Their Brother, the Dragon Sacrifice

Dragon attacks have left the realm with one way out: a willing human sacrifice in the dragon valley. Alistair, a stable hand raised by House Quinn, offers himself with four words: “I volunteer as sacrifice.” Queen Islode challenges the death wish; he is eighteen, an orphan found near the valley, with no true family left to mourn him.

House Quinn took him in as a child. Lord Quinn taught him to ride, Kaia taught him to fight, Elaine—blind from a fever—taught him to see past the surface. That changed when Dorian, a defeated noble's son sent as payment, blamed Alistair for a stab wound Dorian gave himself. The family believed Dorian; Lord Quinn sent Alistair to the stables.

Before leaving, Alistair asks Queen Islode to keep his identity secret. She agrees and orders the room to silence under penalty of death. At the manor, he arrives in palace clothes; the family calls him a thief, and Kaia shoves him into the mud. Emrys—who found the abandoned Alistair, left him at the Quinn estate to be raised, and later became its butler—lifts him and admits he knows about the sacrifice. Alistair asks for silence again.

Dorian's next frame comes in Lady Quinn's rose garden. Salt kills the roses; a half-empty sack sits under Alistair's bed. The family accepts Dorian's implication. At dinner Dorian occupies Alistair's seat, Lord Quinn sends him to eat with the servants, and a toast mocks him as the cleanest stable boy.

That night the sheep escape. Dorian admits he released them to get Alistair blamed; a dragon appears. Alistair warns Dorian and is injured. Dorian claims Alistair attacked him and caused a stampede, and the family believes him again. Emrys resets Alistair's broken bones with hidden magic. He lists the life Alistair saved—Kaia's—and the fever he nursed Elaine through; the family still leaves him on the ground.

Alistair resolves to be gone from the place forever. Kaia catches the words and asks where; Elaine demands to know what he has hidden. Before the three days end, the dragon valley gives its answer: the dragons kneel, Alistair is their lost prince, and he returns as Dragon King to claim two crowns. House Quinn's regret comes too late, with dragon leader Sule beside him.