The crater swallowed them whole.

  Astrid moved carefully, feeling the ground change beneath her boots — from jagged black glass to something smoother, older, almost… worn.

  A narrow crevice split the crater floor, leading downward, and without needing to speak, they both knew: this was where they had to go.

  The volcano was silent around them.

  Not dead.

  Just holding its breath.

  The light dimmed as they descended.

  At first, it was only the faintest glow, a suggestion rather than illumination — tiny veins of crystal embedded in the rock walls, pulsing softly like heartbeat threads.

  Moss clung to the stone in places, faintly phosphorescent, casting a low green-blue shimmer across the cavern floor.

  It should have been oppressive.

  But there was a strange, terrible beauty to it — like stepping into the ribs of some ancient, sleeping giant.

  Astrid stumbled once, catching herself with a hiss.

  The air grew thicker the deeper they went — warmer, not stifling, but alive, charged with something she could feel buzzing across her skin.

  Ahead of her, Kurai moved with measured steps, head tilted slightly, golden eyes narrowed.

  And as he walked, the cavern responded.

  The crystals in the walls brightened — not all at once, but in slow, spreading ripples, like the volcano itself was waking up at his approach.

  Astrid’s heart thudded painfully in her chest.

  She didn’t know if she should be afraid.

  She didn’t know if she should feel honoured.

  Maybe it didn’t matter.

  They were already too deep to turn back.

  The path widened into a cavernous hollow.

  The ceiling soared high above, lost in shadows.

  The walls shimmered with veins of soft, breathing light.

  And at the center of it all —

  Astrid drew in a sharp breath.

  A statue.

  Massive. Colossal.

  A dragon, curled inward as if in sleep, wings folded over itself like crumbling spires.

  At first, she thought it was simply another carving — something built long ago to honor the dragons that had been lost.

  But the longer she stared, the more wrong that thought became.

  The dragon wasn’t sculpted from stone.

  It was stone.

  Or had become it.

  They approached slowly, boots crunching softly against the dusty floor.

  The closer they got, the more Astrid could see:

  Ash drifted in slow spirals around the body.

  Moss grew in the cracks of the wings.

  Parts of the stone had already begun to flake, delicate as old bark peeling from a dying tree.

  But beneath the cracks —

  There was something else.

  Something darker. Stronger. Waiting.

  Kurai stopped a few feet from the dragon's head.

  Astrid saw his shoulders tense, saw the faint tremor in his hand before he reached out.

  “Kurai—” she whispered, not sure what she meant to say.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But he didn’t stop.

  His fingers brushed the dragon's cheek — as if he was gently waking it up.

  And the world exhaled.

  The stone cracked.

  Not explosively — but with a deep, resonant sound, like the breaking of an old seal.

  Fissures spiderwebbed out from where his hand touched, running in slow veins across the dragon’s body.

  Tiny flakes of stone peeled away, drifting downward like falling ash.

  The cavern brightened.

  The crystals pulsed harder, faster, matching the rhythm of something old stirring back to life.

  Astrid staggered back a step, heart pounding.

  Kurai stood frozen, his hand still pressed to the dragon’s side, golden eyes wide and unblinking.

  The stone was shedding.

  Slowly, relentlessly, it sloughed away from the dragon’s body in shivering sheets — revealing hints of deep, dark scales beneath.

  Scales that caught the low light and shimmered faintly like coals buried under ash.

  It wasn’t a statue.

  It wasn’t even a tomb.

  It was a prison.

  And they had just set it free.

  Astrid pressed a trembling hand over her chest, feeling her own heartbeat hammer against her ribs.

  She tore her eyes from the shedding stone, glancing around the cavern — half-expecting the ground to open up beneath them, the mountain to roar in rage.

  But there was only silence.

  And that steady, terrible hum — growing louder.

  Growing alive.

  Far away — across oceans and kingdoms — unseen by them, unseen by anyone:

  Cracks formed in the relics buried deep in the Council’s vaults.

  The blackened shard in the Dwarven forge split with a whispering sigh.

  The lost pieces of dragonkind began to stir, called home by something older than memory.

  Astrid turned back toward the dragon, her voice dry and thin in her throat.

  "Kurai," she whispered, voice tight with awe and dread. "What did you do?"

  Kurai didn’t answer.

  He didn’t mean to awaken anything. But it had always been waiting.

  The cavern trembled.

  Dust shook free from the dragon’s wings as it exhaled — a long, shuddering breath that rippled across the chamber. Warm and wet.

  The air grew hotter, thick and heavy, carrying the scent of deep stone and something older, something alive.

  Astrid staggered back a step, instinctively raising her arm to shield her face.

  Beside her, Kurai moved too — stepping back, but not away.

  He shifted in front of her without a word, his body angled protectively between her and the dragon.

  It wasn’t dramatic.

  It wasn’t even conscious.

  It was simply who he was — and who she was to him.

  The dragon stirred again.

  Its massive chest rose and fell, muscles flexing beneath the peeling stone, the scales underneath shimmering faintly like banked coals.

  The cavern walls vibrated with a low, grinding sound — not anger, not yet — just the weight of something ancient remembering how to move.

  Then —

  A voice.

  It rumbled up from deep within the creature’s core — low and broken like stone splitting under a mountain.

  A single word.

  A word that filled the cavern and rattled Astrid’s bones.

  "My flame."

  The cavern held its breath.

  Astrid’s heart hammered against her ribs, her fingers curling into fists at her sides.

  She wanted to move — to step forward, to stand with him — but something in Kurai’s glance rooted her to the spot.

