The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch
Chapter 4: Who Are You?

Chapter 4: Who Are You?

"He’s right, you know," Thorne said quietly.

Cedric looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "About what?"

"It’s a waste of time." Thorne stood, tucking his book under his arm. "The prophecy was clear. The chosen one isn’t some nobleman’s daughter. She’s not going to arrive in a carriage wearing silk and jewels."

"Then who is she?" Varrick demanded.

Thorne’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "If I knew that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation."

He left without another word, leaving Kaelen alone with the council.

Kaelen sighed and leaned back in his chair, his pale eyes cold and unreadable.

"Send your invitations," he said, his voice bored. "Invite whoever you want. But don’t expect miracles."

"We’re not expecting miracles, Your Majesty," Cedric said quietly. "We’re expecting you to survive."

Kaelen’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in his eyes. Something sharp and bitter and tired.

"Then you’re expecting too much."

He stood and walked out, leaving the ministers in stunned silence.

Draeven didn’t stop walking until he reached the eastern tower.

It was his favorite place in the palace, high, isolated, with a view of the city that stretched for miles. He could see the market square from here, the tiny figures moving through the streets like ants.

He stood at the edge of the balcony, his hands gripping the stone railing, and let the wind whip through his hair.

The girl.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her.

It was irrational. Absurd. He’d seen a thousand women in his lifetime...beautiful, powerful, cunning women who had tried to seduce him, manipulate him, claim him.

None of them had ever made him feel like this.

Like something inside him had woken up after centuries of sleep.

"Who are you?" he murmured to the wind.

The city offered no answer.

But somewhere, buried deep in his chest where the curse lived and burned, something shifted.

And for the first time in two hundred years, Draeven felt something close to hope.

***

Morgana waited until the house fell silent.

She lay in her narrow bed, eyes open, listening to the rhythm of her mother’s breathing from the other room. It had taken longer than usual tonight, her mother’s cough had been worse, rattling and wet, and it had been nearly an hour before the sound finally eased into something resembling sleep.

Morgana counted to one hundred. Then two hundred.

Still nothing.

Slowly, carefully, she pushed back the thin blanket and sat up. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet, and she moved with the practiced silence of someone who had done this a thousand times before. She reached for the clothes she’d hidden beneath her bed...dark trousers that had belonged to her father once, a tunic she’d stolen from the market two years ago, a cloak that was more holes than fabric.

She dressed quickly, her fingers deft despite the darkness, and slipped her feet into worn leather boots.

The door creaked when she opened it.

She froze, breath caught in her throat, waiting.

Nothing.

Her mother’s breathing continued, slow and steady.

Morgana exhaled and slipped out into the main room. The hearth had gone cold hours ago, and the darkness was thick and absolute. She didn’t need light. She knew this house like she knew her own heartbeat.

She moved to the door, lifted the latch with agonizing slowness, and stepped out into the night.

The air hit her like a slap...cold and sharp and clean. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders and glanced back at the cottage one last time.

The window to her mother’s room was dark.

Good.

Morgana turned and disappeared into the shadows.

***

The village was silent at this hour.

The streets were empty, the market square deserted. Only the moon hung overhead, pale and watchful, casting silver light over the cobblestones.

Morgana kept to the edges of the buildings, moving quickly and quietly. She knew which streets to avoid, the ones where the night watch made their rounds, the ones where the tavern-goers stumbled home drunk and loud.

She had mapped this route years ago, memorized every turn, every shadow.

No one saw her.

No one ever did.

By the time she reached the edge of the village, her breath was coming in short puffs of mist. She paused at the treeline, glancing back one last time at the cluster of houses and shops behind her.

Then she stepped into the forest.

The woods were different at night.

During the day, they were wild and green and alive...birds singing, sunlight filtering through the leaves, the scent of pine and earth and growing things.

But at night...

At night, the forest belonged to something older.

The trees loomed overhead, their branches twisting together like skeletal fingers. The underbrush whispered and rustled with unseen creatures. The darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and watchful.

Morgana loved it.

She moved through the trees with the ease of long familiarity, her feet finding the narrow path without thought. She had walked this route so many times she could do it blind.

The forest grew denser the farther she went. The village had rules about how far into the woods you were allowed to venture, stories about people who went too deep and never came back, about ancient things that lived in the dark places, about curses and magic and death.

Morgana had stopped listening to those stories when she was ten years old.

Because she had gone into the dark places.

And she had found something extraordinary.

The mountains rose ahead of her like the spine of some great sleeping beast.

They were old...older than the kingdom, older than the dragons, older than memory itself. The villagers called them the Forgotten Peaks, and they rarely ventured this far. The land here was wild and unwelcoming, all jagged stone and treacherous paths.

But Morgana knew the way.

She climbed.

Her legs burned. Her lungs ached. The air grew thinner and colder the higher she went, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not when she was this close.

The cave entrance appeared suddenly, a gaping black mouth in the side of the mountain. It was hidden behind a tangle of vines and overgrown brush, invisible unless you knew where to look.

Morgana pushed the vines aside and stepped inside.

The darkness swallowed her whole.