Dragonless, Not Undesired: Bonded To Four Royals

Remus Dravaryn [Heir to the Dragon Throne]

I sat on Vaelor, my silver dragon, scanning the crowd below.

My father had given me one task. ’Find the anomalies among the new initiates’.

Before I left the capital, he’d added only three maddening instructions: Make a list. Trust your instincts. I’ll tell you what comes next.

So I watched, and it wasn’t a hunt for the strongest or the richest. Hell, not even for the most talented.

I was here for the ones who didn’t fit.

To the lesser shifters, the Concourse was a celebration. They stared up at the academies in awe, swallowing every word Maddox fed them about ancient defenses and noble duty.

To me, it was a crowded room full of suspects.

Vaelor rumbled beneath me, his wide silver wings carrying us silently above the clouds.

’Patience’, I sent back through our bond, resting a hand on his scales. ’We aren’t done’.

I pulled a small sketchbook from my coat pocket and opened it across my knee.

The court seers had suffered a collective seizure three moons ago, babbling the same shattered vision: an Anomaly was coming.

A youth who fit none of the natural laws of the five realms, whose very existence in the Concord Realm would signal the start of a globe-shattering catastrophe.

The vision hadn’t revealed if the person was male or female. It hadn’t revealed their race. It hadn’t even clarified if this Anomaly was the cause of the apocalypse, its victim, or merely the helpless catalyst caught in the middle.

Naturally, the paranoid old fools on the Dragon Council immediately panicked.

I pressed the charcoal against the paper, drawing a dragon’s ribcage to keep my hands steady.

I didn’t care about the Council’s theories. I had spent eight years learning that royal court consensus was usually a convenient lie. But I cared about facts, and the fact was that my father had forced High Rector Maddox to open an "Anomaly Clause" for this year’s entrance exams—forcibly drafting every erratic, zero-metric candidate into the academy just to sweep the net wider.

So here I was. Playing bird-watcher for my father’s paranoia.

I narrowed my eyes. My pupils contracted into vertical crimson slits as my power flared quietly to life.

The bright sunlight above the concourse melted away into a sea of emotional signatures that radiated outward like heat waves.

I scanned them methodically.

A lion initiate burned red with arrogance. Predictable.

A pack of young wolves radiated golden excitement. Boring.

A Fae girl trembled beneath a pale-blue pulse of insecurity.

After an hour of scanning, I had written down three names.

Hundreds of fear signatures, and every single one of them was an open book. Most people were tragically simple; their deepest terror was almost always public embarrassment, failure, or death.

"He’s looking at the book again," a voice whispered from thin air right behind my left ear.

"No, he’s not. He’s looking at a girl. Why are there so many initiates anyway? This is ridiculous," a second voice whispered back from the right.

"A girl? No, he’s not! You’re just jealous because your hair looks like a wet badger."

"My hair does not look like a wet badger!"

I could never get a single moment of solitude.

I didn’t bother turning around. I didn’t even pause my pencil. "If you two are going to attempt stealth, perhaps refrain from arguing over my hair while standing on the spine of a four-ton dragon."

A soft pop echoed through the mountain air.

At the base of Vaelor’s neck, a girl materialized out of thin air, tossing back a thick mane of silver hair. That was Veyra, the invisible one, killing me with a sheepish grin.

Beside her, shimmering out of the shadows, stood her twin sister, Vaela, the camouflage—currently wearing the face and form of a grumpy old dragon warden.

My father’s new wife had brought the twins into the royal court three years ago. They were energetic, completely insufferable, and utterly convinced they were master spies.

"You’re no fun, Remus," Vaela whined, dropping onto the leather saddle behind me and peering over my shoulder. "We’ve been tracking you since you left the high tower. You didn’t even notice us!"

"I noticed you when Veyra stepped on Ignis’s tail ten minutes ago. And Vaela, drop the Warden’s face. It looks absurd on you." I said, turning a page of my sketchbook.

