Chapter 2: The Noble's Burden**
Lord Vortigern Draconis sighed wearily as he turned away from the expansive window that framed an uninspiring view of the royal capital's cramped slums. Even from his manor's lofty heights, the stench carrying on the warm spring breeze was potent enough to detected—a perpetual reminder of the peasantry's squalor surrounding his opulent estate.
With a negligent wave of his hand, the bejeweled ring on his finger flashed briefly, activating the enchantments that slid the heavy glass panes shut to block out the unpleasant aromas and murmuring din. Silence and impeccably refined luxury returned to the spacious bedchamber, sealing Vortigern in his privileged bubble once more.
Yet the frown creasing his aristocratic features spoke of how little solace that bubble truly provided these days. Despite his family's lofty status among the noble elite, Vortigern found scant joy in existing behind these exquisitely decorated walls. Walls that seemed to shrink a little tighter around him with each passing year.
It wasn't always this way, he mused as he absently twirled the end of his waxed mustache—a meticulous affectation always perfectly groomed. There had been a time in Vortigern's youth when he'd felt deliriously free and full of ambition, possessed by lofty dreams befitting his proud draconic lineage.
Visions of glory to be seized, enemies to be vanquished, treasures and lands to be conquered, all dancing tantalizing before him. He'd even once held the illustrious dream of ascending the rigorous path of the Celestial Path to achieve immortality.
Those halcyon days seemed like a fever dream now, one that had steadily soured into this colorless malaise weighing on Vortigern's very soul. Where had it all derailed? When did he begin thinking of his once promising life as a slowly tightening noose?
The heavy oak door creaked open behind him. "You're still moping about, I see," a rich feminine voice dripped with idle disdain. "This funereal brooding has grown quite tiresome, Vortigern. One would think the mighty Dragon Lord would at least try to act befitting of his lofty station."
Vortigern clenched his jaw at the mocking jab, all too accustomed to his wife's barbed tongue. Though he refused to rise to her bait, his nostrils flared at that infuriating tone as Lady Elysia swept into the room with her usual imperious air. Even at her relatively advanced age, the severe woman still managed to radiate a sharply alluring, dangerous beauty worthy of her infamous noble house.
"Such insolent disrespect for your lawful husband," he retorted coldly without facing her. "One might think you had forgotten your place, woman."
A scoff of derision, as familiar as it was inflammatory. "Please, spare me the empty bravado, Vortigern. We both know full well why you've strangled whatever potential you once possessed."
Elysia came around to his front, her elaborate silk robes rustling with each calculated step. With a pointed look of superiority, she flicked open the front of his ornate brocade tunic before he could react, her dark eyes tracing the unnaturally lean contours of his bare chest with undisguised contempt.
"Or are you deluding yourself that a true Dragon Lord wouldn't wither from the inside out like a shriveled husk?" She arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow in a contemptuous look that made Vortigern's jaw clench all the harder. "After all, we elite immortals needn't merely appear eternally youthful. Our vigor is meant to flow from an inexhaustible inner font...or so the legends claim."
Vortigern slapped her hand away with ill-concealed rage smoldering in his sunken eyes. Damn this infuriating succubus to the Void! How he loathed the words left unspoken...that he had failed at cultivating the path to true immortality. That his once heralded draconic core had stagnated from sheer complacency and lapsed dedication.
Worst of all, Elysia's verbal lashings always returned to the roots of his downfall: his inability to sire a legitimate heir worthy of one day inheriting his titles and fortunes.
"One should be oh so very careful when slinging uncouth insults, dearest." Vortigern spoke in a soft, controlled tone that somehow conveyed even greater malice than yelling. "After all, I am merely the impotent husk of a Dragon Lord. Yet you are a failure that cannot even—"
"You dare speak that vile word to my face?" Elysia recoiled as if his phrase were a physical slap, her youthful features twisting with such fury that nearby timepieces rattled. "You reptilian worm! Have you truly sunken so pitifully low that you seek to make barbs over my sole misfortune?"
Silence stretched between them like a suffocating miasma. Vortigern felt the ominous vibrations of his wife's unleashed aura crashing like an oppressive ocean tide against his own power. Just when it seemed they would erupt into outright conflict, a timid rap on the door thankfully shattered the tension.
"Enter!" He and Elysia snapped in perfect unison, both turning matching glares of barely restrained rage toward the interloper.
A young man barely into his twenties hesitantly poked his head in, gulping at the charged atmosphere and wondering if he'd made a dire mistake. Yet at seeing it was only Ariston, Vortigern's sole heir and pride, some of the tension deflated from both nobles' shoulders. As much as he loathed Elysia in these private moments, the two presented a united front before their son.
"What is it?" Vortigern asked with forced gruffness, adjusting his collar while keeping his tone as aloof as possible. Beside him, Elysia smoothed a stray lock of hair with equal feigned indifference.
"It's just...the delegation has arrived from the Celestial Imperium." Ariston hesitated before adding, "And the Seraphi herself requested your attendance at the grand audience, Father."
A spark of his youth's forgotten ambition flickered briefly in Vortigern's breast at those words. The Seraphi was one of the highest celestial overseers of the immortals' heavenly domains. Very rarely did such an exalted being personally descend to interact with the secular circles of the mortal realms in such a public manner.
For one of them to pay a state visit must surely portend matters of grave importance. Perhaps even a chance for those of sufficient talent and vision to seize upon—if they were bold and prepared.
The tiny flicker of hope inside him threatened to burn a little brighter at the prospect.
Yet...Vortigern turned away before his son could discern the fleeting hunger in his eyes. With a quelling breath, he walled off those futile yearnings for a former self forever out of reach. Such naïve folly had been one of his greatest downfalls. The Dragon Lord squeezed his temples as certainty once more settled over him like a shroud.
"It is merely politics and wasteful ceremony," he muttered as much to himself as Ariston. "Nothing but a meaningless distraction fit to occupy the idle thoughts of court dandies and gullible fools."
"But Father—"
"Do not question me, boy!" Vortigern snapped, all pretenses of civility fading. "Clean your ears out, for I'll speak no further on this triviality. Now leave me at once before I summon the discipline mama so favors!"
Elysia's smile at those last mocking words was cruelly beatific. "Mind your sire's counsel, Ariston. After all...dissatisfaction can leave even noble bloodlines disappointingly...unfulfilled."
The young man's eyes flashed with familiar defiance before he bit back any retort and hastily exited the chambers. Vortigern stared at the carved oaken door long after it slammed shut, fuming silently at both his heir's brash insolence and his wife's needless provocation of it.
Yet below that outer irritation, the deeper truth etched long ago across Vortigern's very soul remained:
For all his grand lineage and inherited power, he was naught but a pathetic shell destined to be forgotten. An unfulfilled waste like those he so readily condemned.
Perhaps Elysia was correct. At his core, the Dragon Lord wasn't a mighty immortal...but a husk starved of true purpose and resolve.