Two days later, in the mansion of Anna’s vision quest…

Smoke, writhing and grey, roiled through the hall like flying serpents, filling the air of the hall with a smoky film despite the abundance of warm yellow lights. The air itself was laden with the scent of incense, rank with the stench of medicinal herbs set alight.

Claire de la Lune frowned as she eyed her surroundings. The mansion, for all its luxurious furnishings, felt like an evil place, one untouched by Elicia's grace. Never in a thousand years would she ever think of setting foot here, but her little sister, Anna de la Lune, had been missing for nearly a week now, the only trace of her whereabouts being a letter sent from this very place.

In this, she was all alone. It was foolish to go alone, but Anna was in grave danger. She could feel it so strongly in her heart, and she had hoped the Lightsworn Guard would send someone to come with her and put an end to this insanity. They were, after all, the military arm of the Ecclesiarch's Central Church that ruled this fair city. But much to her endless frustration, they had been strangely obtuse despite her pleas.

Indeed, not even a bribe was enough, for some inexplicable reason. And she remembered the white-coloured faintness of what appeared like a serpentine symbol upon some of their foreheads. An image rapidly shifting in and out upon the surface of their skin, that she feared that her eyes were deceiving her.

“Good morning! How may I help you?”

Claire stopped in her tracks, at the sight of a young lady dressed in a white bathrobe who greeted her with a dutiful bow. She was the first person she had come across in this huge place, for the front gates of the mansion had been left wide open, and the gardens beautiful but empty. For Claire, that did little to ease her worries, let alone the fury burning in her lungs as she thought of the ridiculousness and weirdness of it all.

“The master is busy, and he asked not to be disturbed, but…”

“Anna! Anna de la Lune! Where is she?” Claire demanded, causing the lady to quiver fearfully. “You sent me this letter, telling me that she’s here…”

“I, uh… I don't know what you're talking about…? But would you like to join our meditation class? We’re about to start, and we’ve been expecting you…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Claire shouted, her eyes widening with anger as she grabbed the lady by her shoulders. “I just want to see my little sister, right now!”

She paused mid-sentence, the anger in her voice stilled when the gaze of her brown eyes met that of the lady’s eyes. Their irises were milky and dilated, almost blending in with their whites. Like white paint, had been poured all over. And upon her forehead, was the faint, shifting glow of that serpentine symbol.

“Your eyes… and that symbol…” Claire remarked, her voice a hushed whisper. “I don't know what's going on, but you better let me see my sister right now, or I'll…”

“Call for the guards? You've tried that already, haven't you?”

“Who’s there?” Claire demanded. “Show yourself!”

“Of course, my lady…”

Emerging from the corner of the massive hall, dressed in black and silver robes, a lanky man with black eyes and short brown hair walked up to Claire, his skin human yet rife with black scales. They dotted his skin like a pox, monstrously incomplete as though his body was a flesh of two halves.

“Those scales!” Claire exclaimed, as she beheld the man’s face. “You're a half-dragon!”

“Yes, how astute of you to say that…”

The half-dragon ended his sentence with a guttural relish, smiling greedily at Claire as his human lackeys flanked him, dressed in similar robes of visibly inferior quality.

“I am as my father made me… Lesaire Vhal, son of Izoria Vhal…”

Claire suppressed a gasp, as she felt her heels dig against the ground. It could not be, and yet, it was right before her very eyes, a half-dragon in the Holy See of Arcadia. They were, from all that she knew, half-breed wretches. Little better, than the monsters and fiends that roamed the lands of Melodia far beyond the walled cities and towns of Arcadia, being drudges and servants to the dragons of the Cathanian Imperium that ruled the lands beyond the eastern seas.

“But enough about me,” the half-dragon known as Lesaire Vhal said, a perverse grin forming upon his lips as he eyed the anger and confusion in Claire’s eyes. “Little Anna spoke very highly of you. Said you'd come for her. How utterly predictable, that you would…”

“Young master… young master!”

