"Death?" Riley practically gasped the word with the kind of disbelieving finality soone might have if they were told they had won the lottery. Only this ti it was for sothing far less desirable and far more horrifying.
"As in you’re telling I would have to die-die for the seal to be broken?"
"Yes."
Riley’s entire small body jerked as if soone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over him.
"WHY? What did I even do?" he shrieked in disbelief, pacing in quick, frantic circles on the floor.
"Also, if it’s the black dragons, then how could I, soone who’s literally just twenty-five years old, have done sothing so horrific that I deserve this kind of wrath? In which tiline would I even have anything to do with black dragons? Maybe a first life? Or a second life?"
His pacing grew more dramatic the longer he spoke. Tiny claws clicked against the ground with every agitated step while his tail stuck stiffly out behind him like a misplaced antenna. And in all this, his wings would flap uselessly every ti he got too worked up, which was often.
Then he gasped.
"Maybe that’s it! Maybe this is so kind of past-life thing, and I was actually an ancient black dragon back when only prokaryotes existed. And now this is my solo crux to bear, which is why my current family can’t possibly be dragons despite being one. That could be it, right?"
He spun around again, tail almost whacking a frozen pillow.
"But still! I know dragons can get a bit petty. Okay, maybe they are naturally petty. But what cri could I have possibly committed that’s so bad I actually have to die to be unsealed even in this lifeti?"
He finally looked at Thyrran with wide, worried erald eyes, as if he had just realized he had been shouting at an ancient being while having a small existential ltdown.
"Sorry," Riley muttered, coughing slightly in embarrassnt.
But honestly, who could bla him? Anyone would have issues after hearing that their seal-breaking requirent was literal death.
At this rate, he could run through every interrogative word in existence and still not get anywhere, because nothing made sense. Not the tiline, not the species change, not the implications.
He had gotten a "who" earlier, yes, but it did not help when his brain could not stitch together a tiline, no matter how desperately it tried.
Thyrran watched him with a dubious look and finally replied, "First life? Second life? Cri? What cri could you have possibly committed as an egg? Also, death is not a punishnt for this seal. If anything, it would have been quite the opposite."
"Huh?"
Riley blinked at him.
"Sorry, but did you just say egg?"
"Yes. Because you were sealed as an egg."
There was a beat of utter silence.
Then a ntal screech so loud it might have made the ancestors flinch.
No shit.
Apparently, Thyrran was not joking at all. And when he began to explain the details, Riley had to sit still for a mont because his brain simply refused to process anything past the word "egg."
Thyrran went on.
He made it clear that they did not know the entire reason behind the sealing. But he did know enough to state that the "masters" who had left these instructions were the black dragons themselves. The original creators of the guardians. And they would never have created such a complicated request for soone trivial, nor for sothing petty, nor for any criminal, especially during such a critical ti in their history.
But since that was only an educated guess, it would be better to start with the facts he could confirm.
Like how Riley, the supposedly twenty-five-year-old human, had been sealed prior to the culmination of the Great War.
Yes. He actually said prior.
Forget the ancient golden dragons and Kael being nine hundred-sothing years old. Thyrran just calmly declared that Riley had originally existed as an egg for far longer than any of that.
Riley’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
Before he could panic about being ancient, Thyrran continued explaining the nature of dragon eggs and hatchlings.
Apparently, dragons, unlike most magical beings, gathered mana even while still in their eggs.
It would usually begin with the infusion of mana from the parents, which would jumpstart the dragonling’s initial mana pool.
But the true purpose of this process was always the sa. To forge the dragon heart. The core that allowed a dragon to gather, store, and utilize mana.
Surprisingly, Riley had heard about this from Kael. Dragons had such an advantage in the food chain precisely because of that head start. For them, using mana ca as naturally as breathing or the pumping of blood.
But what did that have to do with him?
Apparently, everything.
Because the reason for the fuss, the secrecy, and the extre pain was that Riley, whose seal clearly initiated the highest level of security, had been born without a dragon heart.
In fact, Thyrran believed Riley had hatched from that egg in human form.
"I’m sorry, what now?"
"We don’t know why you weren’t left in the care of other dragons," Thyrran replied, his tone matter-of-fact. "But we know you were sealed as a protective asure. And the seal was remarkable. You would never have noticed it was there unless sothing triggered it."
"But since you entered the archives as a human, it beca clear that sothing activated its defenses. It forced you not only to hatch in a delayed manner, but also to hatch without a dragon heart."
Riley stared at him, pupils blown wide in shock.
Thyrran continued, explaining to the trembling dragonling that the lack of a dragon heart was what made it impossible for Riley to unseal himself without the help of external forces. Because how could he even turn into a dragon without one?
In that case, death would have activated the seal’s final layer. And in that mont, the remnants of the seal would have reconstructed a dragon heart so he could start over. And with that reconstruction, he would have beco a dragonborn with a functioning core.
"Start over?"
"Yes. The seal was not ordinary by any ans. It relied on a dragon’s immortality and would have allowed you to begin again."
Thyrran paused, his voice lowering slightly.
"But it did not seem like you would want that. Because in starting over, you would not have been the sa person. You would have effectively entered your second life."
"!!!"
Riley jolted violently. The tiny dragonling looked horrified.
He definitely would not have liked that.
"Then the vial? I really would have died with that vial?"
"Yes. And it was not just the vial. All of the trials should have resulted in death. As trials ant for dragonlings to prove their maturity, a human should not have survived. But because you said you wanted to be unsealed, I had to follow the masters’ orders. By initiating a test where, even if you failed, you would still succeed in unsealing yourself."
Holy—!
Riley’s legs gave out, and he toppled to the floor, feeling weak with shock.
"B-but Thyrran, I’m practically a dragonling now. Are you telling that when I change like Kael, I won’t actually end up as Riley anymore?"
"You would," Thyrran said calmly. "Because after going through all of that trouble, you had better still end up with your old body."
"Trouble?"
"Yes, trouble. Because it would be a capital waste if I got removed from being a guardian only to fail at this."
"!!!"
Riley stared, scandalized at hearing that Thyrran had been kicked out?!
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