Chapter 199: After the Inferno

When Kael finally managed to breach the door, he froze.

The sight before him was worse than anything he had ever imagined.

The room was almost unrecognizable—scorched walls, shattered stone, and the thick stench of blood and smoke clinging to the air. Dead bodies lay scattered across the floor, their shapes twisted and burned beyond recognition.

And yet, in the middle of it all, standing before a blood-soaked wall, was something that might once have been a person.

It was still alive.

Barely.

Cursed flames clung to its body, devouring what was left of it inch by inch. One wing was torn completely off, and part of its face had melted into something that should not have been able to smile—and yet, it did.

More than that, despite it all, that thing… that being was still laughing.

The sound clawed through the air, uneven and sharp, echoing against the walls like the laughter of someone who had gone completely mad.

But somehow Kael didn’t think so.

Instead, it sounded like the laughter of someone who had been waiting.

The sound crawled across the room, coarse and wet, as if pulled from a throat filled with blood.

The being turned its head with a creaking snap, its ruined eyes locking onto him.

Sure enough, that smile—if it could be called one—was slow, deliberate, and cruel.

Kael felt his scales bristle. The look on that face wasn’t the emptiness of a dying creature but the satisfaction of someone who had finally gotten what they wanted.

The expression said it all without words.

“If my world burns, then so will yours.”

The youngling almost took a step back, breath shaking, but the creature only laughed harder, the sound echoing against the crumbling walls.

Then, as if to twist the knife deeper, it reached down and lifted something from the floor. The charred fingers trembled, but what it held shimmered faintly beneath the dying firelight.

A piece of shell.

Cracked.

Kael’s pupils constricted.

In fact, it was probably more than cracked—and as he stared in horror, the being’s grin stretched wider. Slowly, it pressed its claws against the fragile piece and crushed it further, the sound sharp and final.

The shell broke.

Something inside Kael broke with it.

Mana surged from him uncontrollably. His body flared with a stronger blue light as a roar ripped from his throat, shaking the ruined walls.

The burning figure banged against the wall, yet even as it fell, its laughter only grew louder, raw and broken, with blood spilling from its lips.

“I had to see it,” it rasped between wheezing breaths. “Hahaha! I knew I had to see someone’s face.”

Each word was punctuated by laughter—cracked, choking laughter that refused to die even as the flames ate through its body.

The dragonling couldn’t think.

Fury, agony, and anguish consumed him.

He dove forward, shielding the shattered shells with his own body, wings curling protectively around what little remained. His mana exploded outward, pure and violent, searing through the room as he unleashed everything he had in one desperate blast aimed at the monster that had done this.

But the laughter cut off.

Silence fell.

The blue flames dimmed, leaving only smoke and embers drifting through the ruined chamber.

Kael’s breathing came shallow and uneven. His limbs trembled, and the edges of his vision went dark.

He had used everything.

The last thing he felt before the world faded was the faint warmth of the broken shells beneath him—and the echo of that horrible smile.

Then, nothing.

__

“Are you sure you want me to continue?” Kael asked quietly.

His voice was calm, but his thumb was still hovering dangerously close to Riley’s face—right next to the aide’s trembling eye that couldn’t seem to stop shedding tears.

Riley’s throat had locked up sometime during the story. From the moment Kael spoke about the nest to the gates of the burning estate, Riley had crumpled, his vivid imagination taking every word as creed.

Now, even when he could no longer feel Kael’s emotions through the sigil, his own heart still felt unbearably heavy.

At this point, it was impossible not to understand why he almost died from experiencing Kael’s anguish second-hand.

And knowing he experienced all this as a child? Riley couldn’t even come up with comforting words to say.

All he managed was a small nod.

He wanted to hear all of it.

Even if his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, even if his heart felt like it was being torn apart, he wanted to hear everything Kael was willing to tell him.

“Very well,” said the dragon lord, his tone faint but steady.

“I woke up half a year later.”

“!!!”

Riley’s head shot up. “Half a—Kael, you were unconscious for half a year?!”

Kael nodded. “Apparently, I had gone into shock. If my parents hadn’t found me in the rubble, I probably would have destroyed my core—my dragon heart.”

Riley’s eyes widened.

Kael continued softly, “Because the entire time I was inside the dragon estate, my stupid body, which should have been regenerating mana naturally, was instead using every bit it recovered to shield the eggshells I’d been protecting with my body.”

He said it almost indifferently, as though he had long stopped viewing that decision as tragic.

And yet, how could he miss the look on the dragon lord’s face?

Riley couldn’t find words.

According to his mother, Kael had woken up with a start.

He had sat up so abruptly that the healers nearly dropped the basin of cooling salve they were preparing. His golden eyes darted around, unfocused, and the first thing he had asked was, “Where’s the egg?”

It was as if his mind refused to process what he had last seen.

Maybe it was just a small crack, he told himself. Dragons were tenacious. A little damage shouldn’t have mattered.

Cracks didn’t stop dragons from hatching. They only made the shell easier to break when it was time.

That was what young Kael kept repeating in his head, over and over.

He remembered how his mother had told him once that some dragons took centuries to hatch. That they would only awaken when they felt the need to roam the world, to gather more mana, to grow stronger before meeting anyone.

So, considering that, a few cracks here and there should be fine.

He convinced himself of it completely.

At least, he did—until he saw his parents’ faces.

The boy’s voice faltered. The hope that had barely begun to flicker inside him dimmed as he watched his father and mother exchange a look he didn’t want to understand.

His father stepped forward quietly and opened a small case.

Inside lay what was left of the egg.

The eggshells were carefully placed on soft white fabric, each piece faintly glowing under the enchantments that preserved them.

Kael froze.

His mother covered her mouth as her eyes filled with tears.

For a long time, none of them spoke.

Kael’s own eyes began to sting, and though his face stayed stoic, the momentary spark of hope he had clung to vanished completely.

Lady Cirila leaned heavily against her husband. The sound that left her was small and broken, a quiet sob for both the egg and for their son.

Kael looked down at the case in his trembling hands—the same hands that once held the unruly egg that loved to roll away and bump against him for attention.

His mate didn’t even have a name.

He should have thought of one.

Maybe instead of polishing the shell every day and reciting their ancestors’ names, he should have spent time thinking of what to call it.

Now, who cared if the shell was polished?

Even if it had cracks, he would have been fine.

Even if it wasn’t perfect, even if it never looked presentable, he wouldn’t have complained.

But now, what was the point?

All he had left was a shell.

“Huh.”

The word left his mouth before he realized it.

His parents looked up, startled, watching as Kael slowly set the case down in front of him.

Then, to their confusion and fear, the boy reached forward and picked up the shells with his bare hands.

“Son, no!” his father said sharply. “There might still be traces of the forbidden flames!”

But the dragonling didn’t hear him.

Because at that very moment, every fiber of his being screamed the same thing.

This isn’t the same shell.

Kael’s breath came quick and shallow.

He turned the pieces over in his hands, his heart pounding. The texture felt wrong, the color was slightly off, and the patterns of its natural cracks weren’t where they should have been.

He knew this egg. He had polished it every day. He had memorized every curve, every mark, every uneven spot that made it his.

And what he held now—

This wasn’t it.

This wasn’t his mate’s shell.

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