Both Claire and Lesaire turned to look at the lady in the white bathrobe. She was on her knees, with tears in her eyes, salivating and muttering those two words over and over in a feverish mantra.

“Deal with this annoyance,” Lesaire remarked off-handedly, glancing briefly at the servants standing to the left of him. “Please.”

“Young master…”

In stunned silence, Claire watched on as Lesaire’s servants dragged the lady into another room, shutting the door in their wake. Her cries were still audible, until what sounded like flesh broken upon wood could be heard through the door, followed soon enough by tearful whimpering that faded slowly into silence.

“Anyway, Anna was right,” Lesaire Vhal remarked, bringing himself within arms’ reach of Claire, who stood her ground. “You may have a fiery temper, but you are truly beautiful…”

He placed a hand upon her cheek, smiling at her as she grit her teeth.

“Perhaps I should have waited a little longer, and offered you to my father instead…”

“Get away from me, you monster!”

Claire's hand slammed straight into Lesaire Vhal's face. She hit him upon his cheek hard enough, that he took a step back as tears formed in his black eyes.

“How dare you!” Lesaire Vhal exclaimed, gasping for air as he jabbed a clawed finger at Claire. “No one has ever touched me like that, not even my father!”

“The hell are you saying?” Claire demanded in reply, her fists clenching up in anger and utter bewilderment. “You’re the one who touched me, you crazy, perverted…”

“I would make you suffer for this personally, human whore! Just like your little Anna, who begged me like a dog in her final moments of waking, I’ll…”

“Enough, my son. Your voice grates upon my nerves, upon my meditation…”

In the distance, an old man with skin wrinkled like a rag came into view, his voice deep like that of smoke rumbling through gaps of burning coals. Dressed in purple and silver finery that covered his massive potbelly in multiple crumples of richly woven cloth, he stood atop the wide steps of the staircase leading to the upper floors of the mansion, the scent of decay emanating from him like a miasma stronger than the stench of burning incense could ever be.

“The smoke preserves my body, of what remains of it. My dearest Lady de la Lune, I hope you have found it to your liking…”

“Who the hell are you?” Claire demanded. “You smell like… death.”

“Death? No. I am Izoria Vhal...”

Claire glanced nervously around her. The servants of this mansion, and even Lesaire Vhal, the half-dragon who claimed to be his son, had fallen to their knees at his presence. And when her gaze centred back upon him, her eyes widened at the sight of his corpulent frame shifting in and out of reality. As his true form, a writhing, rotting mass of black scales, purple scabs, and tattered draconic wings, sprawled itself all over the staircase where his human façade once stood, leering at her with a pair of lidless eyes pale and white like death itself.

“I am, as my mother Sophia made me…”

“You’re a dragon…” Claire uttered. “And yet, you’re…”

“Dying? Yes. But not for long…”

Within the grasp of his rotting black claws, Izoria Vhal held out a crystal ball.

“Not with Anna de la Lune. My most precious prize…”

Claire took a step back, her breath heavy as she beheld the image forming upon the crystal ball. It was Anna, naked and clasped in chains. She was asleep and yet seemingly awake, her body ravaged by wounds bleeding raw with blood that stained her surroundings in shades of red stained upon black.

“Help me… sis… please…”

“For years, I have planned for what is to come, right under the gaze of Elicia's Eye and her all-seeing gaze…” Izoria Vhal uttered triumphantly. “I have chosen her to be mine…”

“I can’t let you do that…” Claire stated, as tears formed in her eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t let you…”

Suddenly, she let out a gasp, falling to her knees before Izoria Vhal. She tried to stand, only to feel her limbs freeze up at the sight of a white light glowing malignantly before her very eyes, its lines forming a sigil shaped in the symbol of a leering serpent.

“That sigil! It’s just like the guardsmen… just like…”

“Sleep, now and forever…” Izoria Vhal uttered, tears of viscous blood rolling down his rotten eyes as Claire fell unconscious before him. “My servants have need of you. They want you, for themselves.”