Chapter 103 — The Jealous Moon
Vaeris stood tall amidst the smoking ruins. All around her, the landscape was nothing more than a heap of charred stones and dust, yet her elegant, untouchable silhouette remained flawless. This striking contrast only heightened the severity of the disaster she had single handedly caused. She looked down at Seth and Reynard, her smile almost affectionate. It was the look of a mother watching her turbulent children a mixture of pity and amusement before delivering an inevitable punishment.
"Before I kill you..." she said, her voice soft, poised, and melodious, "I want to tell you a little story that very few people know, even the oldest dragons."
Seth and Reynard remained on their guard, their bodies tense to the absolute limit. They wanted to attack her, to make a move, or at least back away to gain some space, but it was impossible. The aura Vaeris exuded had become so heavy, so crushing, that it physically weighed down on their shoulders and legs. The simple act of breathing demanded a monumental effort. Trapped by this invisible pressure, they realized they had no choice but to stand there and listen.
Vaeris slowly raised her eyes to the sky, fixing her gaze upon the thousand moons she had created, which shone with a pale, sickly glow. She began to speak in a distant, almost nostalgic voice, as if she were reliving each memory the moment the words crossed her lips.
"Long ago, when I lost my battle against Flora... I had to flee our universe. I left, burned with shame and unable to accept that defeat it infuriated me more than anything. At that time, I was young, arrogant, and completely consumed by rage. I thought of nothing but revenge and reclaiming what I believed I deserved. I wandered, searching for allies wherever I could find them, among any who shared my murderous desire toward Flora. It was during this quest that I allied myself with Abraham... We had the same goals and shared the same resentment. Together, we swore to eradicate humanity down to the very last soul."
She paused, a bitter, disillusioned smile playing on her lips, then gave a slight shake of her head.
"But in reality, behind that alliance and that war, humanity was only a secondary target, if truth be told... It was Flora I envied more than anything in the world. She was the Sun Dragon. I was the Moon. Legend dictated that our two lineages had been bound since the dawn of time by an immutable destiny one had to control the moon and the other the sun to maintain balance in the dragon world. But in practice, the sun always came first. The sun gave life, warmth, and the light necessary for every living being. The moon, on the other hand, did nothing but reflect that light, like a pale, cold, dependent servant. Yet, we drew our power from the exact same original source... but the sun always took more, monopolizing the best share. The moon was condemned to remain in the shadows, to shine only when the sun permitted it and left it the space to do so."
Vaeris lightly clenched her fist, and the air around her froze even further. Her voice grew harder, laden with a resentment accumulated over centuries.
"Why did the moon develop such a deep-seated jealousy for the sun? Because the moon sees everything, my little ones. She stays in her corner and she watches. She sees the sun shine with a thousand fires while the whole world worships and prays to it. She sees the flowers open the moment it appears, humans singing its praises to drive away the cold, dragons fearing and respecting it as their legitimate king. And the moon, what does she have? She only has the night. Wolves howl for her, it's true, but no one truly thanks her. They say sometimes that she is beautiful, that she is mysterious... but deep down, she always remains second. Always inferior."
"Because I belonged to this inferior lineage, I was biologically and socially destined to serve Flora, to be her second-in-command. It enraged me more than anything in the world. I was entitled to no honor; I was always relegated to the background. I still remember cursing my lineage, my ancestors, and this unjust law that no one had questioned for centuries. Then one day, when we reached our 20th anniversaries which is barely the equivalent of 8 years for humans due to our very slow growth things became serious. We began our official training to succeed the previous Sacred Dragons, those who bore the heavy burden of maintaining global order."
Vaeris let out a short, sharp laugh, entirely devoid of joy.
"Even at that crucial stage of our lives, I was set aside, hidden in the crowd. I was the weakest of the three aspirants of my generation. Mind you, the competition was just absurd. Obliranca and Abraham were already established Sacred Dragons at the time; being much older than us, they were powerful and respected by all. Flora, Alexander, and I were the next three on the list. Flora progressed at an insane, honestly revolting speed, thanks to her natural predispositions and the strength of her lineage. And Alexander... Alexander was just a glitch in nature. A freak accident, let's say. No dragon of that era, not even the elders, had foreseen his birth or the nature of his powers. His appearance completely disrupted the history and rules of the dragons. It was mind-blowing, as humans so aptly put it to describe something that makes absolutely no sense. And me, in the midst of these monsters, with my inferior lineage, I was condemned to remain weak and watch their success."
She paused for a long moment, her gaze lost in the void, as if she were seeing those ancient days with painful clarity. The thousand motionless moons above her seemed to reflect the sudden melancholy that had just hardened her features. For a second, the aura of the untouchable goddess anchored into the ground, weighed down by the burden of a past that still haunted her.
"Then a new war broke out," she resumed, her voice slipping into a whisper that made the air in the ruins shudder. "At that time, it had been nearly five hundred years since humans last attacked dragons. The historic treaty between Elisa and the very first dragon king had brought a fragile but present peace a precarious balance that everyone strove to maintain for fear of mutual extinction. But everything shattered when Abraham made an alliance with the ancient dragon of destruction, whom we thought dead for centuries: Lord Darken, the twin brother of Rayoce..."
She let a bitter laugh escape her, a sharp sound that snapped through the dead silence of the battlefield.
"In their time, Darken had been condemned by his own blood brother because he refused this coexistence and wanted to break the established peace. Rayoce had no choice but to punish him to preserve the kingdom. Darken was deemed the greatest traitor in our history and banished forever from the dragons' territory, stripped of his royal dragon title and his dignity. Being the younger brother, the law of blood forbade him from succeeding to the throne. That was the primary source of his venom a visceral hatred not only toward Rayoce, who had everything he would never have, but also toward the humans, whom he held responsible for his downfall. He had completely vanished from the face of the earth, fading away until that exact moment. And one day Abraham, blinded by his own ambitions, decided to heed his voice.
Together, they reignited the blazes, launched a new total war against humanity, and shattered Elisa's treaty."
Vaeris slowly lowered her eyes back to Seth and Reynard. The glint of nostalgia vanished instantly from her pink pupils, her smile turning cruel, sharp, and deeply amused by the distress of the two warriors hanging on her every word.
"To seal this accursed pact, it was learned later that they had done the unthinkable: they had killed Abraham's own daughter as a sacrifice. A blood price for unprecedented power. Abraham then pretended to accuse the humans, using the claim that they had broken the non-aggression pact as his justification, but the truth was entirely different. After that atrocious war, Flora, Obliranca, and Alexander joined forces with the human armies. Together, at the cost of superhuman efforts, they finally defeated Abraham. He was banished and sealed within the depths of the earth. But the damage was done. This conflict had created an irreparable divide within our own people. It was chaos. Some dragons sided with Flora and her ideal of peace, while others, fueled by resentment, demanded nothing less than the pure and simple destruction of humans."
Her fingers tensed, the claws of her right hand scratching the air with a silvery spark.
"I took advantage of this disorder, and of this flaw in their ranks, to try and finish off Flora once and for all. It was my chance to step out of her shadow. But that bitch was too strong. Even exhausted by the war, her power crushed me; she was destroying me by inches. I was cornered, wounded, and at her mercy. And that is when destiny played an ironic turn. At the exact moment she had the opportunity to deal the finishing blow, the moment she could have wiped me out... she hesitated."
To be continued...