They Wanted Me to Serve My Sister, So I Joined the Northern Dragon King Chapter 07
Snow was falling across the Northern Territory when the Royal Vessel touched down.
I descended the gangway, and the Frost Dragon Knights waiting in formation saluted unison.
The court’s head steward, Alden Pierce, placed a silver token into my hands.
“Lady Elaia, Starfrost Tower Three has been prepared for you. Beginning today, you will receive the highest stipend, training resources, and personal guard allotment available.”
I held the token, warmth tingling at my fingertips.
In the Rayne household, everyone had told me I wasn’t pretty, didn’t know how to please people, and couldn’t transform, so I didn’t deserve anything better.
But here, no one asked whether I was sweet-tempered. No one told me to prove my worth first.
They judged by bloodline and ability, nothing else.
Alden led me through Starfrost Tower, introducing the library, training grounds, and guard quarters one by one.
“If anything is not to your liking, feel free to change it.”
I asked without thinking, “Don’t I need to request approval from someone first?”
Alden looked surprised.
“This is your residence, my lady. The decisions are yours.”
For the first time in eighteen years, someone had given me a choice as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
After I settled in, a frost priest named Elias Vane knocked on my door.
“By order of Frost Dragon King Severel, I’m here to examine your dragon core.”
The moment his magic entered my body, his expression darkened.
He raised a hand and cast a projection. My mana channels and core appeared in full detail on the crystal.
Grayish deposits clogged the mana channels. Hairline fractures covered the core.
“You’ve been drinking low-grade activation elixirs laced with impurities for years, and your dragon core once suffered severe frost damage.”
Vane pointed to the fractures.
“Worse still, your essence blood has been drawn repeatedly. A few more extractions, and your core would have failed completely.
I looked at the deepest fracture.
That one was from the winter hunt when I was nine.
The smaller fractures corresponded to the fevers and blackouts that had followed each blood extraction.
Every time, my mother had told me it meant the medicine was clearing my mana channels
I had believed her for nine years.
“Isn’t drawing essence blood supposed to treat a blocked bloodline?”
Vane’s head snapped up.
“Absolutely not. The reason you couldn’t transform is precisely because your core has been damaged for so long.”
So it wasn’t that I lacked Talent.
They had been destroying my body while telling me I simply wasn’t good enough.
Vane prepared the Moon Well for me.
As the silver water rose past my shoulders, the impurities lodged in my mana channels were forced out inch by inch, and the
fractured core began to mend.
The pain felt like countless blades driving into my bones at once. I clenched my teeth and made no sound.
Severel stood beside the Moon Well. He said only one thing.
“Endure it. Once your mana channels are remade, you will reawaken your dragon core.”
A day later, every hidden wound in my body had healed.
I stood atop Starfrost Tower and, for the first time, willingly summoned my bloodline.
Frost spread rapidly outward from my feet.
A dragon cry tore through the clouds, and a full pair of ice wings unfurled behind me.
I flew into the wind, higher and higher, until the entire Northern capital shrank to a point of silver light beneath me.
Wind swept beneath my intact wings. No broken core held me back anymore.
I circled above the clouds, once, and then again.
They had always said I would be nothing without the Rayne family.
On the very first day after I truly left, I reached a height none of them could ever touch.
When I landed, the captain of my guard, Rowan Mercer, ran over with a communication crystal.
“Lady Elaia, the Rayne family has issued a warrant for you. They’ve also petitioned the Central Dragon Court for a custody ruling that would force you to return.”
I opened the public channel.
My father claimed I had abandoned the family that raised me for eighteen years in order to curry favor with the Frost Dragon
King
My mother wept and said they had simply given more resources to the frail Cecilia. They had never mistreated me.
My brother said the ancient bloodline and Northern resources I had taken should have belonged to the Rayne family all along.
Strangers piled on beneath the posts, calling me ungrateful, demanding the Northern Court strip my knighthood.
From start to finish, not one of them had asked about my health or mentioned the essence blood they had taken from me
Captain Mercer asked, “Shall the court issue a response on your behalf?”
“No.”
I closed the public channel.
“If they want to put a price on raising me, then we’ll settle every last account.”
I requested the court retrieve nine years of blood bank records, the family’s resource ledgers, and the communication recordings from the winter hunt. I also had Lorne’s attendant contract brought back.
Lastly, I placed Vane’s diagnostic report on top of everything.
Captain Mercer turned to the last page of the blood bank records, his expression growing grimmer by the second.
“They took this much essence blood from you, and they claim they were raising you?”
I sorted every record by date.
“This time, we let the evidence speak.”
The Central Dragon Court’s public hearing was set for three days later.
I read my father’s message on the crystal. “She owes the Rayne family for life.” I smiled.
They would find out soon enough who truly owed a debt.
