Chapter 101: The Dragon King’s Decree

The clouds parted, and the sky itself seemed to hold its breath.

He descended slowly, each beat of his massive wings sending tremors through the air that vibrated in Bai Yue’s chest like a second heartbeat. He was not like Cāng Jì, all golden brilliance and dramatic flair. He was not like Cāng Yáo, all glittering jewelry and petulant arrogance. He was not even like Léi Chen, with his crackling storm-white scales and barely-contained electricity.

This dragon was ancient.

His scales were the color of dried blood and shadow, dark crimson fading to black along his wings and spine. They didn’t gleam or glitter. They absorbed light, drinking it in until he seemed less a creature and more a hole torn in the fabric of the sky.

His horns swept back from his massive skull in cruel curves, scarred and chipped from battles fought before Bai Yue’s great-grandparents were born.

But it was his eyes that stole her breath.

Molten gold. Unblinking. Fixed on them with an expression that held absolutely nothing, no warmth, no curiosity, no anger. Just the cold, patient attention of something that had existed for so long that humans and beastmen and even dragons like his own children were merely temporary.

Cāng Jì stopped flying.

One moment they were soaring through the clouds. The next, his massive golden body went rigid, his wings locking in place, and they were simply hovering there, suspended in the cold air with nothing but dragon-scale and desperation between them and the long fall to the jungle below.

“Cāng Jì?” Bai Yue’s voice came out small. Terrified. She clutched Zhēn tighter to her chest. “Cāng Jì, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

The ancient dragon before them spoke.

“CĀNG JÌ.”

The name rumbled through the sky like an avalanche, like the world ending. It wasn’t loud so much as it was everywhere, vibrating in Bai Yue’s bones, in her teeth, in the soft skull of the baby she held.

“YOU WILL RETURN. NOW.”

Cāng Jì’s voice, when it finally came, was barely a whisper. A thread of sound from a dragon who had once screamed about monkeys and danced in feather skirts and declared himself the most magnificent creature in existence.

“Father.”

The word broke Bai Yue’s heart.

She had never heard him sound like that. Small. Frightened. Like a cub caught stealing meat from the elder’s fire. Like all the arrogance and drama and ridiculousness had been stripped away, leaving only this, a son facing a father who had never been pleased, never would be pleased, never even knew how to be pleased.

The ancient dragon’s eyes swept over them.

Over Han Shān, frozen with one arm wrapped protectively around Bai Yue, his icy aura flickering uselessly against a cold far deeper than anything he could summon.

Over Zhāo Yàn, his nine tails pressed flat against Cāng Jì’s scales, his crimson eyes wide, his usual sharp tongue utterly silenced.

Over Yàn Shū, who had stopped shaking and simply stared, his scholar’s mind unable to process a creature that belonged in legends, in nightmares, in the oldest, darkest stories.

Over Hóng Yè, who had pushed himself in front of his father despite his own terror, his small body trembling but his amber eyes blazing with defiance that would have been admirable if it wasn’t so pointless.

Over Yòu Lín and Ruì Xuě, pressed together, too frightened even to whisper.

Over the grandmothers, Gū Gū gripping her stick with white knuckles, Hán Bīng’s ice crystals falling uselessly from her fingertips, Wēn Jìng’s eternal smile finally, finally gone.

And then those ancient golden eyes landed on Bai Yue.

On

“You bring… this… to my skies.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of disgust. Like finding something rotten in otherwise pristine snow.

Bai Yue’s terror curdled into something else. Something hot. Something that had faced down vultures and hydras and monkey kings and would be damned before she let anyone—ANYONE—look at her daughter like that.

“She’s my baby,” Bai Yue said. Her voice shook, but it didn’t break. “Her name is Zhēn. She is three weeks old. And you will NOT look at her like she’s dirt.”

The ancient dragon’s gaze sharpened.

For one terrifying moment, Bai Yue thought she was about to die.

Then—

“Cāng Jì. “You have played in the mud long enough. There is a female waiting in the peaks. A union has been arranged. You will return, you will wed, and you will forget these… creatures… ever existed.”

Cāng Jì flinched like he’d been struck.

“A—a female?”

