Minutes passed in silence.
The only sounds in the room were the soft hum of Erza's healing magic and the shallow breathing of the unconscious man lying before her.
She did not speak.
She did not look up.
She did not acknowledge her grandfather's presence, nor the child who had saved them both from disaster. Her entire being—every thought, every pulse of magic, every beat of her heart—was focused on one thing and one thing only: healing Yuuta.
This was not her usual way.
Erza was not a healer by nature.
She was a warrior, a queen, a blade forged in the fires of war and tempered in the blood of her enemies. She had never learned to tend to wounds with patience and care.
She had never needed to. In her world, the wounded were either healed by others or left behind.
But this was different. This was not duty. This was not obligation. This was instinct—a dragon's instinct, ancient and primal, buried deep beneath centuries of coldness and control. The need to see her mate well. The need to protect what was hers. The need to pour every ounce of her power into the one person who had made her feel something other than rage and duty and loneliness.
This was why dragons did not fall in love.
Isvarn watched her from across the room, his ancient eyes taking in every detail. He had lived for over a thousand years. He had seen empires rise and fall, gods wage war, and the very fabric of reality bend under the weight of powerful beings. He had seen dragons in grief, dragons in rage, dragons in the cold, calculated fury of battle.
But he had never seen a dragon like this.
Pathetic, he thought, and the word was not an insult. It was an observation. A truth he had hoped never to witness again.
He had seen this once before, long ago, when he was still a young dragon and Atlantis was still a small nation struggling to survive. The Silent War had been raging—a conflict so vast and terrible that its echoes still reverberated through the ages. Zareth, the Fallen Primal Dragon, had been on a rampage, slaughtering anything that moved, driven by the grief of losing her only son. The Children of Chaos had risen.
The Sons of Disaster had declared war on Nova and Heaven itself. Fallen beings and primal dragons and creatures with no names had joined the chaos, and the world had teetered on the edge of annihilation.
In the midst of that war, Isvarn had watched dragons fall. Not to enemy blades, not to powerful magic, but to love. Dragon mates, bound by bonds deeper than blood, had lost each other to the chaos of battle.
And those who survived had fallen into dragon grief—the same grief that had nearly consumed his granddaughter at the port. He had watched them weep, watched them rage, watched them destroy themselves and everything around them. He had watched the almighty beasts, the divine beings, reduced to pathetic creatures incapable of thought or reason.
That was the cost of love. That was why dragons had learned to stop loving.
After the Silent War, after the blood had been washed from the fields and the dead had been buried, the dragons had come to a painful realization.
Love made them weak. Love made them vulnerable. Love made them incapable of doing what needed to be done. And so, over generations, they had carved away their hearts.
They had raised their daughters to be ruthless, their queens to be cold, their warriors to be unfeeling. They had built a society where softness was a sin and compassion was a weakness.
The Matriarchy System was born.
It was a structure of power where rulership and authority rested solely in the hands of queens, believed to be chosen by the true gods themselves. Such divine favor elevated women above all others, granting them unquestioned dominance in both throne and society. Men were not oppressed—they were simply... irrelevant. Their role was to serve, to support, to exist in the shadow of their queens.
Power did not come without a cost.
In the Nova world, dragons were revered as sacred beings. They were also its greatest threat. And most of these dragons bore the form and essence of women. They were worshipped and feared in equal measure. Because of this, the burden of protection and survival fell upon women alone.
Queens did not have the luxury of softness. From the moment they were born, they were raised to face creatures that mirrored their own existence—ruthless female dragons capable of destroying kingdoms. Nightmare creatures that fed on fear. Unholy beings that corrupted everything they touched. Stone Saints that could not be reasoned with or bargained with. Every battle was not just a fight for survival—it was a clash against something they could have become.
Compassion was seen as weakness. Hesitation meant death.
Over generations, this endless cycle carved away warmth from their hearts. Women were no longer simply rulers—they became warriors, strategists, and executioners of their own kind. To protect the world, they abandoned gentleness, choosing instead to embody the very coldness required to stand at the top.
Thus, the matriarchy did not simply create rulers. It forged women who could no longer afford to feel.
And now Isvarn was watching his granddaughter—the coldest, most ruthless queen Atlantis had ever produced—kneel in the wreckage of her home, her hands covered in the blood of a mortal, her eyes wet with tears she had not shed since childhood. She was pouring her power into a man who should have been nothing to her. She was ignoring her duty, her kingdom, her pride—all for him.
This is why dragons do not fall in love, Isvarn thought, and the weight of centuries pressed down upon his shoulders.
He wanted to be angry. He wanted to rage against the injustice of it, to curse the mortal who had stolen his granddaughter's heart, to tear down the walls of this cursed world and burn it to ash. But he could not. He could only watch, and remember, and grieve for the woman his granddaughter could have been if she had never met Yuuta.
