Isvarn knew how mixed-blood dragons were treated in the world of Nova. He had seen it with his own eyes, centuries of prejudice, of discrimination, of violence. Mixed-bloods were slaves to the royal dragons, servants to the purebloods, beings without rights or honor.
They could not own property. They could not hold titles. They could not marry outside their station. Their children were taken from them at birth and raised in state-run facilities, indoctrinated to believe that they were less than nothing.
If Yuri ever discovered that he was not a pureblood royal dragon but a mixed-blood, half human, half dragon, it would destroy him. Everything he had worked for, everything he had achieved, everything he believed about himself would crumble.
The nobles would strip him of his title. The court would turn against him. The kingdom that should have been his would reject him.
He would fall into dragon grief. And dragon grief, once it took hold, was almost always fatal.