“The Stormcrown daughter. The alliance has been negotiated for three centuries. You have delayed long enough.” The ancient dragon’s eyes flickered to Cāng Yáo, who had gone pale even through her dark scales. “Both of you. Your indulgences end now.”

Cāng Yáo found her voice. “Father, you can’t—”

“I CAN. I WILL.” The sky rumbled. “You will return to the peaks. You will take your places. You will fulfill your duties. And these… lowlanders… will be returned to their mud.”

“No.”

Everyone froze.

Cāng Jì had spoken. Quietly. Tremblingly. But clearly.

“No,” he repeated. “Father, I won’t—they’re my—”

“Your WHAT?”

The ancient dragon’s voice dropped. Became soft. Became infinitely more dangerous.

“Your family? These short-lived creatures who will wither and die before you’ve finished yawning? That cub?” His gaze flickered to Zhēn. “That thing? You would choose that over your blood? Over your duty? Over millennia of dragon tradition?”

Cāng Jì’s claws dug into his own scales. “She’s not a thing. She’s—”

“She is NOTHING.”

The words fell like stones.

“You will return. You will wed. And you will forget this… aberration… ever existed. That is not a request, Cāng Jì. That is a COMMAND.”

Cāng Jì’s whole body shook.

Bai Yue could feel it through his scales, the tremor running through him like he was about to shatter. She wanted to say something. To fight. To scream at this ancient monster that he couldn’t take her family away, couldn’t tear them apart, couldn’t—

But what could she do?

She was holding a baby on a dragon’s back in the middle of the sky, facing down a creature that had probably forgotten more about power than she would ever know.

And then—

Movement.

Tiny. Unimportant. Easy to miss in the chaos of terror and fury and heartbreak.

Zhēn stirred.

Her amethyst eyes, so like Bai Yue’s own, blinked open. She made a small sound, a questioning little coo, as if wondering why everything had gone so quiet and cold.

And she reached up.

Toward the ancient dragon. Toward those terrible golden eyes. Her tiny hand opened, fingers spreading like a starfish, reaching for the massive creature who had just called her nothing.

Bai Yue’s grip shifted, just slightly, adjusting to her daughter’s movement.

The wind chose that moment to gust.

A sudden downdraft, sharp and unexpected, catching Cāng Jì’s wings at the wrong angle. He stumbled in the air, a tiny lurch, barely anything—

But Bai Yue was already off-balance, adjusting for Zhēn, not braced for the movement.

Her feet slipped on the golden scales.

Her arms flew out.

And

Zhēn left her hands.

For one frozen, eternal moment, the tiny baby hung in the air. Her amethyst eyes were wide, confused, not yet afraid. Her little hand was still reaching out, reaching toward the ancient dragon, reaching toward a creature that had called her nothing.

Then she began to fall.

“ZHĒN!”

Bai Yue’s scream tore through the sky like nothing else had. It wasn’t loud. It was worse than loud. It was the sound of a mother’s soul ripping in half.

She lunged forward, but Han Shān caught her, held her back, not because he didn’t want to save the baby, but because she would have fallen too, would have plunged after her daughter into the clouds below.

“NO! LET ME GO! ZHĒN! ZHĒN!”

Cāng Jì moved, or tried to. But his father’s presence, his father’s command, his father’s decree had frozen something in him, some instinct, some loyalty, and he was too slow, too late, too—

Zhāo Yàn’s tails shot out, nine crimson blurs, but they were decorative, not functional, not designed for catching falling infants, and they came up empty.

Yàn Shū screamed. Hóng Yè screamed. Yòu Lín and Ruì Xuě wailed, not understanding, only knowing that something terrible was happening, that Mama was screaming, that the baby—

The baby was gone.

Swallowed by the clouds.

Falling toward the jungle, toward the rocks.

The ancient dragon watched.

His golden eyes followed the tiny falling form, disappearing into white.

And his expression did not change.

Not anger. Not satisfaction. Not concern.

Nothing.

Cāng Jì stood frozen on his father’s command, on millennia of obedience, on the only life he had ever known.

Bai Yue’s screams faded to raw, ragged sobs in Han Shān’s arms.

The grandmothers clung to each other and to the dragon’s scales, faces ashen.

Hóng Yè pressed against his father, both of them shaking.

And the baby fell.

Down.

Down.

Down.

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