Anya POV:
"For the glory of the Beaumont family, this marriage is your utmost duty, Elsa."
The hypocritical voice of my 'father,' Lord Corbin Beaumont, echoed in the dressing room. His immaculate formal attire, embroidered with the golden dragon's flame of a true Dragon Lord, mocked the cheap, silver-threaded scales of my substitute wedding dress.
I looked at him through the mirror. Yesterday, I would have cowered. But yesterday, before my dearest sisters Isis and Livia pushed me down the grand staircase, I was just a weak, "dragonless" disappointment.
The agonizing pain of shattered bones hadn't killed me. Instead, it had broken the ancient seal deep within my soul.
The pure, primordial Dragon God bloodline had awakened, flooding my mind with lost dragon medical arts and a warrior's unyielding pride. I was no longer the fragile Elsa. My true bloodline name, vibrating in my veins, was Anya.
"Is it my duty, Father?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. I turned, my gaze piercing his cold, blue eyes. "Or was it the duty of your precious, true-born Isis?"
Martha, my trembling maid, gasped from the corner. Corbin's paternal smile vanished, replaced by a dark scowl. He wasn't used to being challenged by a waste of a daughter.
"This union with Lord Gideon Carlisle is sanctioned by the Dragon King," Corbin warned, his voice dropping to a dangerous hiss. "He may be a paralyzed cripple with a damaged dragon soul, but you will serve him. Do you intend to defy the King?"
I took a slow, fluid step toward him. The newly awakened dragon instincts in my blood easily analyzed his stance-full of arrogance, completely open to attack. "Of course not. I will marry the 'monster' Lord Carlisle. But I have one condition."
I let the silence stretch, enjoying the sudden flicker of unease in a Dragon Lord's eyes.
"From the moment I step into that carriage, I am no longer a Beaumont. Consider the debt of my miserable upbringing repaid in full. A spiritual Parting."
Corbin's face cycled from red to white. A Parting was a grave stain on a noble's honor, but he desperately needed this alliance to appease the King.
"Fine," he squeezed the word through clenched teeth. "As you wish, you ungrateful wretch."
"Then we are done," I stated. I picked up the heavy bridal cloak, ignoring his seething rage, and walked out. The satisfying sound of a shattered dragon crystal goblet echoed behind me.
At the manor's entrance, a plain, unmarked carriage waited-a final, petty insult. I climbed in, touching the hidden pouch in my sleeve.
Inside were fine bone and silver needles I had hastily crafted using the ancient dragon healing arts now burning in my mind. They were a surgeon's tools, and a newly awakened warrior's weapons.
The carriage lurched forward toward the dragon's den. Gideon Carlisle, I thought, feeling the blood hum in my veins. I hope you're ready for your bride.