The Dragon King and His Fallen Star novel Chapter 56

Chapter 56: The Light Reaper

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With every step deeper into Val’Thirael, the mist thickened-once a sanctuary of the Fae, now their eternal resting place.

Malric covered his nose with one hand and drew his cloak tighter with the other, though no earthly cold haunted the rotting forest. This chill was deeper-hollow and gnawing, scraping against his bones and whispering of death.

Beside him, Morwenna raised her glowing staff. Faint runes pulsed along the dark wood, casting a sickly green light that cut through the dense black fog curling around them. The magic drove the toxic mist away before it could touch their skin, but still it coiled near their feet like a living thing,

hissing softly as it dissipated.

They moved in silence, weaving between gnarled trees stripped of leaf and life, their bark blackened to ash by the creeping blight. The deeper they went, the more the world dimmed around them, until only Morwenna’s flickering light remained, pushing back the encroaching void.

At last, the forest opened into a clearing swallowed by shadows so dense they looked like solid walls. The fog here was darker still, swirling with threads of violet and ink. A low hum pulsed

through the air-deep, vibrating, ancient.

At the center rose a seething mass of darkness-neither liquid nor smoke nor solid. Within its churning depths flickered glimpses of a cloaked silhouette: a towering figure, broad-shouldered, with horned shadows curling from its head like twisted crowns. Its form wavered in and out of the swirling void, never fully tangible, yet its presence pressed against Malric’s chest with such crushing force that his knees buckled beneath him.

He dropped to the ground in a single motion, Morwenna sinking beside him. Their cloaks pooled around their legs, catching ash and dirt as they bowed their heads low.

“My Lord,” they breathed in unison, their voices trembling with reverence and dread.

The swirling darkness shifted, as if in acknowledgment-tendrils of black mist curling outward, tasting the air around their bowed forms.

Malric did not dare look up. The raw power thrumming before him made his veins crawl with terror

… and burn with a dark, shivering anticipation.

The horned figure shifted, floating closer until it hovered above Malric and Morwenna’s bowed

heads.

“It’s about time you showed your faces,” the Lord’s voice rumbled, echoing through the clearing like

cracking stone layered with distant screams. Each word vibrated through Malric’s bones, rattling

his teeth. “I was beginning to think you’d abandoned your end of the bargain.”

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Chapter 56 The Light Reaper

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Malric swallowed hard, bowing deeper until his forehead nearly touched the ashen ground. “My Lord, never,” he rasped, his voice trembling despite his efforts to keep it steady. “We… we just

needed time. But…”

He lifted his head slightly, gesturing to Morwenna. With trembling fingers, she drew a small iron box from her satchel and placed it in his hands.

Malric turned back to the void, raising the opened box high. “But we brought you something.”

Inside, the gems shimmered with a pulsing red glow, each fragment flickering like a heartbeat.

“Hand them over,” the Lord’s voice rasped, deepened, echoing with layered, reverberating

darkness. “Their light is mine to devour.”

Malric hesitated. He held the box aloft in one hand, palm open, as his other hand closed tightly

around a single gem he’d hidden against his chest.

“I said, hand them over,” the dark figure hissed, its voice vibrating with layered fury. “Every last one.

You’ve starved me long enough.”

“My Lord…” Malric said carefully, his voice breaking despite his attempt at confidence. “Might I keep just one? As a weapon. As… insurance.”

For a heartbeat, silence fell. Thick, heavy, suffocating. The entire clearing seemed to freeze,

shadows going utterly still.

Then, darkness coiled and twisted around Malric, slithering across his throat and chest. Cold, crushing pressure tightened around him until his ribs strained with pain.

“Insurance?” the Lord whispered, but the echo of his words shook the earth beneath them.” Against whom, Malric?”

Malric’s pulse pounded so loudly he could barely hear his own words. “A-Against… the dragon,” he stammered. “The Drakemont King. He grows bolder. Stronger. We… we need something to defend

ourselves. To ensure your plans succeed.”

The silhouette loomed larger, shadows swirling into thick coils that slithered up Malric’s arms, wrapped around his fingers, and snaked along his neck. In a single, effortless motion, they lifted him off the ground. His boots dangled inches above the ashen soil as the choking cold seeped deep into his flesh, gnawing through muscle to bone.

“You will give me what is mine,” the Lord rasped, each word vibrating with layered echoes like a grave wind howling through ancient crypts. “If you want weapons, take more light. Or take back the girl yourself.”

Malric tried to speak, but no sound escaped. The shadows constricted around his throat, cutting off his air entirely.

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Chapter 55 The Light Reaper

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“Whose fault was it that you let one dragon escape” the dark Lord asked, voice low and mocking.

Malric’s vision blurred with pain and rising rage. His fingers twitched toward the hilt of his sword, instinct screaming at him to fight, to carve through the darkness strangling him.

The silhouette laughed, a sound like grinding bones. “Do you think your blade can harm me, fool?”

Fury bubbled hot and poisonous in Malric’s chest. Pawn. That’s what he was. A disposable piece in someone else’s game-and he knew it.

The shadows constricted tighter. Black tendrils slithered higher, coiling across his jaw and cheek. The cold bit into his flesh with searing venom. Where the darkness touched, his skin blistered and split, greying and cracking before crumbling away in flakes of rotting decay. Strands of hair withered into ash at his temples, drifting down in silent, smoking wisps.

Malric’s scream ripped through the clearing, echoing into the black void.

“My Lord, please!” Morwenna’s voice cut through his agony, high with terror. She fell forward, forehead pressed to the ashen ground. “He understands. We will get you more light. We will take it

from the girl. Please, spare him.”

The Dark Lord tilted slightly, as if amused. A rasping laugh echoed from the void, hollow and

rumbling.

“At least one of you has sense,” the Lord hissed, his hood dipping toward Morwenna before turning back to Malric. The shadows constricted one final time, burning deep into his bone before suddenly releasing him.

“Do not mistake your usefulness for invincibility,” the darkness whispered, curling around Malric’s ears like icy breath. “Your life is mine to take. Just like that.”

The shadows threw him down. Malric collapsed to his knees, clutching his blistered neck as his ragged breaths tore through him. Pain radiated down his spine, each pulse a reminder of his

humiliation.

The dark figure extended a clawed, skeletal hand. Morwenna grabbed the last gem from Malric’s grip with trembling fingers and placed it onto the waiting palm.

The shadows coiled around the gems, crushing them effortlessly. Their glow flickered and faded, drained into the swirling void until only black dust remained, drifting down and vanishing into

nothing.

“I expect you’ll bring me more when it’s time to feed again,” the Dark Lord said. “You remember what happens when I starve.”

The shadows receded, the skeletal silhouette dissolving into the black fog. But its voice echoed through the clearing, deep and eternal:

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Chapter of The Lighs Reaper

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