You've Carried That Dragon Story For Years.
Tonight, You Can Read Chapter One Of It.

Ashwing’s wing cast half the execution platform into shadow.

Mara stood beneath it with one hand resting on the pommel of her sword, listening to the iron fittings of Ashen Court contract in the morning cold. Beyond the platform, tiered galleries climbed toward the palace walls, crowded with nobles in winter silks, officers in black armor, and citizens admitted by royal invitation. No one spoke above a murmur.

They had come to watch a traitor burn.

The stone beneath Mara’s boots still bore the marks of the last execution. Three dark arcs crossed the platform where dragonfire had struck and spread. Servants had scrubbed until their hands bled, but some stains could not be removed with water.

Mara knew that better than most.

A pulse of heat pressed against her shoulder. Too much heat. She glanced up.

Ashwing crouched behind her, vast enough that the ceremonial pillars seemed like children’s toys beside him. His scales were the red of banked coals, deepening to near black along his spine. Thin smoke escaped his nostrils. His amber gaze remained fixed on the empty execution circle.

To the watching crowd, he looked magnificent.

To Mara, he felt wrong.

The bond between them carried no words. Dragon bonds did not open minds like books, however often poets claimed otherwise. They gave sensation, emotion, flashes of instinct. Ashwing’s discomfort moved through her as a pressure beneath the ribs — a furnace sealed too tightly.

Are you in pain?

She formed the thought with the focus their old tutors had taught her, though she knew he would receive intention more than language.

Ashwing’s claws tightened against the platform. Stone cracked beneath one talon.

Mara shifted closer to him, hiding the movement beneath the fall of her black execution cloak.

“Hold still,” murmured Master Orin.

The royal physician knelt near Ashwing’s chest, pretending to adjust a bronze ceremonial chain. His narrow hands moved with practiced efficiency, but his gaze avoided Mara’s.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“Nothing unexpected.”

“That was not my question.”

Orin’s fingers paused.

At the base of Ashwing’s chest, where overlapping scales protected his flame chamber, a faint dark line disappeared beneath the chain.

Mara had seen it the previous night. She had told herself it was soot.

Now, in the flat winter light, it looked almost like a vein.

Orin pulled the chain higher, covering it.

“His temperature is elevated,” he said. “The strain of ceremony can agitate even a disciplined dragon.”

Ashwing turned his head. The motion was slow, but Orin flinched.

Mara noticed.

Before she could press him, the silver doors beneath the royal gallery opened.

Every whisper in Ashen Court died.

King Aldren Veyr descended the seven steps to the platform without escort. He wore no crown. He never wore one to an execution. The absence was deliberate, meant to suggest that justice came not from a man’s authority but from some older and purer law.

Mara had believed that once. Perhaps part of her still did.

Her father stopped beside her and surveyed the court.