And yet, even as he watched, he saw something else. Something he had not expected.
Isvarn had watched this transformation take hold of his granddaughter. He had watched her become the perfect queen—cold, ruthless, untouchable. He had been proud of her. He had believed that she was the ideal dragon, the ideal ruler, the ideal protector.
But now, watching her kneel in the filth of her own home, weeping over a mortal man, he wondered if he had been wrong.
Minutes turned into an hour.
The shattered apartment remained silent except for the soft hum of Erza's healing magic and the occasional creak of the damaged walls settling into their new, broken shape. Dust still floated in the air, catching the dim light from the bare bulb overhead, and the smell of ozone and blood lingered like a ghost that refused to leave.
Erza worked tirelessly, her hands glowing with golden light, her face pale with exhaustion. Dragons were not healers. They were destroyers. Their power was built for battle, for conquest, for the annihilation of enemies. Healing was a secondary skill—something they learned only because it was necessary, not because they excelled at it. Most dragons could stop bleeding and mend minor injuries, but complex internal damage was beyond their reach.
Yet Erza pushed herself beyond her limits. She poured her magic into Yuuta's broken body, mending crushed organs, fusing fractured bones, repairing blood vessels that had burst under the pressure of two dragons clashing. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her hands trembled. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. But she did not stop.
She could not stop.
Not until he was whole.
Yuuta's eyes opened slowly. The first thing he saw was the cracked ceiling above him, the plaster spiderwebbed with fractures, the light fixture hanging at a dangerous angle. His body felt strange—heavy and light at the same time, like he had been pressed between two great forces and then released. Every muscle ached. Every joint protested. His chest felt tight, and his stomach churned with the memory of vomiting.
He coughed, and the sound was dry and painful.
Erza helped him sit up, her hands steady on his shoulders, her violet eyes searching his face for any sign of lingering damage. He was pale—paler than usual—but his eyes were clear, and his breath was evening out. He was alive. He was alive.
He looked around the room, his mind slowly piecing together what had happened. The shattered windows. The cracked walls. The debris scattered across the floor. The old man sitting on the sofa, his tall frame somehow fitting into the small space, his violet eyes fixed on Yuuta with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
And Elena, curled up in the old man's lap, fast asleep.
She had woken up only to resolve the situation—to scold her Great Grandpa, to extract a promise from him, to save her father's life. After that, she had climbed into Isvarn's lap, laid her head against his chest, and fallen asleep as if nothing had happened. As if the world had not nearly ended. As if her grandfather had not almost killed her father.
Children were resilient like that.
Isvarn gently lifted Elena and placed her on the sofa, covering her with a blanket that had somehow survived the chaos. She murmured something in her sleep—a word, a name—and curled into a small ball, her wings folding against her back, her tail wrapping around her leg.
Then he turned to face Yuuta.
"So," he said, his voice deep and steady, carrying the weight of centuries. "You are the one who planted your seed in the royal dragon bloodline."
Yuuta's breath caught. The words were simple, but their meaning was vast and terrible. He felt the weight of Isvarn's gaze pressing down on him—not with aura, not with power, but with something far more intimidating. Judgment.
Isvarn did not attack. He did not raise his voice. He did not summon ice or draw a weapon. He simply stood there, his violet eyes boring into Yuuta's soul, and asked his next question.
"How did you bypass the magical wards surrounding my granddaughter's chamber? How did you reach her?"
Each question was a blade. Each word was a test. Yuuta felt like he was lost in a snow-covered mountain, wounded and alone, surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves who were deciding whether to kill him or let him go. But these were not wolves. They were dragons. And the one standing before him was older and wiser and more dangerous than any creature he had ever faced.
He could not answer. He did not know how he had gotten there. He did not know how any of it had happened. He had been asleep in his own bed, in his own apartment, living his own ordinary life. And then he had woken up in a palace made of crystal and ice, with a woman he had never met and a future he could not imagine.
"Enough, old fossil," Erza snapped, stepping forward, trying to assert her dominance. "You are going too far."
Isvarn did not flinch. He did not bow. He did not even look at her.
"I have no intention of killing him," he said, his voice calm, his eyes still fixed on Yuuta. "I promised Princess Elena that I would not harm this mortal. And a dragon does not break a promise."
He paused.
"But as Queen's Advisor, I have a duty to know the truth."
Erza said nothing. She shook her head slightly, her jaw tight, her hands clenched into fists. She knew that dragons did not break promises.
She knew that her grandfather would not harm Yuuta—not directly, not physically. But she also knew that she could not fight him. Not here. Not now. Not with Yuuta still weak and Elena sleeping nearby. So she chose to trust him, while remaining on guard.
Isvarn turned back to Yuuta. He stepped closer, his tall frame blocking the light, his shadow falling across the younger man's face. He studied him—not with hostility, but with something that looked almost like curiosity. His ancient eyes traced the lines of Yuuta's face, the shape of his jaw, the set of his shoulders. And then he looked into his eyes.