  "Stay here," he said quietly.

  It wasn’t a command.

  It was a promise.

  Kurai stepped forward.

  He raised one hand — open, unthreatening — the simple, ancient gesture of peace.

  The dragon watched him with heavy, half-lidded eyes, steam curling from its nostrils with every slow breath.

  Astrid barely dared to breathe as Kurai walked toward the creature, the heat rippling against his clothes, stirring the ash at his feet.

  He stopped a few steps from the dragon’s massive head — close enough that he could feel the slow, deep exhale of its breath brushing against him like the tide.

  Kurai lowered his hand to his side and spoke.

  "Were sorry for disturbing you, but we need your help," he said, voice low but steady.

  He swallowed thickly.

  "We are being hunted.

  Our lives are in danger, we need your help to cross over to the other realm."

  The dragon shifted.

  Stone dust rained down in a slow, shimmering fall.

  The air thickened, charged with something ancient, something waiting.

  Then — with a sound like grinding mountains —

  the dragon opened its eyes.

  Molten gold.

  Its eyes, just like his.

  Deep. Endless.

  Older than any war, any prophecy, any kingdom.

  The dragon's molten eyes focused on them — not sharp, not hunting —

  but slow, seeing them like they were echoes stitched through time.

  For a long moment, the only sound was the soft settling of dust.

  Astrid could hear every beat of her heart, loud and frantic.

  Then —

  The dragon’s voice rose again.

  Not a roar.

  Not even words shaped like theirs.

  It was a feeling given sound — slow and deep enough to vibrate the stone under their feet.

  "I have seen your journey," the dragon rumbled, voice like the crack of glaciers under ancient suns.

  "I have seen it while I slept — like a dream lingering beyond memory."

  A low pulse echoed through the cavern, light flickering along the crystal veins in the walls.

  "The bridge wishes to return home..."

  "...and the flame alongside it."

  Astrid’s throat closed.

  She didn’t fully understand — not yet — but she felt the weight of it settle against her chest.

  Bridge.

  Flame.

  Is that’s us?

  The dragon’s voice faded back into a low, humming silence.

  The cavern seemed to hold its breath again, the pulsing light slowing to a heartbeat rhythm deep in the walls.

  For a moment, neither Astrid nor Kurai moved.

  Then —

  Astrid stepped forward.

  Her throat was dry, her legs shaking, but she made herself stand tall.

  She placed a hand lightly against Kurai’s back — grounding herself.

  Grounding him too.

  Her voice cracked at first, but she forced the words out.

  "Yes, please," she said. "I need to get home to my sister. And..."

  Her hand curled tighter against Kurai's coat.

  "I want to bring him with me. It's not safe here."

  For a moment, the dragon simply watched her — massive, ancient, still.

  Then it shifted again — a slow, grinding motion like continents moving under oceans.

  Its molten eyes dimmed slightly, as if in sorrow.

  "No," the dragon rumbled, so deep it shook the stone under their feet.

  "It is not safe here anymore."

  The cavern walls flickered — hairline fractures pulsing faintly along the crystal veins.

  "Especially after you leave," the dragon continued.

  "The world will crumble... as I crumble.

  Stone cracking.

  Hope bleeding through the wounds."

  Astrid blinked, heart hammering harder now.

  She glanced at Kurai — saw the same confusion mirrored in his golden eyes.

  "What... what does that mean?" Astrid asked, her voice barely a whisper.

  Kurai took a step closer to her, standing firm but silent, waiting for the answer too.

  The dragon shifted again, dust falling like ash from its wings.

  It stared at them — and through them — with a gaze that seemed to see every possible future written in their bones.

  The dragon's molten eyes dimmed again — not fading in weakness, but in a heavy, ancient grief.

  Dust sifted down around them, tiny motes catching the pulsing light.

  The dragon spoke again — slower this time, each word sinking into the stone beneath their feet like iron being hammered into the earth.

  "This world was born from flame."

  "Our flame."

  "The breath we gave it at the dawn of its bones, the fire we buried in its heart."

  Astrid stood frozen, the heat and weight of the words pressing down on her chest.

  Kurai didn’t move either, his face unreadable — but his hands clenched at his sides.

  The dragon's gaze fell heavier on Kurai now, like the slow turning of a mountain toward a single tree.

  "In my slumber, that flame thinned... faded... lost itself in smaller embers."

  "You are the last."

  "The last true spark."

  The cavern trembled again — but this time, it wasn’t fear.

  It was inevitability.

  "When I am gone," the dragon rumbled, voice low and final, "and my spark..."

  His gaze pinned Kurai where he stood.

  "...is carried away — the magic will go with it."

  "The flame will vanish. The breath will leave the bones. This world will wither. And crumble."

  Astrid’s mouth opened — a soft, shattered sound escaping — but no words came.

  The meaning sank in, slow and cold.

  Not just that Kurai was important.

  Not just that he carried power.

  But that he was the power.

  And if he left — if they tried to return home — this world would die with him.

  It wasn’t just that he was powerful. He was the last ember. The flame the dragons had buried in flesh and bone — to give the world a chance.

  Kurai took a sharp breath, stepping back a pace like the air had physically punched him.

  Astrid reached for him automatically — but stopped herself, hand hovering between them.

  "There has to be another way," she said, desperate, breathless.

  "We can find it. There has to be —"

  The dragon’s head bowed slightly — a massive, slow movement that carried the sorrow of ages.

  "All things must burn," the dragon murmured.

  "All things must end. Even the brightest flame."