Elianna POV: "By the sacred Necrotic Codex, sever her mortal breath and harvest the marrow from her lineage!" Through the iron-reinforced oak doors, the High Priest’s guttural chant rose in a low, resonant drone. Beneath the suffocating incense of sulfur, pyre-ash, and necromantic reagents, the Earthbound servants knelt face-down, sniffling in terror. Inside, they were sealing my fate—not merely mourning my supposed death, but performing the ancient, bloodthirsty Rite of the Ashen Crucible. Treating my raw, unawakened lineage as catalyst oil to revive the late Beaumont heir's collapsed dragonfire. In doing so, they would bypass the blood-wards, stripping my mother’s ancestral lands and iron mines to fuel Beaumont's necromantic furnace without resistance. "My poor, tragic Elianna..." A theatrical, choked sob drifted through the iron seam, dripping with costly sulfur perfume. It was Deloris Booth, my father's favored vassal concubine, dabbing her dry eyes with an embroidered silk handkerchief. "To lose her footing and tumble into the ravine on the very eve of our house alliance... But at least the First Dragon has granted her cold marrow a final purpose." "Do not weep for a waste, Lady Deloris," Vivian Hayes chimed in, her voice dripping with venomous glee. A lowborn dancer plucked from a traveling tavern troupe before wheedling her way into my father’s bed as a secondary concubine, she wore her newly bought nobility like gaudy war paint. Through the crack in the timber, I could see her twisting a heavy fire-agate ring onto her own finger—a ring carved with the crest of my mother’s lineage, snatched from my vacant bedchamber. She held her hand to the torchlight, admiring the gem before running a manicured claw over the ceremonial parchment. "An Earthbound creature with a silent Dragon Core—she was nothing more than an embarrassment to Lord Barton's name! Offering her cold corpse as alchemical fuel for Lord Beaumont's dead core is the highest honor a cripple could ever dream of. Her marrow buys our court five hundred iron mines, and in return, House Beaumont cedes their royal sponsorship directly to my Kristal! A dead idiot's bones buy my daughter a crown—she should thank us from whatever pit she’s rotting in!" A chorus of haughty snickers rippled through the noble pews. "Indeed," an elder chuckled into his wine goblet. "Better ground into pyre-dust inside an alchemical vat than sullying the Stanley bloodline." A venomous smirk pulled at the corner of my lips. Gathering every ounce of momentum coiled in my battered sinews, I raised my mud-caked right boot and drove my heel hard into the center seam of the massive doors. BOOM! The iron hinges shrieked and sheared in half. Both oak slabs blasted inward, slamming violent arcs against the stone masonry and sending clouds of choking bone ash, glowing dragon-dust, and necromantic sulfur raining down from the vaulted ceiling. The High Priest's chant choked in his throat. The snickering died like blown-out candles. Two hundred pairs of eyes snapped toward the shattered entrance in paralyzed, suffocating shock. I stepped over the splintered threshold into the blinding glare of the luminescent crystal lamps. Wet, rancid mire dripped from my ragged skirts. Matted black hair clung to my hollow cheeks like funeral veils, framing a face drained of life by the freezing rapids, yet glowing with absolute, predatory malice. A half-blood noblewoman in the front pew took one look at my face and let out an ear-piercing shriek. Her gold-leaf goblet slipped from her trembling fingers, clattering onto the flagstones as spiced red wine splattered like fresh blood across her hem. Pandemonium ripped through the shrine. "A—a revenant!" someone screamed from the shadows. "The dead girl crawled out of the crypt!" Ignoring the uproar, I marched down the central aisle toward the high altar. Each step of my heavy, mud-soaked boots struck the plush red carpet with a wet, menacing thud that marked a countdown to slaughter. Up on the dais, Deloris turned rigid as stone. Her scarlet-and-gold flame gown—a privilege strictly forbidden to unawakened blood—glowed against the altar fire, but beneath her powdered lead rouge, every drop of blood drained from her cheeks. Beside her, Vivian’s eyes bulged until the crimson veins threatened to burst. Her painted red lips fluttered soundlessly, her manicured claws digging into the arm of the ceremonial herald until the fabric shredded. Five paces from the altar steps, I halted. My gaze flicked across the open, runic stone crucible engraved with the Beaumont crest—designed to render noble marrow into alchemical essence—and then locked onto the bronze urn containing the dormant ashes of the dead heir who was supposed to consume my mother's lands. The High Priest gripped his