Two hundred years ago…
The skies bled fire.
Dragons screamed above burning fields as the final days of the Valari Dominion came to an end. The empire that had ruled for centuries with dragonflame and steel had crumbled under its own weight—its last dragon slain, its thrones broken, and its heirs torn apart by ambition.
It began with betrayal.
The High Emperor had no trueborn son, only daughters, concubines, and generals who thought themselves more fit to rule. When the emperor was poisoned—his body burned in the pyres of Aethermere—no single hand claimed the deed, but every noble house reached for the crown.
And so began the War of Eight Crowns.
Eight kingdoms rose from the ashes of the dominion, each led by a warlord, sorceress, queen, or bastard prince who believed they were chosen.
For twenty years, the land knew only blood.
Ironholde forged its claim in fire and iron, its armies ruthless.
Velmora called upon forbidden magic, binding spirits to blades.
Zar-Khalan resurrected dragon cults, promising the fire would return.
Thalorwyn fought to preserve the old ways, resisting all unification.
Morvain used winter to choke out its enemies.
Drel'Thar played all sides from the shadows.
Aethermere, thought lost, floated above it all—neutral, untouchable.
And Sapphire, the smallest of them, stood silent.
But its silence was its weapon.
King Ronan Daemon, Levi's great-grandfather, did not fight with blades alone. He married his house into others. Forged secret pacts. Fed coin to starving armies in exchange for loyalty. And when the seven kingdoms bled each other dry—
—Sapphire stood whole.
In the final battle, Ronan offered peace—not out of mercy, but mastery.
He brokered the Treaty of Flame, naming Sapphire the Seat of Unity. The other rulers, broken and divided, agreed… on the surface.
But the crowns never forgot.
Nor forgave.
—
Present Day...
King Levi Daemon sat alone in the royal chapel, the stained-glass windows casting colored light on his weathered face. His hand rested on the flame-carved throne—passed down from Ronan to his father, then to him.
The weight had never left.
He stared at the mural of the treaty signing. Seven crowns beneath the silver flame. But one crown—the eighth—had been left out.
The dragon's crown.
The true crown of the old empire.
The one that could not be claimed without dragonfire.
And now... the fire had returned.
The silence was broken by the chamber doors creaking open. General Merek, his most trusted commander, stepped in.
"Sire," the general said, bowing. "Our riders have confirmed it. Smoke rises near the Eastern Wood. Something's awakened."
Levi closed his eyes.
"It's him," he whispered. "The boy. Marcus."
"Your son?"
"My sin."
He rose slowly.
"Summon the royal council. Send a rider to bring the boy—alive. And tell no one else, not even the nobles."
"And if the other kingdoms move first?" Merek asked.
Levi looked toward the distant mountains.
"Then the War of Eight Crowns begins again."
—
And far away, beneath a darkening sky, Marcus Daemon walked the forest path, a young dragon at his side and the weight of destiny pressing down with every step.
He did not yet know his name would be carved into legend.
Only that the world had begun to change.
And fire was waking.