Falon: The Ancient Blood Awakens (A War of Blood & Scales)

by Angel Black

  Alexandra nodded, still overwhelmed by it all. The sweeping style of the pink marbled floors and the glistening stone walls stole her attention away from the dragons around her.

  “We need to get to the Matriarch. It’s clear by Alexandra’s scent she’s pregnant with a dragon, but we need the official word.” Balor addressed her directly, “The matriarchs of each chapter are responsible for transcribing the family lines, among other things. They also act as midwives, although, our scientists usually take care of that these days for the most part. But, tradition has its ways, I guess.”

  Without warning, the two silver-haired brothers suddenly jumped in front of Falon and Alexandra, while Dax and Balor growled as they snapped around, facing away from Alexandra.

  The woman from Alexandra’s last dream, a woman with fiery red hair and emerald eyes, emerged with what looked like a hundred men standing behind her.

  Dax seemed enraged, beyond the point of even self-defense, his growls becoming more and more animalistic, to the point where she could see his skin starting to turn to scales. Falon frowned, studying Dax’s anger.

  Balor, on the other hand, kept his voice calm and cool, and deep like an ocean: “Valkyrie,” he said.

  “Sigmas,” the woman responded, scowling. “Turn over the interloper and the lawbreaker, then bend the knee, and you will see the mercy of a Valkyrie. Else, you shall feel her wrath.”

  “Our knees do not bend the way they used to,” Balor responded.

  The men around the Valkyrie started pouring through, slowly creeping towards them, in a fighting stance with bent knees and arms up in a guarded position around their faces.

  “Enough of the shit. There’s a hundred soldiers here armed, with myself, a Valkyrie. This is the same force that toppled the Wolves in the rebellion, single handedly.”

  “We are not wolves,” said Balor. “To the men standing with you: Know this, here, there be monsters.”

  Alexandra couldn’t really follow what happened next, the movements too effective and brutal for her eyes to follow.

  Dax and Balor and the two brothers launched themselves forwards, shifting into something that was not their full dragon form. Wings sprouted form their backs and their body was covered in hard scales, but they were still bipedal, although now they stood twelve feet tall instead of six feet.

  Their shifted forms all matched their hair color: two silver beasts, and two black beasts, with Balor being a dark ebony and Dax, a midnight color.

  What followed was nothing short of blood and massacre. One of the front line soldiers tried to shift into their full dragon forms, but they died mid transformation as the two silver dragons wrapped their hands around his throat and severed his head from his body, his spinal column ripping out with it. Balor’s ebony form swirled like a spinning tornado, using his talons and even the edges of his wings to slice through the mass of bodies of soldiers that were now trying to retreat. Dax swam through the soldiers, like a plague spreading death, making quick strikes at each one of them and knocking them down. It seemed like he was trying to reach the Valkyrie woman, but she was fleeing the scene.

  Balor screamed suddenly, his voice guttural and barely human enough to hear in his dragon form: “She is escaping! Finish this, now!”

  As one, the silver Sigmas retreated back a few feet, using their wings to glide backwards. The soldiers seemed to know what was happening before Alexandra understood it: as one, the four dragon warriors breathed a fire that was so hot Alexandra’s skin burned in sweat despite being fifty feet away from the action.

  Dax and Balor, the Midnight and Ebon dragons, danced and weaved through the mass of burning bodies, slicing their talons through the bones and fleshy chewy skin, cleaning and severing heads from their spinal columns. The motions were clean, efficient, and brutal, like a farmer plowing.

  The soldiers died, screaming.

  * * *

  Alexandra was throwing up, again. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the baby or the massacre.

  After the battle was finished, the dragons returned to their human forms. The hall in front of them looked like something of a volcano: bodies covered in black tar-like material with smoke rising from their corpses.

