**Prologue: The Last Roar of a Betrayed King**
The sky wasn't big enough. That was my last coherent thought before the agony tore the world apart. *My* sky. The one I'd ruled for centuries, painted crimson and gold with the dying embers of the sun and the promise of my own eternal flame. Now it was just… pain. A universe condensed into the searing, soul-deep tear where Bliss's obsidian talons had ripped through scales forged in volcanic heartfires, scales that had turned aside ballista bolts and dragonfire alike… but not *hers*. Never hers. Not when it mattered.
*Betrayal.* The word echoed in my shattered mind, sharper than any claw. *Alfred the Unbroken. Alfred the Sky Tyrant. Alfred the Fool.*
I remember the scent of ozone and burnt cinnamon – *her* scent – as she closed in, those emerald eyes, once warm with cunning alliance, now cold as glacial depths. "The strongest survive, Alfred," her voice, like poisoned honey, slithered into my mind even as my physical form spiraled downwards, trailing smoke and molten blood that sizzled against the clouds. "Your reign ends. Your fire… extinguishes."
I'd fought. Oh, by the molten core, I'd fought. Mountains had crumbled beneath our clash. Ancient forests vaporized. The very air screamed. But Bliss… she'd always been smarter. Faster. She'd studied me, waited centuries for the perfect moment, the perfect weakness. She hadn't just aimed for the heart; she'd aimed for the *pride*. Lured me into the Storm Peaks, away from my hoard, my loyal flight. Promised alliance against the encroaching human mage-lords. A lie, woven with threads of truth and my own damned arrogance.
The wind howled, not with storm fury, but with the sound of my failing majesty. I saw the jagged teeth of the mountains rushing up, eager to claim my bones. Below, the tiny specks of human cities glittered, oblivious ants beneath the fall of a god. *My* cities. *My* dominion. Soon to be *hers*.
*The strongest survive.* Her words were a curse, a final brand. Fury, hotter than my own dimming heartfire, surged. Not just at her, but at myself. For trusting. For believing strength alone was enough. It wasn't. Not against poisoned promises and a dagger in the dark… or a claw in the back.
Impact.
A cataclysm of shattering bone and tearing flesh. A sound like continents colliding. *My* continent breaking.
Darkness rushed in, thick and suffocating. Not the comforting dark of deep caverns or starless nights, but the absolute void. The end. My immense consciousness, a vast library of centuries, a roaring furnace of power and pride, compressed. Crushed. Fading like embers in a blizzard.
*Bliss…* The name was a final snarl in the dissolving storm of my thoughts. *I'll find you. Burn you. Even if it takes…*
*** ***
Consciousness returned like a shiv to the ribs.
Sudden. Brutal. *Wrong.*
No vast expanse of sky. No thrum of immense power in my veins. No weight of wings, majestic and terrible. No heat of internal fire.
Instead: cold. A bone-deep, gritty cold that seeped through thin, fragile skin. The stench. Oh, the *stench*. Rot, decay, acrid smoke, and something chemical, foul, clinging to the back of a throat that felt… small. Tight. Raw.
And *pain*. Different from the shattering agony of Bliss's strike. This was a symphony of smaller miseries: a throbbing ache in the skull, a sharp protest from ribs pressed against hard, uneven ground, the scrape of grit against exposed skin.
*Skin?*
My eyes snapped open – *two* eyes, human-small, watering against the harsh, grey light filtering through choking haze. I stared at my… *hands*. Pale, thin, clawless. Useless. Trembling.
Panic, an alien, frantic bird, fluttered in a chest too shallow, lungs that burned with each shallow, dust-choked breath. *Where? What?* The thoughts were sluggish, trapped in this feeble vessel. My mind, once a soaring eagle surveying empires, felt like a rat trapped in a collapsing burrow.
I tried to roar, to summon the fury that should have leveled mountains. What emerged was a weak, ragged cough that tore at my raw throat.
*Alfred. My name is Alfred. I was… I am…* The memories slammed back – the sky, the battle, the betrayal, the fall. Bliss's triumphant, emerald gaze. The crushing void.
*I died.*
And yet… I was here. Trapped in this… this *meat sack*. Reborn? Reincarnated? Into *this*?
Forcing my head up, ignoring the dizzying spin, I saw the world. Or what was left of it.
Ruined skeletons of towering structures clawed at a sickly, ash-choked sky. Rubble choked streets that were more fissure than pathway. Rusted metal hulks, vaguely reminiscent of ancient human chariots, lay scattered like the carcasses of strange beasts. Vegetation was a sickly grey-green, clinging stubbornly to cracks in the concrete, twisted and wrong. The air tasted of desolation and endings.
*The strongest survive.* Bliss's curse echoed in my fragile human skull, now sounding less like a taunt and more like the brutal, fundamental law of this broken place.
A low, guttural snarl cut through the moaning wind. Not mine. Too close.
Slowly, painfully, I turned my head.
Emerging from the shadowed maw of a collapsed building was… a thing. Twisted flesh, patchy fur, too many eyes glowing with mindless hunger. It sniffed the air, jaws dripping viscous saliva. Its gaze locked onto me – weak, exposed, trembling on the ground.
Prey.
The ancient fire, the dragon's soul bound within this pathetic flesh, flared. Not heat, but *will*. A primal, burning refusal.
*I am Alfred. I was Sky Tyrant. I was betrayed. I died.*
The creature took a step closer, muscles bunching.
*I am not prey.*
It lunged.