Bellowing in defiance, I shot fire at the stream of humans rushing toward me. Their bodies caught like dry tinder, their screams drowning out the triumphant yells. Lightning crackled in the air, and then white, hot light slammed into my body, sending me crashing to the ground. Another man rushed forward, a spear in his hands, jabbing at my eyes. I roared and crushed him between my jaws, his bones crunching as I threw my head back and sent his body flying through the air.
More screams filled the surrounding air as I pushed back to my feet, my entire body groaning with the effort. I would not fall.
Yells for retribution, cries for my death. Their voices became a symphony as I lashed out with my tail, sending more of them scurrying away. More pain shot through my body as a hand grabbed me. The man who had started this all jamming his sword into my throat. I roared in pain, but no sound left my maw.
I struck at him, talons ripping through the air, and he jumped away, the blade slipping from my flesh. Struggling, I turned to face the direction he had retreated.
Blood ran between my claws where they dug into the cracked earth, and another bolt of raw power flooded my body as it crashed into my wings, ripping a long, bloody line through my shoulder. My wings, which had once cradled humanity from the horrors of the cosmos, slumped to the ground beside me, broken against the hillside like torn banners.
Each breath sent pain like fire through my ribs.
Around me, the remnants of my council lay scattered. Vaelin the Ancient, whose wisdom had guided three civilizations to greatness. He had been like a grandfather to me, guiding my wings during my first flight. Thornscale, whose strength had held back the demon hordes at the Battle of Seven Moons. He had been the rock I leaned upon after my father’s death. Silverwing—the sister I had never known I needed—had sung the first human children to sleep when their mothers feared the dark.
Their bodies were still. All of them, gone.
The air crackled with the strange, foreign power that the Hero had brought with him. A power he had used to bless my people with abilities far beyond their mortal frames. These were not the humans I had once known and loved. They pressed closer, their faces twisted by something darker than mere anger.
Hate.
I tried to fight back, to push them away, but my body was too weak now. My blood flowing too freely. A rushing river that could not be stopped as the life slowly seeped out of me.
For eight centuries, I had been their benevolent empress. My father had guided them from the chaos that followed the Great Dying—when the old gods had abandoned this realm and left it in pieces. When he died, I had watched over them, shielding them from the creatures that prowled between dimensions, from plagues that would have consumed entire bloodlines, and famines that would have reduced their cities to graveyards.
They had built temples in my honor. Carved my likeness into mountainsides. Some had even named their daughters after me.
Now they spat when they spoke my name.
“Monster.”
“Tyrant.”
“Deceiver.”
The words cut deeper than any blade ever could. These were the same lips that had once sung hymns of my graciousness. The same hands that had raised offerings to my altar. The same hearts I had warmed during The Endless Winter.
And there, standing before me, was the architect of it all.
He called himself a liberator.
Their hero.
His name was Marcus Ashworth.
I could see him clearly despite the blood that clouded my left eye. The first time I’d seen him, he had looked so tiny. So insignificant. A small man with unremarkable brown hair. Nothing about his appearance had suggested he would be our undoing. His head held no horns, no glowing eyes. No aura of malevolent power.
His words had been more poisonous than dragon’s bane. He painted us not as the guardians who had shepherded humanity through its darkest hours, but as tyrants who had enslaved them in chains of gratitude. To him, we were not the shields that stood between humanity and the horrors of the cosmic world, but we were the very monsters we claimed to protect them from.
But he had not seen the things that I had. Their new power would not protect them from what was to come. He had only bested us because of our own blindness. The unseen enemy is the most dangerous. If only I had seen who he truly was sooner.
Blinking, I watched as Marcus stepped closer, his boots crunching on broken stone and earth. Despite his size, he towered over me. I tried to stand, but my legs gave out, and my chin crashed to the ground. In his hands, he held a weapon I had never seen before today’s battle. The air around the blade warped with the same power that had struck me, and an acrid taste filled the air. The same power now thrummed through my people.
How had he done it?
The question burned like poison through my mind. Even now, dying on this blood-soaked hill, I couldn’t understand how his lies had taken root so deeply and so quickly. The evidence of our benevolence surrounded them: the cities we had helped them build, the magic we had taught their healers. The very peace they had known for generations.
How could they fall for such pretty words and empty promises?
But lies, I had learned too late, do not need oil to burn like wildfire, destroying everything they touch. They need only feed the desires already lurking in the hearts of mortals. Their desire to be free, to be masters of their own fate, would lead to ruin.
“You were a tyrant,” he said, his voice carrying across the battlefield. He didn't shout or scream. He simply stated what he believed to be a fact. “And tyrants do not deserve to live.”
I tried to speak, to ask him why. Why throw away everything that we had built for them? Why choose this path of destruction? But my voice came out as nothing more than a wet rasp. He had taken that from me, too.
