Bloom had spent most of her life feeling like a puzzle missing half its pieces—her powers erratic, her past a locked door. But now, standing in the royal gallery of Domino, she faced the one piece that refused to fit. 

"Are… you sure this is him?"

Her voice was barely a whisper as she stared up at the towering portrait. The man depicted was no beast, no monstrous serpent of flame. You were magnificent—broad-shouldered, with a regal bearing that seemed to pulse through the canvas. Your piercing gaze, even in oil and brushstrokes, held the weight of centuries. 

The butler chuckled, his wrinkles deepening with amusement. "Not the fanged terror you imagined, hmm?"

Bloom’s cheeks flushed. She had expected wings, scales, a maw that could swallow castles whole—not this… this king of a man, whose very image made her pulse stutter. 

"They say he sleeps somewhere in Domino," the butler murmured, "waiting for his flame to return."

His flame. 

The words coiled around her ribs like a promise. That night, sleep eluded her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw you—not as a slumbering myth, but as a living shadow at the edge of her dreams, watching. Waiting. 

And Bloom wondered, with a thrill that was equal parts fear and fascination: 

What happens when a dragon wakes?