bone staff with white-knuckled panic. He puffed his chest to hiss a rebuke in Dragon Speech against the "filthy Earthbound" defiling a sacred extraction rite, but when my dead, unblinking glare cut into his eyes, the air locked in his windpipe, shutting his jaw with an audible click. "Such an extravagant banquet," I rasped, tilting my head as my gravelly voice sliced into every corner of the frozen hall. "Am I late to throw my own bones into the fire?" Deloris stumbled backward, her dragging skirts catching on a heavy silver candelabrum and sending it crashing down the marble steps with a deafening ring. "You..." Deloris shrieked, her voice breaking into a ragged squeak. "A demon... are you human or a ghost?" "A clear conscience never fears spirits knocking at the gate, Concubine Deloris. It has only been a month, and you can no longer recognize the rightful heir of this house?" Gasps erupted among the spectators. Deloris stared in wild terror, but as her frantic eyes dropped to the floor, she froze. Under the bright crystal chandeliers, a long, unbroken shadow stretched behind my boots. And onto the red carpet fell thick, warm drops of crimson blood from my torn wrist, steaming faintly in the icy draft. In the span of a single heartbeat, the terror on Deloris's face evaporated, swallowed whole by decades of lethal court survival. She smoothed her wrinkled skirts, instantly composing her features into a mask of radiant, tearful relief. "Elianna! Praise the First Dragon, you are whole!" Deloris cried out, hurrying forward with open arms as if to embrace me. "What a blessing! Had any misfortune truly befallen you, how could I have ever faced the Lord when he returns from the border?" Several retainers traded nauseated looks at the lightning-fast transition. I didn't move an inch, letting her embrace catch empty air as I locked my icy glare down onto Vivian, who was trembling like a cornered beast on the bottom steps. "Yes," I murmured, my voice cutting through the hall like a winter blade. "I am back alive. Back to settle our blood debts, one by one." Guilt and raw terror finally snapped Vivian’s composure completely. Even looking at my shadow, her trembling pupils dilated into frantic madness. Her mind knew what she and her daughters had done at the edge of that abyss; to her, there was no earthly way a crippled girl could climb out of thousands of feet of jagged black rock. "No! She's lying! She is not human!" Vivian shrieked at the top of her lungs, scrambling backward up the altar steps on all fours, her manicured fingers clawing at the stone. "Shadow or not, no mortal survives the Dragonbone Ravine! She’s an evil spirit wearing the dead girl’s skin! A revenant come to curse the Stanley name!" She lunged toward the ceremonial retinue, wildly shoving the guards forward. "Guards! Knights! What are you standing there for?! Seize this monster! Bind her with cold-iron chains before she hexes the court!"

Elianna POV: Four Dragon Knights drew their steel longswords with a metallic rasp, stepping forward under her frantic screams. I didn't blink. I slowly turned my head toward them. My pallid complexion made me look every inch the vengeful ghost come to claim their lives. The lead knight’s boot froze in mid-air. Under the sheer, lethal weight of my stare, all four seasoned warriors broke into cold sweat. Their knuckles turned white, and their sword tips wavered, sinking lower and lower until they stood paralyzed, completely cowed by a girl without a Dragon Core. Leaving the petrified knights in their tracks, I took a slow step forward, looking past the guards straight into Vivian’s hyperventilating face. She pressed her back against the altar, her face as gray as ash, stammering through blue lips, "Y-You... what debts? What are you going to do? I... I don't understand..." A razor-thin, blood-chilling sneer carved into my mouth. I took one more stride toward the inner altar, looking at her shivering silhouette like a butcher appraising a carcass. "You'll understand soon enough." I raised an eyebrow with a cold scoff and stepped over the inner altar threshold. "Sadie, slam the shrine doors shut." In the corner, my personal Dragonless maid, Sadie, looked up through her tears. Shock flashed across her bruised face, quickly replaced by a fierce flame of vengeance. She threw her weight against the heavy dragon-bone doors alongside two menial servants, slamming them shut with a deafening thud. As the iron bar dropped into place, the gawking half-blood guests and the Beaumont alchemical envoys were locked outside. The inner shrine became a sealed cage. I strolled past the carved stone archway that opened directly into the high-walled inner courtyard—a sunless, stone-paved execution court flanked by towering battlements, where an ancient