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Rising From Exile: The Dragonless Queen

Diversion

5.0

Fantasy

10 Chapters

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I was reincarnated into a brutal world ruled by dragons as a "Dragonless" outcast, only to finally reunite with my biological noble family. But the very day I was brought home, my family was framed for treason and sentenced to a lethal exile in the frozen north. The fake daughter who stole my life for seventeen years mocked us, abandoning our name to join the enemies who orchestrated our downfall. During the brutal death march, I relied on my secret spatial storage and modern medical knowledge to keep my family alive. I cured my father's rotting whip wounds, protected my brother from sadistic guards, and finally secured a warm meal and a moment of peace for our exhausted camp. We thought we had survived the worst of the royal purge. But just as we let our guard down, my father, brother, and all the men in our bloodline suddenly collapsed, violently choking on black blood and foaming at the mouth. I was completely stunned. The lethal nerve toxin wasn't in the main cooking pot that the women and children ate from. It was slipped directly into the men's individual bowls. The poison didn't come from the cruel guards or the royal inquisitors. It came from someone sitting right beside our own campfire. There is a traitor hiding among my closest family members, and I swear I will drag them out of the shadows.

Rising From Exile: The Dragonless Queen Chapter 1

Katia POV:

"Three paces to the left, then two rows of winter wheat," I murmured to myself, digging the sharp tip of a dry oak stick into the damp dirt.

The soil was heavy and black, clinging to my worn leather shoes. Back in my former life, before whatever cosmic accident flung my soul into this body, I had spent years studying crop rotation and modern irrigation. In this brutal world ruled by winged tyrants, where fire fell from the sky and bloodlines determined whether you ate beef or chewed on grass, my little fenced yard was my only sanctuary. I was a Dragonless girl-an outcast with cold blood and no inner beast-and this half-acre patch was meant to be my quiet haven.

A deafening crash obliterated the silence.

The wooden gate splintered into kindling, sending jagged shards flying across the turnip patch. My heart violently slammed against my ribs. I dropped the stick, my fingers curling into tight, dirt-caked fists as my survival instincts flared.

Heavy, rhythmic boots marched through the dust. A dozen guards filed into the yard, their armor forged from interlocking blackened steel shaped like overlapping dragon scales. The air instantly turned suffocating, thick with the pungent stench of sulfur, iron, and stale blood-the unmistakable aura of soldiers serving the royal capital.

The armored men parted without a word, snapping to attention.

A young woman swept through the gap, holding the hem of an azure silk gown embroidered with genuine gold-thread flame patterns. Her spun-gold hair cascaded over her shoulders like a shining river, framing porcelain skin and crystalline blue eyes. But those eyes held nothing pure. They fixed on me, dripping with cold, venomous delight.

Behind her walked a tall, lean man whose silence carried ten times more weight than the soldiers' armor. He wore a scholar's high-collared tunic of charcoal wool, tailored so cleanly it looked immune to dust. Wire-rimmed spectacles sat on the sharp bridge of his straight nose. His golden hair was clipped short and precise. The moment his gaze swept over me, my soiled hands, and the rustic chicken coop behind me, his pale brow pinched into a severe, deep furrow.

The man radiated a clinical, biting chill. The captain of the guards bowed his head slightly toward him, proving this clean-freak scholar was far more than he appeared.

"Look at her, Master Gideon," Darby purred, pulling a lace handkerchief from her sleeve to press against her nose in theatrical disgust. "They spent months scouring the countryside, claiming the true blood of Holland was lost in the wilderness. And what did they find? A filthy sewer rat scratching in the dung."

Before I could even process her insult, Darby lunged forward with surprising speed. Her manicured fingers clamped onto the coarse linen of my sleeve, violently ripping the fabric upward to expose my right forearm to the chilly morning air.

Right there, etched into my pale skin, was a vivid, crimson birthmark shaped like a blooming peach blossom-the undeniable, magical genetic crest of the Holland bloodline.

"See? This is the proof!" Darby shrieked, her voice echoing across the yard, vibrating with manic triumph. "She bears the mark of the Holland daughters! I am finally free of this cursed lineage!"

My jaw tightened. Darby Holland-the girl who had occupied my birthright for seventeen years while I was abandoned in a border village. The imposter who had lived like a princess because no one realized she, too, was entirely Dragonless until her coming-of-age ritual failed.

"I am now the adopted daughter of the Carlisle house," Darby declared, her chest puffing with arrogant pride, her voice loud enough for the entire village to hear. "Today, I sever all ties with the Hollands! From this moment on, I have absolutely nothing to do with your disgraced, traitorous name!"

"Darby, have you lost your mind?!"

A ragged, desperate cry sliced through the yard. Guards roughly shoved a group of people through the ruined entrance. They wore coarse linen tunics-the rough, unbleached cloth of condemned prisoners. The woman stumbling at the front was Eleanor Holland, the matriarch of the family. Her amber eyes were drowned in tears, her face pale and lined with exhaustion.

"You think cutting ties with us will make the Carlisles respect you?" Eleanor scolded, her voice trembling with profound disappointment and heartbreak. "They are the very political enemies who framed us! You are nothing but a pawn to them!"

"I am only proving my true identity," Darby retorted, her chin raised in defiance. "I am no longer a Holland, so you have no right to lecture me!"

I watched this melodrama unfold, my modern, pragmatic mind clicking into gear. She wanted to play the arrogant noble? Fine.