  The Sigmas stood tall, proud, but they were hurting, at least the two silver-haired Sigmas that had used dragon fire were hurting. She saw strain across their faces, veins throbbing at the sides of their temples, sweat soaking their synthetic clothed forms, each of them taking in long deep gulps of air as they panted. She noticed that their clothing had not ripped in spite of the fact that they had shifted. Now that she thought about it, their clothing seemed to completely disappear in their dragon form.

  She and Falon came over to them, with Falon explaining what had happened: “Using dragon fire is dangerous because it takes up so much energy. Afterwards, you have to retreat to safety because you are so weakened from it. So you either have to use it to completely kill off the enemy, or you have to retreat to a place of safety for a while before rejoining the battle. The reason you saw them strike at people’s heads and decapitating them is because to kill a dragon you either have to use silver, or you have to be strong enough to separate his head from his body, otherwise the dragon’s healing factor will take over.”

  Alexandra felt curiosity in spite of her horror at what just happened.

  “Tara,” Dax said, simply. “The Valkyrie has escaped.”

  “Not now,” said Balor. “We have to take Alexandra before it’s too late.”

  The world kept spinning, and the dragons were talking, but all Alexandra could see or smell was the mass of bodies that lay in front of her. Charred crisps that smelled of death and feces and blood.

  So this is Pax Gloria? Did I cause all of this?

  Chapter 24: Familiar Enemies

  Alexandra felt the panic and excitement well up inside her in equal measure. It was overwhelming. She had expected to enter the dragon realm, but not like this. She had expected to see new and exciting things, but this was not how she expected to see it.

  She feared for her life, for the life or her baby and for Falon, who she had been pulled away from at the portal.

  There was so much rushing through Alexandra’s head, thoughts whizzing by, but she couldn’t stop to focus on any of them. She was rushed along through the realm, taken through the streets, where there was so much to see.

  The realm was beautiful.

  Despite her fear, Alexandra couldn’t quell the feelings of wonderment that ached in her chest. This was incredible. This was everything that she had ever dreamed it would be, and more. Everything was new, everything was familiar and yet, exotic. Everything seemed more spacious somehow, more luxurious and opulent and beautiful.

  It was mysterious, it was exotic, and it was like nothing Alexandra had ever seen. She couldn’t believe that she was getting to experience such wonder, such incredible beauty and splendor.

  She couldn’t believe that she was in a relationship with someone from a place like this.

  The Sigmas stopped suddenly, as did Falon, outside of what looked like a cross between a mosque and a temple, with huge swirling patterns of architecture.

  “This place,” Falon said. “This is for the female dragons only. We cannot step in here. You must go now, and speak with the Matriarch. There’s a good chance Elemanias will be in there as well. But the Matriarch is the only way, you have to risk it.”

  Alexandra nodded and went into the building, doors locked behind her. It was relatively dark, but the room soon lit up with the glowing fire and crystals of the realm. Stunning. Everything in here looked like it belonged in a billionaire’s mansion.

  Alexandra swallowed and tried to ease the nervousness in her chest. She didn’t know what to expect.

  “In here! In here!” Elemanias’s voice echoed through the hall, burning and intense, “She must be lying!”

  Elemanias burst through the door, followed closely by an older woman with striking white hair and eyes the color of copp
er. She was stunning and regal and she moved slowly towards Alexandra.

  Alexandra saw a glimmer of kindness in her, where Elemanias had none.

  She smiled and approached.

  The Matriarch, ignoring Elemanias, “I hear that you are with a child, my dear.” She sighed, “It has been many years since we have had a dragon born to us. If I may?”

  Alexandra just nodded, not sure what else to do. The woman smiled and lightly rested her hands on Alexandra’s stomach. She shut her eyes and breathed. Alexandra felt a pleasant sort of warmth coming from the woman, felt a comfort deep in her bones.

  When the older woman finally pulled her hands away and opened her eyes, they were positively glowing. She turned to Elemanias. “She is not lying, Elemanias. She is, indeed, pregnant with a child of the dragons.” The woman smiled. “Not only that, but there is ancient dragon blood flowing through her veins. She will carry the next true dragon for our realm.”