gnarled oak stood in the center like a silent sentinel. Ignoring the cold autumn gale sweeping through the open sky above, I took a seat behind a massive stone table set upon the raised dais. My expression was so cold the temperature across the flagstones seemed to plummet. Vivian hurried out behind Deloris, grabbing Deloris's sleeve and whispering in panic, "Madam, you must protect me! Something is wrong with this little wretch!" Deloris shot her a cold sideways glance, a flicker of disdain in her eyes. "Why? Was there truly foul play in her fall from the cliff?" "Of course not!" Vivian denied flatly, her voice shaking. "Kristal and Beatrice saw it with their own eyes—she lost her footing reaching for wild fruit!" Deloris let out a faint, disdainful smirk, smoothing her scale-embroidered skirts as she walked forward. Putting on the air of the lady of the castle, she spoke in a gentle, chiding tone. "Elianna, since you survived, why didn't you send word sooner? Your father and I have been sick with grief." She moved to sit on the stone chair beside me. At the same time, Vivian tried to ease her trembling legs onto a lower stone stool nearby. "Stand," I snapped. My gaze sliced directly into Vivian. "You are nothing more than a lowborn vassal concubine. In the presence of the legitimate eldest daughter of this house, you have no right to a seat." Vivian froze mid-squat, her hips hovering inches above the stone stool. The blood rushed to her face, turning it a mottled purple in front of the entire household staff. Deloris stiffened too. From the way her fingers twitched against her sash, she looked utterly stunned that the formerly half-witted, Dragonless punching bag was suddenly wielding the strict feudal law of the Dragon Court against them. "What, can't accept that my head is clear and I'm no longer an idiot?" I pointed a bloody finger at the cold flagstones by the wall. "Get over there and stand." Humiliated, Vivian turned to Deloris in a rage. "Madam! How can she treat me like this? I may be a concubine, but I have slaved for the Stanley Duchy for years—" "Stand over there and shut your mouth!" I barked, cutting her off. "Once I finish reckoning the blood debt of who pushed me into the Dragonbone Ravine, you can beg for credit!" Vivian's chest heaved. Beside her, Deloris dabbed her lips and said softly, "Sister Vivian, just stand for now so you don't upset the child." Biting her lip until it went white, Vivian retreated to the corner in disgrace. I picked up a tarnished silver teacup resting on the table—the cheap, Dragonless metal cold beneath my skin—and turned it slowly between my fingers. Survived? If not for Connor Douglas, not even my scattered bones would remain in this world. Behind my eyelids flickered the memory of that subterranean fortress carved from obsidian rock, and the man whose aura was so suffocatingly dominant that even the freezing winds seemed to halt in his presence. Features carved sharp as a razor, eyes like unyielding night. Meeting that enigmatic miracle healer at the edge of the abyss hadn't just salvaged my crushed lungs and broken limbs—it had granted me a restored vessel forged of steel, and an alliance with a man whose hands held absolute dominion over life and death. "Aunt Deloris, don't you think you should ask how I ended up at the bottom of the ravine?" "Wasn't it an accident?" Deloris asked, feigning innocence, though the glint in her eyes showed she was more than happy to watch me tear Vivian apart. "An accident? Is that what Vivian told you, or what my two dear sisters said?" Murderous intent flashed in my eyes. Meeting my gaze, Sadie caught the unspoken signal. She nodded with fierce resolve and slipped quietly through the narrow side portal, heading for the outer postern gate to signal my mother's former retainers, who were already holding the conspirators just outside the castle walls. I turned my eyes onto the old castle steward standing rigidly by the stone pillar. "Go. Drag Third Miss Kristal and Sixth Miss Beatrice here." The steward hesitated, his eyes darting toward Deloris, clearly frozen by her usual authority. Seeing his hesitation, Vivian let out a quiet, spiteful snort from the shadows, assuming no one in the court would truly obey an Earthbound outcast. My eyes narrowed as I locked onto the steward's throat. "I will only say this once, steward. If those two are not kneeling before this table by the time this tea cools, you will join them in the dungeon and take twenty lashes of the dragon-hide whip for treason." The steward turned ash-white, swallowed hard, and scrambled toward the inner courtyard as fast as his boots could carry him. Turning my head back toward the corner, my gaze pinned Vivian where she stood. "Vivian. Get over here and pour me a cup of hot mint