He leaned close, his voice dropping to a whisper, his mask dropping as his features grew tired. Was that fear in his eyes? “I have to admit, you almost had me. If I hadn’t shared my power…” He let out a low chuckle. “But they’ll never know. They don’t need to. I will be their god now. Not you.”
His features solidified once more, his mouth quirking back into a smile of victory as he raised the strange blade, and the crowd fell silent.
I had to warn him. If he was going to be their savior now, he would need to protect them as we had. To hold off the darkness that threatened to consume everything.
“Today, humanity is finally free.”
The blade descended toward my heart and their voices rose in triumph once more.
Lightning bolts of searing pain exploded through my chest. The world began to fade at the edges. Darkness crept in from all sides, and with it came a peaceful numbness.
So this was how it ended. Four thousand years of protection and love… And it ended with their cheers as my heart shattered.
I felt my power slipping away, the grip I had always held onto it weakening. My hold on the very world slowly trickling away.
But as the blackness closed over me, small, golden words appeared in the center of my vision, glowing against the encroaching dark like fireflies on a moonless night.
Error... System Integration Failure.
System? The word meant nothing to me in this context. In all my centuries of existence, through all the languages I had learned, and all the magics I had mastered, I had never encountered the word used in such a way.
A system was a series of planets and stars. A section of space like the one that contained my home. The home I had just lost. How could a system integrate with anything?
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Initiating Chronal Reset. Finding Optimal Re-entry Point.
The words pulsed brighter, burning themselves into my consciousness even as my body grew cold. I felt something pulling away from me. Knowledge. Memories.
They were siphoned from my mind like gemstones pilfered from my treasure room. I felt the weight of each one as it vanished. Ripped away by whatever was speaking to me. I couldn’t tell what memories it was taking from me. Fear tore through me. A hammer through rotten wood.
The blackness expanded. Growing. It pressed down upon me, condensing the power that had always flooded through my heart until it felt like a stone, pressed into my very being.
Expected Time Displacement: -8 Years
Searing light shattered the darkness, and my eyes snapped open to a world that was disorienting and silent.
No screams. No clashing steel. No smell of blood and burning flesh. Just the gentle patter of rain on cobblestones and the sound of a city at peace.
I was standing upright, but the sensation felt off. I was too low to the ground. Too… small.
I looked down at my hands, where my claws should have been, and saw pale, human fingers instead. Rough cloth brushed against my skin where scales should have been.
My… human form? I hadn’t worn it in years.
The realization hit me like a punch to the stomach. I stumbled backward, my unfamiliar legs betraying me, and my shoulder struck a brick wall. The alleyway around me was narrow and dark, lit by a single flickering magelight that cast dancing shadows on the damp stones. A half-eaten loaf of bread lay discarded on the cobbles.
I knew this place. It was Merchant’s Row, in the lower district of Caelthara, the capital city I had watched grow from a collection of mud huts into a gleaming stone-and-marble hub of trade and civilization.
But it wasn’t burning. There were no screams echoing from the palace district, and no smoke rising from the dragon quarters where my kin had made their homes among the humans they protected.
The sky above was the deep purple of early evening, painted with stars I recognized from countless nights spent soaring beneath them. Four of the seven moons that surrounded our planet hung in the night sky, each one casting different shades of light down upon the land. The air carried the scent of baking bread, coal smoke, and the thousand other mundane smells of a living city. It was beautiful.
It was also all wrong.
How had I gotten here? As if in response, a golden window materialized before me.
Welcome, [User]. The System has now initialized.
The words flashed.
Identifying User…
Class and Title Identified.
Good evening, [Empress of Dragons].
A list of words and values followed.
=User Information=
Name: Ariandre Grace Veiltide | Title: Empress of Dragons | Class: Rogue | Subclass: Thief
=Current Status=
Health: 60 / 60 | Mana: 80 / 80 | Stamina: 70 / 70
=Attributes=
Vitality: 6 | Endurance: 7 | Strength: 5 | Dexterity: 7 | Intelligence: 8 | Wisdom: 7
=Abilities=
None
=Active Skills=
Lockpicking – Level 2 | Sneak – Level 2
=Passive Skills=
Dual-Blade – Level 1 | Short Blade – Level 2 | Light Armor – Level 2 | People Person – Level 1 | Perception – Level 3 | Poison Resistance – Level 2 | Shadow Walker – Level 2
The layout of the terms felt foreign against my consciousness, like trying to speak a language I had never learned. I knew what most of the words meant, but to see them laid out in such a format was… jarring. Disorienting. What was this ‘System,’ and where had it come from?
Why was I human?
I reached into myself, feeling for the diamond heart in the center of my body. As expected, the vast reservoir of magical energy that had once been mine to command was still there, but it felt like someone had locked it within a cage and thrown away the key. I reached for it, and a sensation like striking lightning coursed through my body. I screamed and let it fade from my grasp.
Was I trapped in this form? A form I hadn’t had to don for over three hundred years?
The System window pulsed, drawing my attention back to its glowing text.
New Quest: Hoard.
