The Dragon's Heart: Unspoken Passion-Chapter 148: The Maw

Melyn stepped closer, setting the ledger and parchments aside with a deliberate slowness as if any sudden movement might shatter the fragile glass of Ilaria’s composure.

"Your Highness," Melyn began, sitting beside her. "Letters from the South are often softened by the distance they travel. A ’winter chill’ is a common grievance, even for a Queen. It may be exactly what she said—" she looked at the letter, then back at Ilaria, "—a nuisance, nothing more."

Ilaria exhaled slowly, though it did little to settle the frantic thrumming in her chest. Her fingers tightened around the parchment, the elegant, loopy script blurring into a charcoal smear as her vision wavered.

"Serenya does not soften the truth, Melyn," she murmured, her voice sounding hollow. "She buries it."

A single, hot tear escaped, but Ilaria swept it away with a quick motion of her gloved hand before it could even mark her cheek.

"She has always done this," Ilaria continued. "When our parents first fell ill, she told me the fever was a gift of the humours. That they would be dancing by the next full moon. She smiled as she said it, Melyn. She looked me in the eye and lied until their rooms were turned into sepulchers."

Melyn remained silent, her expression guarded but attentive when she recognize the shift from grief into a desperate, calculated resolve.

"She would not have written those words unless..." Ilaria’s voice faltered for a heartbeat, then steadied with a terrifying sort of focus. "Unless the lie was becoming too heavy for her to carry alone. She only warns me when she can no longer guarantee the ending." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Silence reclaimed the gazebo, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the soft, rhythmic hiss of snow against the stone. Ilaria looked down at the letter one last time, tracing the familiar loops of her sister’s handwriting as if she could extract the true diagnosis hidden between the ink and the fiber.

"I have to go to her," she said at last. The words were quiet, devoid of the frantic energy from moments before and was now replaced by a terrifying, absolute certainty.

Melyn’s brows drew together, her practical mind already catalouging the political landmines. "Your Highness... the border is tightening for the winter. To leave now—"

"It would only be a visit," Ilaria interrupted, her gaze lifting to meet Melyn’s. "A short one," she wiped her nose, saying, "I would go, see the physicians myself, and return before the passes are fully choked by the ice."

Melyn hesitated, her gaze drifting toward the palace spires where the Prince was currently entrenched in state affairs. "But the capital is not so easily left, and the journey is grueling. And His Highness... he has only just found his footing with you."

"I know," Ilaria said, the word a soft, final anchor. She folded the letter with meticulous care, tucking it into the velvet folder as if she were sealing away a part of her soul before glancing back at Melyn.

Melyn studied her for a long moment, weighing not the emotion behind the words, but the resolve within them.

"Then we will need to prepare properly," she said. "The southern road will not remain open for long. If you intend to travel, it cannot be done on impulse."

Ilaria inclined her head, like she had already considered as much.

"I am not leaving on impulse," she shook her head. "I am leaving before I am too late."

The words settled between them with a quiet finality.

Melyn exhaled through her nose, already turning over details in her mind. "We will need to inform the palace stewards, arrange an escort, notify the border posts..." Her gaze flicked back toward Ilaria. "And His Highness must approve of it."

"I will speak to him," she assured. "He is my husband. I’m sure he will understand."

Melyn gave a small, acknowledging nod, the last of her hesitation folding neatly into duty. Without another word, she rose and gathered the scattered materials, securing the velvet folder carefully beneath her arm.

Ilaria stood a moment later. The woolen throw slipped from her shoulders as she stepped out from the shelter of the gazebo, the cold meeting her fully this time. Snow continued to fall in measured spirals, settling against her cloak and threading into the strands of her hair.

Only a short while ago, it had felt gentle.

Now it felt... distant.

She drew a slow breath, steadying herself, and began down the path without looking back.

Melyn fell into step beside her, her pace matched precisely, her mind already moving ahead of them both. "I will have the attendants begin preparations discreetly," she said. "Nothing will be set in motion until His Highness gives his word."

Ilaria smiled at her, feeling grateful at the girl’s reassurance. "Thank you."

~×~

The heavy oak doors of the Council Chamber did not just close, they thudded with a finality that Levan felt in the marrow of his bones. He walked down the echoing corridor toward the rear of the palace, his stride long and impatient. Behind him, Marion efficiently keep pace without appearing to run.