tea." "I am the Dragon Lord's concubine, not your kitchen slave!" Vivian shrieked, clutching her fists. "In this castle, aside from the Dragon Lord and the wedded Lady Wife, every concubine is a domestic servant by feudal law," I murmured, my voice dropping to a lethal, raspy whisper. "Or would you rather taste the whip before your daughters arrive?" Under the suffocating weight of my stare, Vivian trembled uncontrollably. Biting her lower lip until dark blood welled, she dragged her feet forward, picked up the steaming silver pot with shaking fingers, and slammed a brimming cup onto the table before me. I lifted the hot cup and took a slow, languid sip, establishing absolute, unyielding dominion over the hall. BAM! A deafening crash shattered the silence. The bolted side doors leading from the inner corridors shuddered violently under a massive impact, iron brackets groaning as stone dust rained from the lintel. CRACK! The heavy oak beam snapped in two. Both doors were kicked wide open, bouncing off the masonry with violent shrieks! "Rebellious, unfilial trash! Barring the hall doors to play tyrant in your father's house?!" Steward Hicks stormed through the splintered threshold, his wrinkled face contorted in vile triumph. But he hadn't returned alone to grovel—behind him marched a dozen hulking manor enforcers clutching iron truncheons, led by Matron Martha herself, wielding a barbed leather crop like a high executioner. "How dare a coreless idiot summon the noble young ladies?!" Martha’s shrill bray echoed off the stone vault as the guards fanned out, surrounding my table with drawn weapons. "Take this mad beast down and bind her in iron chains!"

Elianna POV: A dozen iron-tipped truncheons formed a bristling ring around my stone table, their steel studs glinting under the crystal chandeliers. Standing at the front of the enforcers, Matron Martha Hicks puffed her barrel chest, the flabby jowls of her florid face quivering with vicious delight. Beside her, the treacherous steward cowered like a hyena behind a predator, eyes darting with cowardly spite. I set my silver teacup down against the stone table with a slow, deliberate clink. In my mind, cold memories flared—countless freezing nights in the cellar vaults where this vile creature had withheld my crusts of bread and gleefully driven poisonous drake-bone needles beneath my fingernails while I sat mute in the dark. I looked up at her, my eyes devoid of a single flicker of warmth. "Matron Martha. You break the inner doors and surround your master's daughter with weapons? What, did Concubine Deloris never teach you the penalty for armed insurrection in the inner court?" Martha rolled her small, piggy eyes toward the vaulted ceiling and let out a grating, mocking bray. "Insurrection? The Eldest Miss must have knocked her wits against the river rocks! This old servant belongs to Lady Deloris! I take commands only from the acting mistress of this castle. A coreless cripple does not have the blood-rank to breathe near me, let alone question my guards!" She turned to her circle of burly manor enforcers, waving her barbed crop like a scepter. "What are you standing there for? Take this wild animal down! Pin her arms, clamp the iron gag between her jaws, and drag her to the punishment cells before she defiles the Lady's presence any longer!" The enforcers tightened their ring, boots scraping the stone as two burly men stepped forward with heavy cold-iron chains. I didn't move an inch from my bench. I merely tilted my head, looking straight past the iron truncheons into Deloris's anxious, calculating eyes. "I am the sole legitimate daughter of the Stanley Duchy, born of the wedded Lady Celesta," I said, my voice quiet, carrying through the vaulted hall with the weight of ancient law. "By feudal decree, even Concubine Deloris is nothing more than a vassal bound by blood-contract beneath my mother's sacred lineage. If I tell a concubine to kneel, she kneels—let alone a mangy, barking hound wearing a housekeeper's apron." Deloris's powdered face contorted violently. Being publicly reminded in front of the entire household and armed guards that she had no legal rank as a true Lady struck her deepest, most humiliating sore spot. "Elianna Stanley! Mind your insolent tongue!" she hissed, her knuckles whitening against her gold-embroidered sash. From the wall, Vivian seized the opportunity to fan the flames, dabbing her dry eyes and whimpering, "Madam, you see how she barks! I offered prayers and lit sulfur incense for her soul, yet she treats us like common gutter trash!" I clapped my hands in two slow, sarcastic beats. "Bravo, Concubine Vivian. Everyone in this court knows you were plucked from a wandering tavern troupe before crawling into my father's bed. Singing, weeping, and playing