Emberis stalked through the forest, each step light and deliberate on the soft earth. Above him, the branches wove a shifting canopy of green and gold, the dappled light playing across his scales. Every breath was rich with the scent of sap and moss, the deep loam of the forest floor. He could feel the ancient pulse of this place—the quiet thrum of life older than any human city, older even than the dragon in his blood.
He moved cautiously, wings folded tight to his sides, every sense alert. He had survived the lair and claimed his place as a dragon, but he was no fool. This world was alive with dangers. The distant mountains loomed like jagged teeth against the horizon, and he could sense more than just goblins or basilisks lurking in the shadows. This forest was ancient. It remembered. And it watched.
As he pressed deeper, the air grew cooler, the light dimmer. Here, the forest felt older still, the trees gnarled and thick, their roots twisting through the soil like serpents. Birds watched him from the branches, bright eyes wary, while small creatures scurried through the underbrush, hearts racing with fear.
He paused, claws digging into the mossy earth, and let his senses unfurl. The faint tang of water hung in the air—there must be a stream nearby. But there was something else too: the sharp, acrid scent of smoke. The memory of the village rose in his mind—a curl of smoke against the sky, the glow of lanterns in the deepening dark.
The village. He turned his head, golden eyes narrowing. It was close, hidden somewhere beyond the trees, built around the monument that rose like a silent sentinel. Michael's memories stirred at the thought—hands raised in greeting, laughter around a fire. But the dragon in him felt only hunger and curiosity, a restless need to know.
He moved toward it, keeping to the shadows. The forest thinned as he neared, the trees giving way to a wide clearing. There, the monument stood: a tower of smooth stone shot through with veins of crystal, glowing faintly even in daylight. It was a relic of another age, the stories of the old war carved into its surface in flowing script.
He crouched low, watching the village beyond. The houses were small, built of timber and stone, their thatched roofs patched with moss. Smoke curled from chimneys, carrying the sharp tang of burning wood and the warm, rich scent of baking bread. People moved through the narrow streets, baskets of fruit and sacks of grain in hand. Children chased each other, laughter bright in the air.
A strange ache settled in his chest at the sight. It was something Michael might have known—a moment of peace, of belonging. But Emberis was not human. He was dragon. And the world beyond the village was his to claim.
Yet he could not tear his gaze from the monument. Its surface was worn smooth by time, but the carvings were still clear: dragons and humans, side by side, wings and swords raised together. An age of harmony—if the stories were to be believed.
But the scars of war were older than memory. He could feel them in the stone, in the earth itself. Dragons and humans had fought for centuries—long before Emberis had woken in this world. Michael's memories were only fragments of that conflict: the echoes of awe and terror that had shaped human legends.
Emberis crept closer, his bulk a shadow in the underbrush. The ancient runes whispered their meaning to him, seeping into his mind like a half-remembered dream.
In the age of flame and sky, the first line read, dragons and men shared the world in uneasy peace. The pact was sealed in stone and blood, a promise to stand together against the darkness beyond the mountains.
The darkness beyond the mountains. Even now he could see them, cold and jagged against the setting sun. Michael's memories held nothing of what lay beyond, but the dragon in him could feel it—a vast and ancient presence, stirring in the shadows of those peaks. A threat that had once united dragons and humans, if only for a time.
He read on: the carvings spoke of battles fought side by side, dragons carrying human warriors on their backs, their fire joined with mortal steel. Of great wyrms who took human names and walked among men, and of kings who learned the language of the sky.
But peace, he saw, was always fragile. The carvings showed its breaking: a dragon's wing pierced by a human spear, a city laid waste by dragonfire. A final battle that shattered the alliance, leaving only ruins and ashes.
He drew a deep breath, the weight of history settling in his chest. Michael's memories offered no comfort, only the distant ache of what had been. But Emberis could feel the old rage in the stone, the fury of dragons who had seen their kin fall to human treachery.
He turned his gaze back to the village. These people lived in the shadow of that memory, building their homes around the monument as if to atone for the past—or to remind themselves of what had been lost. He wondered if they knew the price of that long-forgotten pact. If they remembered the taste of dragonfire in the air.
He watched them a moment longer, the flicker of torches and the low hum of voices carrying on the wind. The dragon in him wanted to test their strength, to see if they remembered what it meant to face the fury of the sky. But Michael's caution held him back. He was not ready. Not yet.
Instead, he turned from the clearing, slipping back into the forest. The trees closed around him, their shadows deep and quiet. He moved silently, the weight of his scales and the power in his limbs lending each step a promise. The forest was his now—its streams and caves, its secrets and prey.
He found a small clearing where the moonlight pooled like silver. The air smelled of night-blooming flowers and the faint musk of deer. He lay down, folding his wings close, and let the world settle around him.
He closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. The forest whispered to him, ancient voices weaving tales of dragons long dead and kingdoms long crumbled. Of the darkness beyond the mountains—still there, still waiting. Of the fires of war that had burned the world and left only ruin.
Emberis shifted, the ache in his muscles a reminder of the basilisk's poison, the battle still fresh in his mind. He had survived, but he had been lucky. The world beyond the lair was not his alone. Other dragons, older and more cunning, would feel the stirrings of his presence. They would not be allies.
He felt the weight of the monument in his thoughts: the promise it had once held and the broken bond that lay beneath it. The dragon in him burned with the need to prove himself, to rise above the old wounds and claim the sky as his birthright.
But Michael's memories spoke of caution, of patience. Of the danger that lay in the open sky.
He would need both: fury and thought. Dragon and man. And he would need allies, though he did not yet know who they might be.
The forest around him was quiet, but he could feel the world turning. In the distance, the wind carried the scent of distant fires, of kingdoms that still clung to old ways and old fears. He knew this was only the beginning.
He opened his eyes, golden and bright in the moonlight, and let out a slow breath. Tomorrow, he would hunt. He would learn the shape of this world, the secrets hidden in its mountains and valleys. And he would remember the monument—the promise it held and the warning it offered.
For now, he was patient. The dragon in him was restless, but he would wait. The world was vast, and it would take more than one night to conquer.