For decades, the Fire King could not touch a single woman: the moment his fingers touched a girl’s skin, her body would burst into flames. For many years, he tried to find a wife and caused the deaths of dozens of young women, until one day an ordinary maid appeared at the palace, and after meeting her, something happened that even the king himself had never expected 😱
King Darian was born with a curse known only to members of the royal family.
The blood of ancient dragons flowed through his veins.
On the outside, Darian looked almost no different from an ordinary human, except for his unusual golden eyes, strange claws on his fingers, and scales that sometimes appeared on his neck and hands. But inside him lived a flame powerful enough to destroy any human being.
The king’s touch was especially terrifying.
When Darian turned twenty-five, his advisers demanded that he marry and produce an heir. The daughters of the kingdom’s most noble families began arriving at the palace.
The first was the beautiful daughter of a duke.
Darian merely took the girl’s hand, but a few seconds later, she screamed. Fiery cracks spread across her skin, her dress burst into flames, and the guards did not even have time to approach her.
After that, the king refused to see any more women for a long time. But his advisers kept convincing him that among thousands of girls, there had to be one who could withstand the dragon’s fire.
They were wrong. The years passed, and the tragedy repeated itself again and again.
Some girls died after a single touch, while others lasted a few seconds. The court magicians prepared protective amulets, covered the girls’ skin with special oils, and recited ancient spells, but nothing helped.
Eventually, Darian forbade anyone from bringing more women to him.
“Enough,” he ordered. “I will remain without an heir. I would rather my bloodline disappear with me than have another person die because of it.”
After that, the king almost completely stopped leaving his chambers.
Seven years passed.
One day, a new maid named Elina was hired at the palace. She was the daughter of a poor miller from a small village and knew absolutely nothing about palace life.
On her very first evening, the steward warned her sternly:
“Never go near the king. No matter what happens, stay away from him.”
But no one explained why.
A few weeks later, an alarm was raised in the palace in the middle of the night. Darian had fallen ill.
Whenever the dragon inside him became too powerful, the king’s body temperature rose so high that even the stone floor beneath his feet began to smoke.
The servants fled from his chambers, and the guards were too afraid to approach him. At that moment, Elina was carrying water through the corridor.
Hearing the commotion, she entered the room and saw the king lying on the floor.
“Get out!” Darian shouted.
But the girl noticed blood on his hand and, unaware of the danger, rushed toward him. And then… 😨😱 The continuation of the story can be found in the first comment 👇👇
The king tried to push her away. Their palms touched.
The guards froze. They already knew what would happen next.
One second passed. Then another.
But Elina did not burst into flames.
Darian slowly raised his eyes.
For the first time in his life, he was holding someone’s hand without causing them pain.
“Who are you?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
Elina stared at her own palm in fear.
And then something even stranger happened.
The fire that had always radiated from the king’s body began to disappear.
The flames on the walls went out, the scorching floor began to cool, and the dragon scales on Darian’s hands gradually vanished.
By the next day, the entire palace knew what had happened.
The advisers decided that they had finally found a woman capable of becoming the king’s wife.
But when the old court magician saw Elina, he turned pale.
He demanded that the girl be taken to the underground library and spent several hours studying ancient books.
That night, the magician came to Darian.
“She is not protected from your fire, Your Majesty.”
The king frowned.
“Then why didn’t she burn?”
The old man placed an ancient scroll in front of him.
“Because the fire recognizes her.”
It turned out that hundreds of years ago, there had been two dragon bloodlines.
One controlled fire and could destroy everything around it.
The other possessed the opposite power—it could absorb dragon fire into itself.
The kings had wiped out the second bloodline because they feared losing their power.
But one child survived.
His descendants hid among ordinary people, unaware of who they truly were.
Elina was the last of them.
However, the most terrifying discovery came a few days later.
The more often Darian touched the girl, the weaker his dragon nature became.
But with Elina, the opposite was happening.
One night, the girl woke up in severe pain and saw thin golden scales covering her hands.
Her eyes had changed color.
And when she opened her mouth in terror, a small flame burst from it.
Darian realized the truth too late.
Elina could touch him not because she was immune to the curse.
Every touch transferred a part of his power to her.
And if the ancient book was telling the truth, one day the king’s entire dragon essence would pass into the girl.
But the final line of the prophecy contained something that terrified even the old magician:
“When the last Fire King gives his flame to the last daughter of the second bloodline, one dragon will become human, while another will awaken after a thousand-year sleep.”
That same night, the ground beneath the palace began to tremble.