  Where the older woman was positively glowing, Elemanias became enraged. Anger twisted her features into a hateful mask and she all but snarled her words, “I forbid it!”

  In a flash, she was in front of Alexandra, her arm lifted in a vicious strike, her eyes glowing. Alexandra felt a flash of panic, a flash of certainty that she was about to be killed.

  Then the older woman stepped in front of her, raising her cane and sharply rebuffing Elemanias’s arm.

  “You will not lay a hand on her.” Her voice was calm, but it resonated with power that even Alexandra could feel. Elemanias recoiled.

  “You will tell Aedan and you will tell him now, or you will be punished for the highest crime of treason against the crown.” She narrowed her eyes.

  “Go. Now.” The older woman stared Elemanias down until she turned on her heels and left the room.

  Something changed in the Matriarch when Elemanias had left. She turned to Alexandra, with tears in her eyes and hugged her. The woman cried silently against Alexandra for a while, as if she were hugging a long lost daughter.

  When she let go of Alexandra, she gave a slightly embarrassed smile to Alexandra, a warmth in her eyes and her smile. “Congratulations, my dear, and may all the spirits of the dragons go with you.”

  * * *

  Why does Elemanias look so familiar?

  Chapter 25: The First Judgement

  Falon and the Sigmas had not seen Elemanias. “She must have gone out a different way, knowing we would be here,” Balor offered.

  Alexandra felt her heart race as she was ushered into a different room, a massive room with a great throne upon which Elemanias’s father, Meneas, sat, with Elemanias sitting at his side. The woman from Alexandra’s dreams, Tara, the Valkyrie, stood with several guards, forming an impressive citadel around the two royals. All of them were quick to rise, however, when Aedan arrived.

  Alexandra had been ushered into the room and instructed to sit down by the older woman, who seemed hell bent on staying at Alexandra’s side, something that she was deeply grateful for.

  Elemanias was still giving her hateful glares, but she noticed that she was acting a lot more polite now. Alexandra wondered why this was the case. They were about to see Aedan, but Alexandra had no idea who he was.

  Falon stood with her and the Matriarch, surrounded by the Sigmas. His tense features visibly relaxed when he saw that Alexandra was there, safe and well, sitting and protected. His relief was clear and he turned his attention quickly back on Elemanias and her father, clearly unwilling to let either of them out of his sight, in case they did something untoward.

  Still, the thought nagged at her, the thought she dared not ask. Who was Aedan? Alexandra wasn’t kept waiting long, before the doors to the room were flung open, and guards poured in.

  These men were dressed differently. They wore white instead of dark clothes, and they had shining, gold colored buttons on their outfits, and they were not wearing the usual synthetic athletic suits that most of the dragons wore. They marched neatly, in a controlled fashion.

  Then they turned, and saluted, creating a pathway. A man strode through and it was then that Alexandra got her first glimpse of Aedan. Grand and proud, a man who stood taller than even Falon did. He wore robes of a deep gold, his clothing white beneath the cloak. His face was stern and his eyes flashed golden. His hair and eyes were both pure golden, matching exactly. He was clearly older than Falon, and even older than Elemanias’s father, but he had an air of youth, of confidence and power. In fact, you couldn’t see his age at all, for he looked like he was in his early forties, but you could feel it in his eyes. Eyes that had watched centuries pass.

  Oh, the power. Even though Alexandra knew nothing about this world, she could feel the power rolling off him in waves. Everyone lowered themselves in a bow and one guard called out clearly, “Announcing King Aedan, Supreme of the realm of dragons.”

  The king! Alexandra felt a chill. This was the king? She glanced at Elemanias and realized, quite suddenly, that she must have an impressive rank to have a father with such power. By proxy, Falon must have a high rank, to be able to summon the king here for such a reason, and to have the elite warriors of the Sigmas defending his cause despite his treason.

