Race shifted to his human form. Gasps rippled like wind through dry leaves.
“They think you’re another traitor, using smokescreens and mirrors to resemble the ruling family,” Ash murmured.
“Indeed. Millennia of defeat can do that.” A pair of black trousers appeared in his hand. He pulled them on, then straightened, flipping back his silver mane that fell down his back.
Ash blinked. “How is your hair longer?”
“Every shift adds growth.” He scooped her into his arms and leaped down. Ash groaned and clung to him as he landed effortlessly on the dais thirty feet below.
Braxion and Varkyn bowed and flanked him. Koal and several more resistance fighters fell into formation behind them—Rhaedra among them, healed and watchful.
The she-dragon met Ash’s gaze and gave a small, respectful bow. She returned it with a faint smile.
The crowd’s murmurs rolled like a tidal wave, sharpening into disbelieving gasps and jaw drops.
“He looks like them?—”
“Impossible! The heirs are dead…”
Bloody Malcarion’s poisoned lies still clung to them.
Race remained silent, waiting with unwavering composure. But she knew him well, could sense the heaviness weighing on him—his ghosts, his pain, the burden of everything he’d lost. And now, the shattered trust of his people.
Hope and fear warred in their eyes.
“There is one way to silence doubt,” Attor’s voice cut through the murmurs. “One truth Malcarion never dared test in front of you all, because he could not.”
From the metal chest, he lifted a crown and held it high.
It gleamed like fire-bronzed metal, the band shaped with interlocking scales, each edge glowing faintly as if forged in living flame. From the circlet rose slender spires, curved like dragons’ horns. At its heart, an emberstone pulsed, slow and steady.
“This istheEmber Crown,” he said. “Only a true blood of the royal line can release it from its mystical perch and wear it.” He turned to Race. “Sire?”
Race knelt and shut his eyes.
Then it struck Ash—that was where he’d gone when he’d vanished earlier. To retrievethis. More, she could read his sorrow in his set jaw.
Attor set the Ember Crown on Race’s head?—
The emberstone in the center blazed, spilling molten light over him in waves. Its radiance rippled outward, flooding the square like dawn breaking after endless night.
Gasps turned to cries of wonder, tears streaked soot-stained cheeks.
“The Crown accepts him!”
“The bloodline lives.”
“Pyr’xian wills it?—”
A few dropped to one knee. Then more. Within moments, the entire square knelt, their voices ragged at first, then swelled until the ruined square shook with the roar of a people who knew at last their true king had returned.
Ash could only stare, her breath catching in her throat.
This wasn’t just her dragon—the infuriating, impossible, beautiful male who stole her heart. This was the king of anancient draconic world. Even in his cotton trousers and bare feet, he had never looked more regal…and so bloody powerful.
“The heir and the rightful bloodline to the Ember Crown has returned,” Attor’s voice rang out, and he touched Race’s shoulder. “Long live King Eracier.”
Race rose.
