The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

Elara’s fingers traced the lines of the wooden dragon.

It was carved from some kind of pale wood, aged now so that it had taken on a deep honey color. Every line was precise. Every detail was perfect. The dragon’s wings were spread as if it were about to take flight. Its eyes were carved deep, giving it an expression that was almost alive. Its scales were suggested by careful etching. It was a work of art made by someone who understood dragons, or at least had understood them well enough to capture their essence in wood.

Kael had carved it. That much she knew. She had watched him work on it, his hands careful and precise, his mind focused on the task in a way that was rare for him. Usually, his mind was consumed by research, by prophecies, by theories. But when he carved, something else emerged. Something gentler. Something more human.

She held the dragon to her chest and closed her eyes.

And the memories came.

***

Valorhold had been a city of learning.

It sprawled across a series of high hills, its buildings climbing upward as if reaching toward the sky itself. Temples of white stone dominated the skyline, their spires carved with intricate patterns, their interiors filled with ancient texts and scrolls. Gardens terraced into the hillsides overflowed with plants.... some merely decorative, many with medicinal or magical properties.

The city existed for the purpose of understanding. Understanding the past. Understanding the magic that had shaped the world. Understanding the prophecies that had been recorded in those ancient texts. Understanding the curse that had plagued the Dragon Kings for two centuries.

And it was into this city of learning that Elara had come as a young woman.

She had been perhaps twenty years old when she arrived. Fresh from a smaller village, with knowledge of healing learned from her mother and her grandmother, but no formal training, no credentials beyond her own skill. She had come to Valorhold hoping to learn more, to expand her knowledge, to become a better healer.

Instead, she had become entangled in something far more complicated.

***

The Temple of the Flame was the largest of the temples in Valorhold. It was dedicated to the study of the curse and, by extension, to the prophecies surrounding the Mother of Dragons. It was here that Elara found work. She began as a simple assistant, helping the healers who tended to the scholars and priests. She learned the temple’s routines, its hierarchies, its secrets.

And she learned about the curse.

The curse had been placed on the three Dragon Kings two hundred years ago. No heirs could be born to them. The prophecy spoke of one who would break the curse....”the Mother of Dragons, born of fire and shadow, neither crown nor title would mark her, but the dragons would know her. She would come when the curse was at its darkest, when hope was nearly lost, and she would either save the realm or doom it entirely.”

Every scholar in Valorhold was obsessed with understanding this prophecy. Every priest sought to unravel its mysteries. Every researcher spent their life poring over ancient texts, looking for clues about what it meant, about when the chosen one would come, about how the curse might be broken.

It was during this time that Elara first encountered Kael.

He was in the archive when she first saw him.

The archive was a vast underground chamber where the oldest texts were kept. It was cool and dry, filled with the scent of old paper and aging leather. Rows and rows of shelves held manuscripts, scrolls, tomes of knowledge that stretched back centuries. Few people were allowed in the archive unsupervised. Only the most senior scholars and priests were granted access.

But Kael was always there.

He seemed to live in the archive, existing in a state of perpetual research, surrounded by stacks of ancient texts, his fingers stained with ink from copying passages, his hair perpetually disheveled from running his hands through it in frustration or excitement.

He was brilliant. That much was immediately obvious. He could read and interpret texts in languages that most scholars needed years to master. He could make connections between seemingly unrelated passages. He could propose theories that were creative enough to surprise even the most learned researchers.

But he was also obsessed. Nearly to the point of madness.

His obsession was the prophecy.

He was convinced....utterly, absolutely convinced, that the Mother of Dragons would be born soon. Not in centuries, not in generations, but within the next few years. He had constructed elaborate theories based on astrological calculations, on patterns within the ancient texts, on what he perceived as cyclical patterns in historical events.

He was convinced that she was coming.

And he was convinced that he would be the one to recognize her when she arrived.

***

Elara met him properly when the temple’s head healer assigned her to assist one of the scholars with a research project. The scholar was Kael. The project was an expedition through the oldest texts to identify any references to the characteristics of the Mother of Dragons.

”They describe her as born of fire and hidden in shadow,” Kael said, his eyes bright with intellectual intensity as they worked through manuscripts together. ”But what does that mean? Is it literal? Is she literally made of fire? Is she hidden by magic, or by circumstance?”

”Perhaps,” Elara suggested carefully, ”it means she will be ordinary in appearance but extraordinary in essence. Hidden not because she is concealed, but because people will not recognize what she is.”

Kael had looked at her then, really looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

”That’s remarkably insightful,” he said. ”Most people approach the prophecy with rigid interpretations. But you’re suggesting something more nuanced. Something more human.”

And that was the beginning.

***

Over the following months, Elara and Kael worked together constantly.

They spent long hours in the archive, surrounded by ancient texts, discussing theories and interpretations. Kael would read passages to her, and she would offer perspectives. He valued her input in a way that surprised her. Most of the scholars in Valorhold treated healers as lesser beings, useful for their practical knowledge but inferior in terms of intellectual capacity.

But Kael didn’t treat her that way.

He treated her as an equal. He sought her opinion. He challenged her ideas, and in doing so, pushed her to think more deeply, to consider possibilities she hadn’t previously entertained.

And gradually, intellectually, she fell in love with him.

Or so she believed at the time.