"The King was exceptionally vocal today, Your Highness," Marion ventured, his voice pitched low enough to avoid the ears of the passing Sentinels.

"My father is always vocal when he realizes I’m no longer playing by his script," Levan muttered, his jaw set in a hard, tired line.

The meeting had been an exercise in mounting frustration. He had spent three hours being scolded like a cadet. First, for the reckless display of bringing the Crown Princess out, which is an act the King claimed had sent the court into a superstitious tizzy. And second, for his flat refusal to support the Council’s strategy regarding the Western Pass.

The word fucking hell did not reach his lips, but it resonated with a dark, rhythmic intensity in the back of his throat, mirroring his utter exhaustion with the bureaucracy of old men. They talk of winter as if it were a guest, not an executioner.

He turned a corner, entering the large balcony corridor that overlooked the inner courtyard. Here, the air was sharper and more honest. At the center of the terrace stood the colossal statue of The Black Dragon with Seven Heads. Its stone eyes seemed to watch him, cold and demanding.

Levan stopped, resting his hands on the stone balustrade and looking out at the falling snow. Only a few hours ago, he had been a man dismantling his own heart for a woman in a silk cocoon. Now, the weight of the crown felt like a shackle again.

"Marion," Levan said, not looking back. "Where is the Princess?"

"Last I was informed, she was in the gardens with Lady Rosenborne."

Levan’s gaze drifted toward the sprawling white expanse of the lower grounds. A small, unbidden tug of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He could almost see her out there, likely crouching over some frost-bitten shrub, lecturing the roses on their lack of decorum or whispering to the snow as if it were an old friend.

After the morning they had shared, the thought of her whimsical softness was the only thing keeping the jagged edges of his temper from drawing blood. But the smile did not reach his eyes, and it did not last. The warmth of the bedchamber was miles away now, replaced by the sterile, biting reality of his father’s court.

"Gardens," Levan repeated, his voice dropping into a lower register. "At least one of us is finding beauty in this gods-forsaken weather."

But the smile faded as quickly as it had come. His mind, trained for the jagged edges of survival, pivoted back to the shadow the Council refused to name aloud. Now that he thought about it, he could not shake the memory of that night on the Stormglow balcony.

In truth, he had felt a strange, discordant energy thrumming through the air, like a premonition he had not known how to name until now.

And he just knew, it has something to do with The Blithe.

It was not a new shadow, it was a recurring nightmare that they had learned to live with, like a slow-burning fire that never quite went out. The Caelwyn healers had been helpful, truly, but Levan was done with temporary. He was done with the uncertainty of watching the fringes of his kingdom wither while the Council debated the cost of intervention.

"The Southern methods are failing, Marion," Levan said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register. "They treat the symptom, but the rot remains. We are past the point of poultices and tea."

Marion remained composed, his hands folded neatly into his sleeves. "The Caelwyn healers are the best in the known world, Prince. To suggest their efforts are insufficient is a delicate matter."

"Delicate doesn’t save lives," Levan snapped, finally turning from the railing. His golden eyes were hard, the exhaustion replaced by a sharp, lethal focus. "I’m going to the Maw of Veythar."

The silence that followed was heavy. Marion did not gasp, he was far too seasoned for that, but his posture went rigid. The Maw was the seat of the Black Dragon, the ancestral heart of their power and a place where mortals, even royals, were rarely welcomed.

"The Black Dragon has been silent for a long time, Levan," Marion said, dropping the formal title in a rare moment of gravity. "He is refusing to entertain mortals. Even your previous attempts were met with nothing but stone and smoke."

"Because I went as a supplicant," Levan countered, his jaw tightening at the sound of his name rolling from his mouth. "My father is the current patron, yes, but he is content to let the Dragon sleep while the kingdom bleeds. He won’t risk the ’instability’ of a summoning."

"And you would?" Marion asked quietly. "To go against the King again is one thing. To attempt to force the hand of a Patron Deity..." He sighed, "that is a drastic measure, even for you."

Levan looked back at the seven-headed statue. He knew the risks. To summon the Dragon without the King’s blessing was an act of high treason at worst, and a death sentence at best. But the Blithe did not care about protocols.

"I’m not asking for a blessing, Marion. I’m asking for your opinion," he said, his eyes locking onto the older man’s. "Do we wait for the healers to find a miracle that isn’t coming, or do we wake the beast that built these walls?"