the victim are bred into your mongrel marrow. It is a pity Aunt Deloris hasn't mastered half your vulgar tricks." Both women went deathly pale, their chests heaving in choked humiliation. Pushed past reason by the insult to her mistress, Martha’s porcine eyes turned bloodshot. "You insolent little bitch!" she snarled, dropping all pretense. Rolling up her thick woolen sleeves, she lunged across the stone table with thick, calloused claws aimed straight for my eyes! The instant her filthy nails grazed the air before my forehead, my right arm snapped out like an iron vise. I seized her wrist joint with lethal, surgical precision, drove my thumb into the major nerve cluster beneath the bone, and wrenched downward with brutal, unbroken torque! CRACK! The sickening crunch of splintering bone echoed off the high masonry. Martha’s vicious sneer vanished, replaced by an ear-splitting, pig-like squeal of agony as the fractured bone tore through the meat of her forearm! Her immense weight collapsed like a felled sack of flour, slamming hard into the flagstones at my boots. The dozen manor enforcers halted in absolute shock, their grips loosening on their truncheons. Before a single guard could recover from their paralysis, I rose to my feet without breaking a breath. Sadie—who had secured the side passages and slipped silently back through the shadows—stepped smoothly to my side, presenting a clean linen cloth. I slowly wiped the black grease and sweat from my knuckles, looking down at the writhing heap of blubber. "Sadie," I said, my tone as tranquil as if ordering breakfast. "Give her twenty slaps across the mouth. Beat her until she remembers whose name is etched on the castle keep." Cradling her dangling, mangled wrist in the filth, Martha shrieked through foaming lips, "I am Lady Deloris's nurse! I suckled her from the cradle! You dare touch me—" "Sadie," I murmured. "Begin." A fierce, righteous flame blazed in Sadie's scarred face. She stepped forward, hoisted Martha up by her thick collar like a slaughtered sow, and drove her open palm across the old woman's cheeks with every ounce of muscle she possessed! SLAP! SLAP! Thunderous, bone-jarring cracks ricocheted through the hall. Every strike carried the weight of years of starvation, poisoned needles, and cold cellar beatings. Within seconds, twenty savage blows landed cleanly. Blood, pink saliva, and splintered bone sprayed across the flagstones, followed by five jagged, yellow teeth clattering loudly against the marble. Sadie released her collar. Martha crumpled into a boneless heap, her face swollen into a grotesque, purple ruin, glassy eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as she choked on her own teeth. A suffocating, terrified silence fell over the hall. The dozen manor enforcers clutched their truncheons with shaking hands, stepping backward in sync, completely paralyzed by the cold-blooded brutality. Deloris’s knees trembled so violently that her gold chains rattled against her skirts. "Elianna! Have you lost your mind?!" Deloris screamed, her regal veneer shattered beyond repair. She turned frantically to the dozen guards. "What are you waiting for?! Cut her down! In the name of the household, execute her!" Not a single guard moved. I slowly turned my eyes toward the enforcers. A suffocating, apex-predator aura—the cold, blood-soaked pressure of someone who had climbed out of a charnel pit—washed over every man in the room. The lead guard took one look into my dead, unblinking glare, swallowed hard, and dropped his iron truncheon onto the flagstones with a hollow clatter. The rest of the enforcers backed away into the corridor shadows, lowering their heads in absolute surrender. Deloris’s household authority had evaporated into thin air. I shifted my dead gaze down onto the old steward, who was trembling like a leaf behind the pillar, clutching his robes in terror. "Steward Hicks," I whispered, every syllable dropping like an icicle. "If Third Sister Kristal and Sixth Sister Beatrice are not kneeling on this floor before the blood on your wife’s face dries, you will take twenty lashes with the drake-hide whip next." The steward let out a strangled squeak. Without daring to look at Deloris, he hitched up his long tunic, stepped over his groaning wife, and sprinted toward the rear courtyard as fast as his trembling legs could carry him! Deloris stood paralyzed, clutching her chest as if suffocating on her own venom. I returned to my seat at the stone table, leaning my cheek against my knuckles in complete, unyielding composure. Minutes ticked by like dying heartbeats—until slow, haughty giggles echoed down the outer gallery, and Kristal Stanley swept into the courtyard alongside young Beatrice, completely blind to the fresh pool of blood awaiting them.