The black lion lowered itself in front of Elias.

Not like a predator.

Like a guardian.

Elias pressed one shaking hand into its mane, too frightened to understand why the beast that had been sent to kill him was now shielding him from the throne.

The king rose slowly.

“That is impossible,” he said.

The High Priest turned toward him, horror spreading across his face.

“Your Majesty… you told the kingdom the prince died fighting the dragon.”

The king’s fingers tightened around the arm of his throne.

“He did.”

“No,” came a weak voice from the arena gate.

Everyone turned.

An elderly temple woman stood there, leaning on a cane, her gray robes whipping in the dry wind. Tears ran down her face as she looked at Elias.

“He survived long enough to bring me his baby.”

Elias went still.

The woman had raised him in the temple until soldiers drove them into the streets. She had always told him his father died protecting innocent people.

She had never told him his father had been a prince.

The king descended one step from the throne platform.

“You kept the child alive?”

The old woman lifted her chin.

“Your son begged me to.”

Elias stared at the king.

“My father was your son?”

The king’s face hardened, but panic had begun to tremble beneath it.

“Your father betrayed this kingdom.”

The old woman laughed through tears.

“No. He saved it.”

She pointed toward the black lion.

“Before the Shadow Dragon came, that creature was only a cub, chained beneath your palace for your games. Prince Cassian freed it. When the dragon attacked, the lion fought beside him.”

The black lion lifted its head at the sound of the name.

Cassian.

A deep, broken growl rumbled from its chest.

Elias’s scar suddenly burned hot.

He looked down in terror as the stitched wound began to glow faintly beneath the sunlight.

The High Priest stumbled forward.

“That is not an ordinary scar,” he whispered. “It is the dragon’s mark. It was carved into Prince Cassian when he killed the beast.”

The king turned pale.

Elias’s voice shook.

“Then why do I have it?”

The old woman looked at him with unbearable tenderness.

“Because your father used the last of his strength to bind the dragon’s curse to his own bloodline, so it could never rise again.”

The arena erupted in frightened whispers.

The king’s fear became rage.

“He was supposed to die before the child was born!”

Elias flinched as though struck.

The words hung in the air.

The High Priest stared at the king.

“You murdered your own heir?”

The king shouted down at Elias, no longer able to hide the truth.

“Your father was worshipped more than I was! The people would have crowned him while I still breathed!”

Elias’s eyes filled with tears.

He had spent his whole life hungry, sleeping on stone, believing he had no family.

All because a grandfather on a golden throne had been afraid of his own son.

“You sent me into this arena to die,” Elias whispered.

The king looked at the lion and understood too late why it had refused.

“I sent you to finish what should have ended twelve years ago.”

The black lion roared.

This time, the sound shook dust from the ancient stone walls.

Royal guards moved toward Elias, but the beast stepped in front of him, fangs bared.

The crowd no longer cheered for blood.

They began shouting one name.

“Cassian!”

“Cassian!”

“Cassian!”

Elias stood behind the lion, crying silently as the father he never knew filled the arena through thousands of voices.

The High Priest lowered his staff and bowed toward the boy.

“The true heir lives.”

The king stumbled backward.

“No! He is a beggar!”

Elias looked at his torn tunic, his dirty feet, the scar that had condemned him before he even knew what it meant.

Then he lifted his eyes.

“I was a beggar because you stole my father from me.”

The black lion slowly knelt.

Elias understood without being told.

He climbed onto its enormous back, his thin hands disappearing into the midnight mane.

As the lion rose, the glowing scar on his arm blazed brighter.

Then the sun vanished.

A shadow swept across the arena.

The crowd fell silent.

Above the coliseum, something vast and winged moved behind the clouds.

The High Priest looked up in terror.

“The dragon’s curse…”

Elias gripped the lion’s mane as its roar turned toward the sky.

And the king whispered, horrified:

“He did not come back for the throne. He came back because the Shadow Dragon is alive.”