Her face dissolved and the stern face melted back into her natural pale, heart-shaped features. She quietly adjusted the collar of my tunic carefully.

Then, in her usual soft voice, "You look tired, Brother. You’ve been up here for hours. Father’s missions are always like this. Why do you let him work you like a servant?"

"Because our dear big brother thinks he’s going to save the world," Veyra scoffed, dangling her boots over the edge of the saddle into the empty sky. "Father has been paranoid for years. ’Oh no, the sky is falling! Go investigate those ruined temples, Remus! Go track down rumors of dark magic, Remus!’ It’s embarrassing. He’s just an old dragon missing his glory days."

"He has reasons," Vaela countered, though her eyes remained fixed on me, filled with worry I’d come to accept would never subside.

Vaela would always be worried about me.

"Though he never tells us what they are." She finished:

"Because there are no reasons!" Veyra laughed. "He’s just paranoid."

They didn’t know. Of course they didn’t.

My father had erased the royal archives before the twins were even old enough to walk. To the kingdom, and to my half-sisters, the story of my mother—the former Dragon Queen—was a tragic, noble romance. She had succumbed to a sudden, incurable magical decay.

A peaceful death that preceded a royal mourning.

It was a complete lie. I tightened my grip on the charcoal until the dark wood cracked in my palm.

For five years, I’d been pulling at the loose threads of that story.

Missing medical ledgers. A court physician quietly exiled, then murdered. A sealed wing of the eastern palace burned so thoroughly that even the stone had melted.

Too many things had been erased. Too many people silenced.

My mother hadn’t died of a fever. Something had taken her place. Something from Hell.

A Borrowed.

I still didn’t know the whole truth. I wasn’t even certain how much my father knew.

But I knew what happened next.

The woman who had raised me for the first twelve years of my life lost her mind. My elder sister died in her chambers. And my father was forced to kill the woman he’d believed was his wife.

The kingdom was given a different story.

It had to be.

A Dragon King deceived by a creature from Hell. A princess murdered inside the royal palace. A queen who had never been a queen at all.

That kind of truth could tear the five realms apart. So the lie remained.

I looked down at the Concourse.

If the seers were right, another anomaly was here. Another young soul that didn’t fit the laws of our world. And if that anomaly was another Borrowed...

I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. I wasn’t here to help my father fill a list. I was here to find it... and kill it.

"Look at him," Veyra groaned, rolling her eyes. "He’s doing his brooding dark-lord face again. Vaela, tell him he looks ridiculous."

"He doesn’t look ridiculous. He’s thinking."

"I am trying to work," I corrected, ignoring the warmth of Vaela’s hand brushing my cloak. "Which both of you are actively hindering. Go annoy the Fae."

"Fine," Veyra pouted, rising to her feet on Vaelor’s back. "Come on, Vaela. Let’s steal the Warden’s seal before the ceremony ends."

"Wait."

Vaela’s hand settled on my shoulder. "Are you coming to the feast tonight? You’ve barely eaten in two days, Remus."

"I’m not hungry."

"You can’t hunt ghosts forever."

"I’m not hunting ghosts." I kept my eyes on the Concourse. "I’m hunting reality."

She was quiet for a moment. Then her hand slipped away.

"Come on," she muttered to her sister.

Silver light flashed then they were gone. Finally, some silence.

I exhaled and reached for another piece of charcoal. Back to work.

I continued to scan the sea of initiates with my ability but I hadn’t sensed any unusual emotions. Nothing.

I lowered my charcoal and was about to call it a day when the wind shifted. A mountain draft swept upward from the Concourse.

I froze.

Beneath the scents of multiple fragrances, and sweat came something else.

The scent of wild lilies... The aroma of crushed pine... and something I hadn’t smelled in years.

Home.

My charcoal snapped between my fingers. Even Vaelor went rigid beneath me. His head whipped toward the western plaza.

’Stay down, Vaelor. We don’t know yet’.

My command shot through our bond, but my own pulse was already roaring in my ears.

Impossible.

I didn’t wait to understand it. I descended.

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