Chương 130: The Queen Who Bowed Her Head

Lyséa's domain looked nothing like the rest of the demon kingdom. That was what made it dangerous. After the vaults of Ghelkar, the mirrors of Nhaless, the forges of Vhur, and Voragna's flesh gardens, Zayn had expected another form of aggression. Traps. Guards. Monsters. Screams. Doors closed out of pride or opened as provocation. What he found were silent gardens. The road to Velmour descended between dark hills covered in nocturnal flowers. Black and rose-colored palaces rose beneath a pale moon.

Pools reflected a sky that was too calm. Statues of ancient dragons lined the paths, each larger than a human tower, each turned toward the center of the domain as if toward something that had to be regarded with respect. Lumeï stayed hidden inside Elyra's cloak.

"I don't like it when it's beautiful here." Elyra studied the gardens.

"Why?"

"Because in the demon kingdom, beautiful means danger had time to choose its clothes." The fused scythe let out a soft snicker.

"Little luminous fox, I'm really starting to appreciate you." Zayn kept walking without speaking. For now, his veins were calm. Drakhar's blood slept beneath his skin, but he could feel the heat ready to flare again at the slightest fight. His black wings remained folded against his back, less torn than before thanks to the regeneration ripped from Voragna. His right palm, however, was still burning. The fragments of his first status obtained in Nhaless kept turning over in his mind. Previous resonance detected.

Memory access locked by the Throne. Seryth had left him with a question instead of an answer. Lyséa had to possess another one. At the end of the main path, a woman was waiting. Not on a throne. On the steps of a circular garden, at whose center black roses grew around an empty basin. Lyséa. She was calmer than all the other Generals. That was the first thing Zayn noticed. Not weak. Calm. Her delicate horns curved like crescent moons. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders with an almost royal stillness.

Her beauty had nothing vulgar in it. It did not call for the gaze. It accepted the gaze as something that would inevitably come. The system appeared. [Demon General detected.] [Lyséa — Lust.] [Secondary title: Queen of the Ancient Dragons.] [Estimated age: 1153 years.] [Estimated soul strength: 268.] Elyra felt the pressure before Zayn said a single word. She was stronger than Voragna. Deeper than Drakhar. Less brutal than both.

And yet, something in the air made it very clear that this woman could destroy them if she decided the conversation was over. Zayn slightly raised the scythe. Lyséa lowered her eyes to the weapon. Then to the reforged mask. Then to the black wings. Then to the bandaged right palm where Avarice still breathed. At last, she looked at his face. For a long time. Too long. Her expression changed. Not much. But enough. A recognition passed through her eyes. Not complete. Not certain. More painful than that.

"You resemble him," she murmured. Zayn stopped.

"Whom?" Lyséa descended one step.

"The Demon King of the previous cycle." The fused scythe went silent. Elyra stiffened. Zayn, however, did not move.

"Seryth sent me here to hear half-answers. I'm starting to regret not killing her." Lyséa gave him an almost tender smile.

"Seryth always sends people toward the doors she prefers not to open herself."

"Then open it." She descended another step. No guards emerged. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. No dragon roared. No rose closed around them. That made every second tenser.

"A thousand years ago, I was young," said Lyséa.

"A dragoness barely over a century old. Strong for my age. Arrogant, in the way only ancient beings can be before they have truly lived." Her gaze left Zayn and settled on the statues around them.

"I saw the previous Demon King with my own eyes. Not in stories. Not in war songs. Truly." Elyra asked despite herself,"What was he like?" Lyséa smiled faintly.

"Terrible." Then, after a pause:"But not only that." Zayn narrowed his eyes. Lyséa continued,"Humans called him catastrophe. Elves called him defilement. Beastmen called him the end of the hunt. Demons called him king. But I saw him before the height of his war. I saw him when he had not yet become the simplified image the survivors kept." She looked back at Zayn.

"He had that same way of looking at the world as an unpaid debt. That same weariness behind cruelty. That same refusal to admit that he still wanted something other than destruction." Zayn tightened his grip on the scythe.

"You think you know me because you admired a dead man."

"No." The answer came immediately. Lyséa fixed him with unpleasant lucidity.

"I know precisely that you are not him." Silence. Lyséa resumed,"But you resemble him enough that my soul remembers before my reason does." Zayn's right palm pulsed.

"And what is that supposed to convince me of?"

"Nothing." She descended the last step. Now she stood only a few meters away. The pressure of her soul was immense. But it did not crush him. It waited.

"I never wanted to become Demon King," said Lyséa. The sentence surprised Elyra. Even Zayn slightly raised an eyebrow.

"All the Generals say they want the Throne," he said.

"All the Generals lie in whatever way suits them." Lyséa looked east, toward the dragon gardens.

"Vaelthor wants the Throne to confirm his height. Cassiel wanted to possess it as the ultimate asset. Voragna wanted to devour it. Drakhar wanted to win it as a right of conquest. Seryth wants to understand enough never to be on the wrong side of history. Morvessa mostly wants to be left out of the whole absurdity." She placed a hand against her chest.

"I never dreamed of being the center." The scythe gave a faint snicker.

"A strange speech for Lust." Lyséa turned a calm gaze toward the weapon.

"You confuse desire with vulgarity, little broken thing." The scythe fell silent. Elyra blinked. Zayn smiled in spite of himself.

"She actually made you shut up."

"I hate her," the scythe murmured.

"A great deal. Respectfully." Lyséa turned her attention back to Zayn.

"I always wanted to serve someone capable of bearing what others only covet. The previous Demon King was that for me. Not perfect. Not just. Not good. But vast. So vast that even his cruelty seemed to have a horizon." She paused.

