and, with an almost casual motion, pulled the axe from Aerion's shoulder.
Blood gushed out, staining the river water crimson.
"Quarrel?" The man chuckled, examining his blood-soaked axe head with an almost mercantile air, as if inspecting his wares.
"Don't be foolish, boy. This isn't personal." He swung his axe again, this time with a slower, more deliberate motion. "This is just business."
The second blow struck his collarbone with a sickening crack. Blood filled his mouth, making him choke and cough.
The world around him began to dim.
His killer's face blurred, his lips moving, but Aerion could still vaguely hear his words.
... you should have stayed... at Lyceum...
Those last words floated in his mind before darkness consumed him.
But then, suddenly, fire crawled up his chest like a waking beast, strands of lava tracing his shattered bones and torn muscles.
This fire was no ordinary flame, but something far more ferocious. Every vein, every muscle, every bone touched by this fire made the pain begin to wane, replaced by a strange sensation... power.
His fingers twitched beyond his control, his nails elongating and hardening into something no longer human. His lungs, which had been on the verge of collapse, now expanded again, drawing in air forcefully.
And then that voice came...
"Pathetic."
The voice echoed inside his skull, deep and ancient.
"A cowardly prince," the voice scoffed. "One of the heirs who chose to flee rather than fight. This body is too precious for a loser like you."
Aerion tried to scream, but his throat only produced a hiss of air. His tongue felt swollen, and his mouth was filled with the metallic taste of his own blood.
"Yet your fate has brought you to me," the voice continued, now closer, more personal, as if speaking directly inside his head.
"Six hundred years I have waited in silence. Six centuries of patience to find the perfect vessel."
The fire that had initially only blazed in his chest suddenly exploded, engulfing his entire body. Every vein was now filled with a surging river of magma.
His eyes felt searingly hot, like two molten metal spheres. His sclera blackened like charcoal, while his irises glowed with an unnatural golden light, blazing like two miniature suns trapped within his eye sockets.
Before him, the Vaelgardian killer, who had been so confident, now reeled back, witnessing Aerion's body shrouded in flames.
His scarred face contorted in a mixture of fear and disbelief. "By all the damned devils..." he muttered, his right hand reaching for the spare dagger hidden behind his back.
With a movement impossible for a normal human, Aerion rose from his own pool of blood. Torn flesh and muscle reconnected, stitched together by self-weaving threads of fire, forming new tissue that glowed like iron in embers.
His hands, or rather, the claws that now grew from his fingertips, gripped the riverbank, causing the water to boil and evaporate upon contact.
When he inhaled, small tongues of flame emerged from his mouth, along with a puff of air. A strong sulfurous smell filled the air around him.
The assassin, driven by survival instinct, launched a desperate attack, his dagger flashing swiftly towards Aerion's neck.
But the hand that had been weak now moved with impossible speed. Aerion caught the blade in mid-air just before it touched his skin.
The blade, made of the finest steel, melted, and its molten metal dripped, forming a glowing red puddle on the ground.
"Business," Aerion spoke, but with a voice profoundly changed. Deeper, with a new resonance, like many voices speaking in unison.
The word was uttered with a condescending intonation, as if the concept of trading human lives was a pathetic joke.
"You called this business? Let us now discuss what is due for your service."
The scream that erupted from the assassin's mouth might have haunted that forest for years, had anyone lived to hear it. But the scream abruptly cut off, replaced by the sizzling sound of burning flesh and the cracking of crushed bones.
When the screaming ceased, it was no longer the weak Prince Aerion who stood there. His body might have been the same, but the soul controlling it was now an entirely different entity.
Kairos, the Cursed Dragon Emperor, stretched his new hands with satisfaction, savoring the sensation of swirling embers beneath the human skin that was now his.
He crushed the fragments of Aerion's memories and feelings with a cold, unapologetic mental gesture, like the gentle lullaby of his mother, and the beloved Lyceum library.
These memories were nothing more than trash to be cleared from this new home.
In the distance, the eastern horizon began to redden. Dawn was breaking soon. Somewhere beyond that horizon, Therion might be sitting on his ill-gotten throne, satisfied with his dirty victory.
Meanwhile, at the border, Vaelgardian forces were surely sharpening their weapons, ready to strike at the chaotic Veridian.
Kairos lifted his face to the brightening sky, a cold smile spreading across the face that once belonged to Aerion.
"Let them all come," he murmured, still in that alien voice.
He had waited six hundred years to rise again. A few more days would make no difference.
And when the time came, they would all learn, in the most painful way, the true meaning of a Dragon Emperor's wrath.