Silver braziers lining the Dragon Guardian Palace's vast dining hall cast ripples of heat‑shimmer across polished dragon‑bone platters, making every dish gleam like treasure newly pried from a hoard.
On the ironwood table rested a spread fit for legends—slices of ember‑kissed wyvern flank lacquered in sweet crimson blaze‑honey, coils of obsidian‑scaled crackling that snapped beneath fork tines, and a bowl of ruby‑mist gizzard stew whose steam carried faint sparks that fizzled out of existence.
Jett carved a strip of the flank, juice beading along the knife's edge before he slid the meat past eager lips. Fire and sugar clashed, then melded into a smoky caramel that set his senses humming. Damn, that's perfect.