"I was young. Perhaps foolish. Perhaps impressionable. But I still remember the first time he looked at the Generals and every one of them understood that he was no longer asking their permission to exist above them." The word lingered in the air. Above. Zayn thought of Vaelthor. Of the white citadels. Of the Pride that awaited him in the northeast.

"You speak as if you want me to become the same." Lyséa looked at him with almost invisible sadness.

"No. I speak as someone who knows the world rarely brings back the same shadows without giving them a new shape." Zayn felt the sentence sink too deep.

"Careful." His voice was low.

"If you know something, say it. If you're playing with memories, I cut you down." Lyséa did not step back.

"I do not know what you are. Not entirely. I only know that your soul produces an echo I have heard only once." She extended her hand. Not toward him. Toward the empty basin. Water appeared. Black, smooth, perfect. In its surface, Zayn saw a blurred reflection. Not himself. Not exactly. A figure crowned in shadow. A face too indistinct. Tired eyes. A smile he could have hated because it could have been his own. The image vanished before he could seize it. Lyséa closed her hand.

"That is all I dare show you before the Throne. The rest does not belong to me." Zayn remained still. His right palm burned. Avarice wanted to seize the image. Wrath wanted to shatter the basin. Sloth wanted to let the question die before it demanded yet another target. But he did nothing. Elyra noticed. Lyséa did too.

"You can still stop for a second," said the General. Zayn gave a brief laugh.

"Don't overestimate a pause."

"I overestimate nothing. I have lived 1153 years. It cures many illusions." At that moment, the ground trembled. Not violently. Deeply. The dragon statues slowly turned their heads toward the central garden. Elyra stepped back.

"What is happening?" Lumeï answered in a trembling voice,"She is removing her form." Lyséa closed her eyes. Her human body fissured into nocturnal light. Wings appeared first behind her, immense, dark, crossed with pink veins like living eclipses. Then her neck lengthened, her horns became true lunar arcs, her hands became claws, her body a royal mass covered in black and red scales. The garden disappeared beneath her shadow. Lyséa took on her royal dragon form. She was gigantic. Not like a monster.

Like an ancient sovereignty. Her wings covered the statues. Her tail nearly encircled the basin. Her eyes, each the size of a gate, settled on Zayn with an intelligence no human thing could ever fully contain. The system trembled but added nothing. It no longer needed to. Elyra nearly dropped to her knees beneath the pressure. Zayn remained standing. Barely. But standing. Then Lyséa lowered her head. Slowly. Very slowly. Her royal dragon head descended until her horns nearly touched the ground before Zayn.

A sign of recognition. Not defeat. Not fear. A choice. Her voice resonated through all of Velmour.

"I do not bow before your current power, Zayn Veylor." The wind lifted his torn coat. His black wings shivered behind him.

"You are not yet the King." She lowered her head even farther.

"But I am betting on you." Silence. Then:"As once I would have bet on the one I admired when I was only a young dragoness." Zayn stared at her. The fused scythe murmured,"She's really kneeling." Elyra said nothing. Neither did Lumeï. Even the black roses seemed to have stopped breathing. Zayn asked,"Why?" Lyséa answered without raising her head,"Because Vaelthor will always look at you as an error that climbed too high. Because Cassiel could only see value in you. Because Seryth sees only a riddle.

Because Morvessa waits. Because the dead no longer place bets." Her immense eyes met Zayn's.

"And because I recognize beings who can become greater than their desire for revenge." Zayn did not answer. He did not like that sentence. Or he liked it too little to kill it. Lyséa lifted her head slightly, just enough for her voice to grow lower.

"I am not asking you to trust me. I am not asking you to be good. I am not even asking you to be the one I once knew." She paused.

"I will follow you if you take the Throne. And until then, I will not stand in your way." Zayn tightened his grip on the scythe.

"And if I give you an order now?" A draconic smile, immense and dangerous, passed over her maw.

"Then I will know whether I bet on a king or on a child who found a crown too early." The scythe gave a small strangled laugh.

"I really dislike her far too much." Zayn stayed silent. Then he turned his eyes toward the northeast. Toward Ivoryn. Toward Vaelthor. Lyséa followed his gaze.

"He will come soon."

"He's waiting for me?"

"No." The royal dragon finally raised her head fully.

"He is restraining himself. That is different. Every General who falls, every domain you cross, every recognition you receive makes your existence more unbearable to him." Zayn smiled.

"Then I'll help him suffer." Lyséa laughed softly. The sound made the dragon statues tremble.

"Go to Ivoryn. But remember this: Vaelthor does not fight only with immense soul strength. He fights with absolute certainty that the world has a natural height, and that he was born near the summit." Elyra asked,"And Zayn?" Lyséa turned one vast eye toward her.

"Zayn will have to stop climbing toward him." The princess frowned.

"What do you mean?" Lyséa looked at Zayn.

"He will have to understand that a king does not rise in order to be accepted by height." Her voice deepened.

"He forces height to bow." The silence that followed seemed to last a long time. Zayn did not thank her. Of course not. He turned away.

"Elyra." She inhaled.

"Yes?"

"We're leaving." She looked at Lyséa one last time. The Queen of the Ancient Dragons was still unmoving at the center of her gardens, immense, magnificent, terrifying. Her head was no longer bowed. But her choice had been made. On the statues, the mirrors turned toward the ground did not rise again. Zayn left the Dragon Garden without looking back. The road to Vaelthor had just opened. Not through a victory. Not through a death.

But through a queen 1153 years old who had seen in his soul the echo of an ancient Demon King and who, instead of fighting, had chosen to bet on him. Above the domain of Velmour, the black moon slowly became ringed with a red halo. Far to the northeast, in the white citadels of Ivoryn, Vaelthor felt Lyséa's submission. And this time, his pride did not hold itself back any longer.