Crimson. Blood-red. The color of war and death and suffering.
Isvarn had seen many eyes in his long life. He had seen the eyes of heroes and villains, of kings and peasants, of gods and demons. But he had never seen eyes like these. They were not just red. They were deep—bottomless—filled with a pain that seemed to have no end. They were the eyes of someone who had been broken and rebuilt and broken again, someone who had endured unimaginable suffering and somehow, against all odds, survived.
"What are you, poor soul?" Isvarn whispered.
Yuuta blinked, unable to understand the question.
Isvarn reached out and touched his hair—black, dark as night, contrasting sharply with the silver of his own. He studied the strands, feeling their texture, their weight.
"No wonder," he murmured. "No wonder he hates you so much."
Yuuta's brow furrowed. "Who?"
Erza's breath caught. The world stopped.
Erza's hand clutched the fabric of her dress, her knuckles white, her breath caught in her throat. She had known. She had always known. But she had never told him. She had never been able to bring herself to speak the words.
Isvarn continued, his voice soft, almost thoughtful. "You have no power to give to your offspring. Instead, you gave him a curse. Black hair—the marks of the outcast, the signs of the unwanted. No wonder he hates you as a father."
Yuuta's mind raced. Prince? he thought. Father? What is he talking about? I have only one child. I have only Elena.
But something stirred in the depths of his memory. A shadow. A whisper. A name that he had never heard but somehow recognized.
"Your son," Isvarn said, his eyes boring into Yuuta's soul, "is the most ruthless child I have ever seen. he has your hair. Your stubbornness. But he has none of your kindness."
Yuuta's voice was shaking. "I... I have a son?"
Before Yuuta could think, before he could process this new piece of information, before he could even begin to understand what it meant to have a son he had never known, he heard a voice.
"Somna Lux."
The words were soft, whispered, almost gentle. They floated through the air like feathers on a breeze, and Yuuta felt them settle into his mind with an unimaginable peace. His thoughts, which had been racing and tumbling over each other, slowed. His muscles, which had been tense and aching, relaxed. His eyelids, which had been wide with shock, grew heavy.
He had felt this before. This was the feeling of falling asleep—the slow drift from wakefulness to slumber, the gentle release of consciousness, the soft embrace of darkness. But this was different. This was not natural. This was magic.
He fell to his knees. His body, already weakened by the pressure of two dragons' auras, could not resist. His eyes closed, and before he could understand what was happening, he was asleep. Deep, dreamless, unreachable.
Isvarn watched him fall.
The old dragon stood still, his violet eyes fixed on the mortal who had crumpled to the floor. He recognized the spell. Somna Lux—a simple enchantment, really, one that erased short-term memories and induced a deep, healing sleep. He had used it himself, many times, on soldiers who had seen too much, on enemies who knew too much, on witnesses who needed to forget.
He looked at his granddaughter.
Erza was holding her hand out, her fingers still glowing with the faint residue of magic. Her face was pale, her eyes were blazing, and her jaw was tight with barely contained rage.
"You," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "Why did you tell him about the Prince?"
Isvarn observed her for a long moment. The anger in her eyes, the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the effort of holding herself back. She was furious. She was terrified. She was guilty.
He sighed, long and heavy.
"So this is what is happening here," he said. "You chose to hide the Prince from him."
Erza did not say anything. She could not. Because he was right. She had chosen to hide the truth about her son from Yuuta. She had kept the secret locked away in her heart, buried beneath layers of fear and shame and something she could not name.
"You know how dangerous it is," she said finally, her voice soft. "If he finds out that his father is human, you know what will happen."
Isvarn nodded slowly.
He did know. Prince Yuri had always been suspicious of the official story—the tale of a magical accident, a spell gone wrong, a pregnancy that had no father.
He had never believed it. From the time he was old enough to ask questions, he had doubted for he look so different from rest.
And that doubt had festered. It had grown. It had become something dark and dangerous, a hunger that could not be satisfied, a need that could not be filled. Yuri believed, with every fiber of his being, that his father was alive somewhere in the world—and that he had abandoned him.
If Yuri ever discovered that his father was not a powerful dragon, not a noble warrior, not a being worthy of respect, but a mortal human—a creature that dragons considered little more than insects—it would break him. He would lose himself. He would lose everything.
Because once he found out that he was not a pureblood royal dragon but a mixed-blood with filithy Human blood in it, his entire world would crumble. In the Nova world, mixed-blood dragons were treated as slaves, as servants, as beings without rights or honor.
The nobles would strip him of his title. The court would turn against him. The kingdom that should have been his would reject him.
He would fall into dragon grief.
And dragon grief, once it took hold, was almost always fatal.
To Be Contiune...