The news of the First Batch had swept across the kingdom. The citizens mourned the deaths of the first hundred of the thousand. Their grief was raw, visible in every corner of the streets and hos. Yet the King did not mourn. He did not pause the machinery of his ambition. Instead, he redoubled it.
In the high, ivory halls of the Grand Nursery, the cycle beca an assembly line. New won were brought in; previous ones were recycled. The womb had ceased to be a vessel of life—it had beco a forge that was never allowed to cool.
Day by day, Drakovitch visited them, seeding the next generation with the clinical precision of a farr planting crops. Every nightfall, a new batch climbed to Tiamat’s nest to undergo the Dragonrite. And every dawn, the result was the sa—a rciless, agonizing silence.
The Second Batch fell. Then the Third. By the ti the Sixth Batch scaled the mountain and failed to return, the public’s grief had undergone a chilling transformation. The citizens, once broken-hearted, grew accustod to the loss. They accepted the deaths as a tax of existence and simply moved on.
But for the mothers, there was no solace. They were trapped in a nightmare of accelerated biology, their bodies forced to produce life that was snatched away before it could even learn their nas. Their children lived fourteen years of growth in a single day, only to be reduced to cinders in a single instant.
858.
That was the tally for the week. Eight hundred and fifty-eight sons and daughters turned to ash. Eight hundred and fifty-eight lives used as disposable matches to see if a single one would catch fire.
Inside the Grand Hall of Mothers, the air was thick, humid with the warmth of a thousand pregnancies. Sunlight stread through the high windows, the bright colors of the glass mocking the hollowing gloom in the won’s hearts.
One mother clutched her swollen stomach, her knuckles white. "We held them for less than two days," she whispered, her voice cracking. "We barely saw their eyes open before they were taken. And now, in just a week, they send word that they were ’unworthy.’ That they failed."
Beside her, a younger woman trembled, her hands hovering over a stomach that had only just begun to show.
"Another thousand... The King is calling for another thousand today. My first... he didn’t even have a na. To the priests, he was just ’Number 412.’ And now? He is just dust on the mountain wind. He doesn’t even have a grave for to weep over."
A third mother collapsed into her chair, tears tracing paths through the dust on her cheeks. "It’s wrong... all of it. At first, it felt like a dream—to be chosen by the King, to carry the blood of a god. We thought we were special. We thought we were building a future."
She looked around the hall, her voice rising in a desperate, jagged sob. "But we aren’t mothers anymore. We are just... we are a factory for a massacre. I cannot take this. I cannot bear to feel another life grow just to watch it burn."
A murmur of fearful agreent rippled through the Hall. The pride of being a "God King’s Choice" had vanished, replaced by a cold, soul deep dread. They weren’t giving birth to heroes; they were providing fuel for a furnace that was never full.
Then, the murmur of fearful agreent died instantly as one woman stood, her voice cutting through the despair like a serrated blade.
She was the sa woman who had once offered comfort to the others, the one who had made them feel a fleeting sense of hope and now, she was doing it again.
"You speak as if we were tricked! Did you not hear the Priests? Did you not see the King? He carries the weight of every loss alone. He remains strong so that we do not feel our ti is being wasted!"
The hall fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
"We signed the scrolls. We knew the Blood of Tiamat was a sun, and that our children were rely wax. If you wanted the comfort of a peasant life, you should never have stepped through these gates!"
"But they’re dying!"
Another mother shrieked, her voice cracking.
"All of them! Nearly a thousand children, and not a single Dragonborn has risen from the ash!"
"And what of it?"
The woman’s face hardened, her tone sharpening into sothing jagged and cold.
"We knew this path was paved with fire. I am not here for a title or a ’good life.’ I am here because I love this Kingdom more than I love my own peace. If I must carry a hundred sons just to find the one who can hold Tiamat’s blood, then I will do it without shedding a single tear!"
A heavy, booming laugh erupted from a nearby divan. A woman with a massive, muscular build, shoulders broad enough to sha a knight and a tongue as sharp as a butcher’s cleaver. She pushed herself up.
"Listen to her!"
The large woman barked, her voice echoing off the stone walls. She was the sa woman who had shouted at the servants before.
"She’s right, you lot of whining piglets! Back ho, I had a litter of pigs. If the winter was hard, the weak ones died so the strong could live. That’s just nature! You think the King is doing this for fun? He’s the only one with the guts to do what needs to be done!"
She flexed an arm, her skin stretched tight over her pregnancy.
"I’m here to give this kingdom a Dragonborn that’ll make the earth shake! If my last one burned, then I’ll make the next one tougher! We aren’t victims—we’re the forge! We are not birthing a massacre; we are birthing a legend! Now, sit up, eat your al, and get ready. The King is coming for the next harvest, and I’ll be damned if I show him a room full of cowards!"
Slowly, the atmosphere shifted. The fear didn’t vanish, but it was pushed down, suppressed by a cold, desperate sense of duty. The won began to sit upright, their eyes hardening with resolve.
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