The vial’s contents swirled like storm clouds in Pryce’s palm, dark liquid moving with an unsettling life of its own.

Master Vex’s laboratory reeked of potions and worn scrolls. Its stone walls were lined with shelves of mysterious ingredients. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, their bitter fragrance barely masking an underlying smell of decay—like thunderstorms mixed with grave dirt. The only light came from a small window, and luminous crystals set in iron brackets, casting everything in shifting shadows that made the scales on Vex’s face seem to move.

Seren’s hand remained warm against Pryce’s back. The subtle scales at her temples flexed with her smile as she leaned closer.

In the corner of Vex’s study, Ash had pressed himself against the wall, his gray fur standing on end. Outside the room’s single window, barely wider than an arrow slit, Skye scratched at the ledge with her talons, as if trying to reach Pryce.

“Drink, my love,” Seren whispered, her lips brushing his ear. Her breath was warm. “Become who you were meant to be.”

Pryce remembered Ragnarok’s warning, but Seren’s touch scattered his thoughts like leaves in a storm. Her fingers traced circles on his back, each movement sending warmth through his body that made it hard to think clearly. When she pressed closer, the scent of rain-washed skies filled his head. This was everything he’d dreamed of—power, acceptance, and a princess who saw him as more than just a fisherman’s son. Each soft brush of her fingers weakened his resolve, drowning out the dragon’s warning in a tide of longing.

Pryce lifted the vial to his lips. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice that sounded like his mother’s whispered caution, but Seren’s other hand found his cheek, turning his face toward hers. Her violet eyes held such promise, such certainty. How could something that felt this right be wrong?

The first drop hit his tongue like a bolt of lightning. The liquid burned like ice, then blazed into fire that spread down his throat and into his chest. He managed three desperate swallows before his mother’s pendant flared with sudden heat, searing him. The pain made him gasp, his fingers going numb. The vial slipped from his grasp, shattering against the stone floor in a spray of dark liquid and crystal shards.

“No matter,” Vex said. “You’ve taken enough to begin.”

The first wave of pain dropped Pryce to his knees. It felt like molten glass flowing through his veins. Every heartbeat sent fresh agony coursing through him. Through the haze of pain, he heard Ash yowl—a sound of pure terror—and saw the cat scramble up a bookshelf, sending scrolls and vials tumbling to the floor.

“Wretched beast!” Vex lunged for Ash, scattering more vials in his haste. “That was three months’ work, you mongrel vermin! I’ll have your hide for a potion bag!”

The cat darted between shelves as Vex hurled a crystal at him, missing and shattering it against the wall.

“Control yourself,” Seren snapped at Vex. “The transformation is more important than your experiments.”

Vex turned back, chest heaving, but his eyes still tracked Ash’s movement along the highest shelf. “These beasts are a plague,” he spat. “Like all common animals, they have no place among the Dragonkin. When the boy is fully changed, he’ll see that too.”

Seren knelt beside Pryce, her fingers brushed his forehead. “The transformation can be . . . uncomfortable. But it will pass, my love. Like a snake shedding its old skin to reveal something more beautiful beneath.”

Pryce tried to respond, but the words tangled in his throat. His vision swam, turning the room’s crystal lights into smears of color. Through the haze, he watched in horror as his hands began to change. The skin split along his knuckles, revealing scales that pushed through like spring buds breaking soil. They spread across his fingers, each new scale bringing fresh waves of agony.

The pain intensified. One moment it burned like molten metal, the next it chilled him to the bone. His teeth ached, and something shifted beneath the skin of his face, pulling tight across his cheekbones.

“Something’s wrong,” Vex said sharply, moving closer to examine Pryce’s face. “The reaction shouldn’t be fighting itself like this. The scales, yes, but this resistance—”

“What’s happening to him?” Seren gripped Vex’s arm. “Fix this!”

Pryce could barely focus on their voices. Two distinct sensations warred within him—one familiar and pure, like the waters of Lake Dragontide, the other alien and corrupt, like poison seeping through his veins. The dragon blood of his ancestors clashed with Vex’s tainted potion, turning his body into their battlefield.

He clawed his way toward the window on hands and knees, desperate for fresh air.

“Help me get him to his quarters,” Seren ordered. She gestured to two guards outside the door. “Quickly, before anyone sees him like this. The wedding announcement hasn’t even been sent—we can’t risk rumors about his condition spreading through the ranks.”

The world tilted and spun as they half-carried him through the winding corridors. Stone walls blurred past, the luminous crystals leaving trails of light across his vision. Pryce’s feet dragged against the floor, his boots scraping stone. Through waves of pain, he caught fragments of conversation—servants stopping their work to stare, their whispers following like shadows.

“The princess’s chosen one . . .”

“Did you see his face? The scales . . .”

“They say the wedding will be held at Drakemere . . .”

“So soon?”

Each word floated past like debris in a storm tide. He tried to swallow, but his throat had changed, making even that simple action strange and painful.

When awareness returned fully, he lay on his bed, the silk sheets cool against his burning skin. The late afternoon sun slanted through the stained-glass windows, casting dragon-shaped shadows across the blankets. He lifted his hands, turning them in the light. Scales covered his palms now, spreading up his wrists and forearms in patches that disappeared beneath his torn sleeves. The transformation had shredded parts of his clothing where the scales had pushed through.

“Rest, my prince.” Seren sat on the edge of his bed. “The worst is over. Soon you’ll be perfect.”

Perfect for what? he wondered as she left the room. His mother’s pendant still burned against his chest where scales hadn’t yet appeared, but the searing pain had dulled to a persistent ache.