Quest Objective: You have awakened with nothing but the clothes on your back. Accumulate wealth, influence, and knowledge. Regain your Hoard.
Now, that was a word I understood. Every dragon knew the compulsion to gather and possess great treasures. But I had never needed to be told to do so. It was as natural as taking flight.
A second window appeared beneath the first.
New Quest: A [Hero] Is Coming
Quest Objective: The future is written; a [Hero] is coming. Can you stop him this time?
The words sent ice through my veins. The [Hero]. Marcus Ashworth. The man who would destroy everything I had built, who would turn my beloved humans against me with his poisonous lies.
“Six years,” I whispered, my human voice weak and strange in my ears. The sound startled me. It was nothing like the resonant rumble I was accustomed to. This body felt like wearing clothes that didn’t fit, and every movement was awkward and unfamiliar as I took a step toward the mouth of the alleyway.
If I had been sent back eight years, then that meant I had six before he arrived on our shores.
My feet began to carry me onward, my mind wandering through the vastness of the revelation that had settled upon me.
I had six years until Marcus arrived on my world, with his alien weapon, and his speeches about freedom. Six years until he began poisoning the minds of humans against those who had protected them for centuries. Eight years until the final battle that would end with my death.
But I could stop him.
The thought crystallized in my mind with perfect clarity. I had been given an impossible gift. A second chance to save my people from their own foolishness. The System, whatever it was, had somehow returned me to a time when I could still make a difference.
I looked around at the city as I walked its streets. The dim shop windows of Merchant’s Row were full of goods from tailored outfits to plates and glasses. Each building told a different story, designed to lure passersby in with a promise of living a life of luxury within the city.
Above the shops, shadows played across lit windows, the inhabitants inside going about their nightly routines, oblivious to the coming turmoil that threatened to undo everything we had built for them. I had to stop it. I had to stop him.
But how? In my true form, I had been a force of nature, capable of reshaping mountains and commanding the very elements. Now I was trapped in this fragile human shell, my power locked away behind mystical barriers I didn’t understand.
I looked down at my hands again, flexing the unfamiliar fingers as my feet carried me over the cobblestones. These fingers were smaller than I was used to, delicate, but there was something about them that felt… significant. As if they held potential I had yet to discover.
The System windows still hovered before me, having grown slightly translucent as I walked. It waited. I stopped in the middle of the street, focusing on the first quest again. Its window appeared to be outlined, as if drawing my attention to it. The words flashed, replaced with others.
Hoard. Accumulate wealth, influence, and knowledge.
Wealth, I understood. Gold, gems, precious artifacts… Dragons had been collecting such things since the beginning of time, across multiple pieces of the cosmos.
But to hoard influence and knowledge? Those were different kinds of treasures. It was harder to quantify their worth, as they were far more valuable than physical baubles. We had always given knowledge so freely. How could I hoard it for myself?
If I was going to stop the [Hero], it seemed I would need to figure that out. There were holes in the things I knew, certainly. But determining what was important and what wasn’t would be difficult. By all accounts, I should have known everything I needed to defeat someone like Marcus Ashworth. I should have had all the resources I needed.
And yet I had failed.
A new realization struck me. Marcus had called himself a liberator, but what if he truly believed it? What if, in his mind, he really was saving humanity from the tyrannical dragons?
The look in his eyes as he delivered the killing blow had not been one of malicious triumph, but of determination. A hero who had finally reached his destination after a long journey.
That made him far more dangerous.
A man who believed himself righteous would never stop. He would never compromise or question whether his cause was just. He would fight until his cause was complete, or his final breath was ripped from his lungs.
He had claimed that he would be their god before driving the sword through my heart. But he did not know what it took to be a god. If I didn't stop him, this world would not last. Dragon kind would not be the only ones snuffed out.
The thought that rolled through my mind was different, almost alien in its own right. For centuries, we had been heroes to humans—until he had called us something else. But what if, in order to save the world I loved, I had to become the very thing he claimed I already was?
The thought horrified me. The idea of deliberately harming humans or manipulating them felt foreign. Surely there was some other way to save humanity from itself?
Marcus would come whether I acted or not.
He would spread his lies, turn my people against me, and destroy the peace we had all worked so hard to build. If being seen as a monster was the price of saving them from themselves, then perhaps it was a price worth paying.
I took in a deep breath of the rain-sweet air, and looked around the streets of Merchant’s Row once more. Letting the responsibility of the journey that lay before me settle across my shoulders with an accepting finality.
I would do whatever it took to save my people. Even if it meant burning down the empire and rebuilding it myself.
My feet began moving without my instruction, carrying me deeper into the city. Toward the palace that I had called home for centuries. The city stretched out before me in all its magnificent glory, spired towers reaching toward the stars, wide boulevards lit by magical flames, gardens where humans and dragons lived in harmony.
It was everything I had hoped it could become when I first guided them here. And yet, eight years from now, half of it would be ash.
Not if I could help it.