Fallen One (Book three of Alfireán age)

- The Dragon's Folly -

"That very night," Eldrin said, twisting his head back down and staring at Alf and the others through the roaring flames, "I ended the prime minister."

"Ended?" Alf asked, goosebumps running up and down his arms. "As in..."

"Yes," the dragon answered curtly. The scrying flared and a dragon flying above the clouds appeared, its crimson scales lit by the moonlight. Without warning, the dragon flashed out of existence, only to be replaced by a man shrouded in dark, scaled armor. The warrior plummeted out of the sky and through the clouds with the holo-vid following his descent as he dived. Far below, a stately tiered-roof mansion, reminiscent of the ones at the hot springs, came into view.

The shadowy figure opened his arms, and correcting his course, he aimed straight for the building. Then less than a dozen feet away, the man spun around and dove feet first into the manor. Crashing straight through the roof, he punched his way through four consecutive floors and landed with a heavy crash on the bottom level.

The house shook, and an elderly gentleman, sitting in a stately leather armchair, stumbled to his feet in surprise.

"You!?" the prime minister blubbered as he saw Eldrin's face and backed away. "How did y..." he trailed off staring in astonishment at the hole through the ceiling.

Eldrin said nothing as he strolled across the room and towards the man and the scrying faded to black.

Alf swallowed hard. The children's books about the dragons couldn't have been further from the truth.

"My rash actions, however, resulted in dire consequences," the Lord of the Dragons informed them as a string of pictures and names played across the floating screen. "Every last viable politician raced to seize the prime minister's position by any means possible."

One by one, the politicians' pictures faded to grey and stark text appeared over them, describing how each had met their end. Most were assassinated in their homes by supposed foreign powers, Alf read; though he couldn't help but frown in confusion as the words 'Died by choking to death after drinking bottled water,' appeared over one of the images.

"In the ensuing chaos, the nation crumbled," Eldrin continued on, his tale weaving a picture of dark days and mass confusion. "Worse yet, while I and the other dragons scrambled to keep the humans from realizing the automatons were not real and attempted to retrieve the research the prime minister's men had managed to seize, our facility was destroyed in the resulting power struggle."

"With the other nations once again rising to their feet, and doing everything in their power to set their own puppet on the empty throne, I eventually had no choice but to claim it as my own." Suddenly, all the other pictures faded from view, leaving only Eldrin's human form left standing.

"Wait," Drakovian said, leaning away from the obsidian wall and interrupting the dragon's story. "You're saying you became the ruler during The Great Wars as a human. But I thought The Great Wars ended when dragons seized control from the humans and reshaped the world."

Eldrin hung his head. "Yes, that is a lie we propagated," the dragon admitted. "The reality was far less glorious. In truth, I utterly failed as a ruler."

Their small sitting area, out on the vast plane of destruction, fell into silence as the great dragon stared broodingly into the fire. His dark, gold eyes filled with the shadows of the past.

"How did you fail?" Alf asked, wiping the sweat from his brow as the dome started to feel a bit too warm. He'd always thought of the dragon's as wise, majestic creatures and not as genetic tools of war. But the Lord of the Dragon's story contradicted everything he'd thought he knew of ancient history.