  She felt chills move through her, shivering at the thought. She felt out of her depths, but, when she looked at Falon, she also felt safe, safe and protected in this world. She knew that he would do everything in his power for her, everything in his power to keep her safe, and to keep their child safe. The thought was encouraging and it settled her burning heart.

  It didn’t take long for Elemanias to give her side of the story, and Alexandra was furious at how she spoke about both Falon and Alexandra. She was respectful and kept her vile hatred to herself, but she painted them in a terrible light. Eventually, she was forced to admit that Alexandra was, indeed, with a child.

  “Is this true?” Aedan turned, eyes wide with surprise, to the older woman. The older woman nodded, a smile breaking out on her face. “It is true. She is with a child and she carries the ancient dragon blood within her! We will, once again, have a dragon born to us!”

  Something shifted within Aedan’s eyes, something Alexandra barely noticed, before he turned his head towards Falon.

  “Defend yourself. You have broken the laws of the kingdom. My laws.” He stared Falon down, who didn’t back away.

  Falon instead straightened his shoulders. “I am willing to take any punishment that you deem fit, my lord. Kill me if you must. I will give up my life for Alexandra, if it comes to that.”

  He looked deeply at Aedan. “I beseech you, my lord, have mercy on Alexandra. My only wish is that she and our child be allowed to live, safe and happy, be that in the dragon realm, or the human realm, whatever you see fit. She has done no wrong, nor has our child.” Falon stared the king down. “I am accountable for everything.”

  Alexandra felt her heart catch in her chest. She bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. She wouldn’t lose Falon. She had only just got him back. She couldn’t have him torn away from her again.

  Aedan looked at Falon for a long moment and then surveyed the rest of the people gathered in the room. He nodded slowly, before his gaze turned towards Alexandra, who felt like electricity had just passed through her body. He was intense and the power was shuddering through her body.

  “I hereby declare Alexandra to be a mother of dragon offspring,” He spoke quietly, but clearly, everyone hanging off his every word, “She is therefore worthy to reside, with Falon, in his Sovereign realm.” He smiled, a sparkle in his eye. “I declare their union to be true and binding forever.”

  He looked at Falon. “You are pardoned, and you are to never indulge in such foolishness again.” He narrowed his eyes before turning around sharply, but with his back turned to Falon and Alexandra. He spoke, this time, his voice betrayed a lovingness and a smile, “For you are no longer a boy, you’re a father now. You have too much to lose to be brash as the young are.”

  Elemanias was looking absolutely speechl
ess, her eyes wide and she had sank back down onto the seat. Her father was white as a sheet. Alexandra realized that neither of them had expected this outcome, never thought that Alexandra would be allowed to stay, or that Falon would be pardoned. They clearly never expected for the union to be approved.

  Alexandra felt elation fill her. She didn’t care if the king was in the room, didn’t care who else was watching. Falon was safe! She leapt up from her seat, but Falon was already across the room. He gathered her into his arms and she held him tightly, feeling the joy course through her body.

  Falon kissed her hard and this time, it was like no other kiss they had shared. This one was passionate and loving, but it was also full of relief and sweet, sweet promise of a future. A future, a life and a child. Alexandra held on tight, buried her head into Falon’s shoulder and thanked the heavens that everything had worked out.

  Aedan’s deep voice spoke again, this time, addressing the Sigmas. “Dax, what did you find?”

  Although the room had already gone silent form Aedan’s presence, the silence fell even harder now, with the whisper of death to follow.

  Chapter 26: The Roar of Blackfyre and Dragon Screams

  Falon watched as the Supreme spoke, having just granted him freedom and happiness, and the world felt as if it was a dream on fire at the periphery.

  “My Supreme,” Dax said. “Per your orders, I seduced the suspect. The findings are as you had suspected: The Duke, Meneas, had Falon’s parents assassinated himself during the Wolves’ rebellion, framing the act as something that one of the Wolves themselves had done.”

  The day that had drowned his life for years, had come back. The vision of two unmoving bodies laid upon the ground of his father’s solar, hit him again.