On the balcony, Skye paced back and forth, her wings half-spread as if ready for flight. She wouldn’t meet his gaze directly. Near the door, Ash had wedged himself beneath a heavy chair, only his gray tail visible. Every few moments, the tail would twitch, as if the cat fought between the instinct to flee and loyalty.

“I won’t hurt you,” Pryce tried to say, but his voice came out wrong—deeper, with rough edges that made both animals flinch.

He forced himself up. The room swayed as he stumbled to the washbasin, catching himself on its marble rim. Water sloshed over the sides as he steadied himself. Slowly, dreading what he might see, Pryce raised his eyes to the mirror.

Scattered patches of scales traced his jawline like frost on a windowpane. More had emerged at his temples, spreading back toward his hairline. He touched them with a scaled finger, feeling their smooth hardness. But his eyes remained unchanged. They were still his father’s eyes, now staring back at him from an increasingly unfamiliar face.

A burst of laughter in the corridor drew his attention. Pryce pushed away from the basin, his new scales catching on the fabric of his sleeve. He moved to the door, pressing his ear against the wood.

“Did you see the size of the mining equipment they’re moving through the sea caves?” The voice belonged to one of Thane’s training partners. “The crews will be ready once we control Crystal Shores—”

“Quiet, fool!” Kestrel’s voice commanded. Boot steps halted abruptly. “The boy might hear. These walls carry sound.”

“What does it matter now?” A third voice—Pryce recognized him as one of Seren’s personal guards. “He’ll be too busy with wedding preparations to notice anything. The princess has him thoroughly enchanted.” The guard chuckled. “And afterward, it won’t matter. Once he’s fully transformed and married to the princess, Crystal Shores’ resources will be ours legally. The mining rights alone will fund our armies for years.”

“And what of the Seadrake Corsair threat?” The first voice again, lowered now. “The villagers grow suspicious.”

“A convenient fiction,” Kestrel said. “The simple fools will welcome our protection from an enemy that doesn’t exist. They’ll thank us while we strip their lands bare.”

Pryce’s scaled hands curled into fists. All those battle formations they’d practiced, the defensive strategies he’d learned—they weren’t meant to protect Crystal Shores. They were invasion plans, disguised as salvation.

Pryce staggered away from the door, his newly heightened senses overwhelmed by the lingering scents of Kestrel’s passage—smoke and something else, something that made his transformed nose twitch.

A draft whispered across his scales, so faint he might have missed it before the change. He turned, following the sensation to an elaborate tapestry depicting dragons in flight.

The weaving rippled, ever so slightly, against the stone wall.

There—a seam in the stone, barely wider than a knife’s blade. He pressed against different stones until one shifted with a grinding sound. The wall swung inward, revealing a narrow passage.

The secret room beyond served as a war chamber. A massive table dominated the space, its surface covered with maps and documents weighted down by chunks of crystal. Training schedules, patrol reports, and tactical drawings covered every surface. But these weren’t defense plans—they were detailed attack formations, invasion routes that led straight to Crystal Shores.

A map larger than the others caught his eye. It showed his village, but marked with strange symbols he’d never seen in his navigation studies. Notes in Kestrel’s precise handwriting filled the margins: “Primary ore deposits here” and “Deep mining required” and “Estimated yield: enough dragon-magic ore to arm three battalions.”

Beneath the map, a leather portfolio contained surveys of Crystal Shores’ underground resources. The diagrams showed vast mineral deposits, each carefully measured and marked in red ink. Page after page of calculations detailed the anticipated yields.

These weren’t the plans of protectors. This was a systematic strategy to strip his home of everything valuable, using him—using his marriage to Seren—to make it all legal.

A noise in the corridor made him freeze. Footsteps approached his room. Pryce grabbed the most damning documents and slipped back through the hidden door, careful to seal it behind him. He had just straightened the tapestry when someone knocked.

“Young master?” Jorr’s voice called. “Are you well?”

No, he wasn’t well at all. And neither was Crystal Shores, unless he found a way to stop this.

“Enter.”

Jorr stepped in. His eyes widened at Pryce’s transformation, though he tried to hide his reaction. “Feeling better, young master? The princess sent me to check on you. She’s concerned about your comfort.”

“I’m fine.” Pryce turned away, pulling his collar higher to hide the scales creeping up his neck. “Just tired.”

“Of course.” Jorr shifted his weight, clearly uncomfortable with Pryce’s changed appearance. “Oh, and Master Kestrel wanted you to know—the wedding announcement is being sent to Drakemere Island today. A shadow drake rider left an hour ago with the news. They say it will be the grandest celebration since Queen Nymeria’s coronation.”

Everything was moving too fast, like a ship caught in a tide race. “Thank you, Jorr.”

After the handler left, Pryce sank into a chair, the documents crinkling in his hand. Ash finally emerged from his hiding place beneath the furniture, whiskers twitching as he approached his transformed friend. The cat’s steps were cautious, testing each pawfall as if the floor might disappear. When he reached Pryce, Ash stretched his neck forward, sniffing the scaled hand that rested on the chair’s arm. After a long moment, the cat butted his head against Pryce’s fingers—still trusting, still loyal, despite everything.

Skye landed on the balcony rail, her wings settling against her sides. Her message capsule caught the dying light.

The dragon blood of his ancestors still resisted Vex’s corrupted magic, but for how long? The transformation crept further with each passing hour. Soon he would change completely, marry Seren, and become the weapon they needed to strip Crystal Shores of everything valuable. His own people would welcome their destroyers, thanks to his betrayal.

Somewhere beyond the Dragon’s Fang’s peaks, Crystal Shores waited, unknowing, while its doom was planned in these dark halls. In his scaled hands, Pryce clutched the proof of their deception—maps and surveys that showed the Dragonkin’s true intentions.