Chapter 105
The stone door rumbled shut behind us.
The sound rolled through the mountain like distant thunder, echoing farther and farther into the darkness until even that faded into silence. I instinctively turned, only to find the seam where the entrance had been gone.
Only an unbroken wall of black stone remained.
"...Well," I muttered. "I suppose there's no changing our minds now."
Beside me, Rhaevan raised one hand. A pale sphere of light bloomed above his palm, bathing the corridor in a soft silver glow. The passage stretched ahead, disappearing into darkness.
It wasn't a cave-that was the first thing I noticed. Caves were uneven, jagged, and chaotic.
This place wasn't. The walls had been carved with impossible precision, each block of black volcanic stone fitted so perfectly against the next that the seams were almost invisible. Time had weathered the surface, softening the sharp edges, but it hadn't diminished the craftsmanship.
Someone had built this. A very long time ago.
Our footsteps echoed softly as we began walking. The air was cool and utterly still-not a single draft stirred through the corridor, no dripping water, no insects, no distant calls from the mountain outside. Only silence.
The compass was glowing far brighter than before, its concentric rings turning almost imperceptibly with the softest metallic click. The needle no longer swung uncertainly-it pointed straight ahead.
"It wants us to keep going," I whispered.
Rhaevan nodded.
I slipped it back into the satchel, though its glow continued to shine faintly through the leather. We pressed onward as the corridor gradually widened until it became less like a hallway and more like a grand passage carved through the heart of the mountain.
Then the walls began to change.
At first, I thought the marks covering them were simply decorative.
Then I looked closer. They were carvings-hundreds of them.
Entire scenes had been etched into the stone, depicting men and women standing beside creatures whose wings stretched across entire sections of the wall.
Some soared overhead while others lowered their great heads toward the people before them.
They stood together. Not as masters and beasts, but as equals.
I reached out and traced one weathered carving with my fingertips.
Rhaevan stopped beside me. "Dragons once walked alongside humans," he said quietly. "When Ardentia was in its prime."
I looked at him. "But after the fall?"
"Humans began hunting them." His gaze remained on the mural. "They feared dragons. Called them monsters. They claimed they were a threat to humanity." His voice hardened slightly. "So they eliminated them. One by one."
I looked back at the carving. An enormous dragon had lowered its head beside a child who couldn't have been more than ten. The child was laughing, and the dragon looked almost... gentle.
"I don't believe they were enemies," I whispered.
Neither did he. At least, judging by the silence that followed.
Another mural caught my attention farther ahead.
This one showed several dragons surrounding a brilliant crystal suspended above an ornate pedestal.
Beneath it knelt men and women wearing robes unlike anything I'd seen before, every figure having one hand pressed over their heart-an oath, or perhaps a promise.
"What do you think they were protecting?" I asked.
Rhaevan studied the mural for several long moments. "I don't know. But whatever it was... I think we're walking toward it."
We continued deeper into the mountain. The murals became fewer, the corridor grew broader, and somehow, the silence felt heavier.
Then-
A sound echoed through the darkness ahead. Metal being dragged. Long. Slow. Like an immense chain being pulled across ancient stone.
Both of us stopped.
The sound came again, closer this time. It reverberated through the passage, followed by a deep, rumbling exhale that I felt more than heard. Rhaevan's light drifted farther ahead, and the corridor opened into a darkness so vast that the glow could no longer reach the opposite wall.
He instinctively stepped half a pace in front of me, just enough that, should something emerge from the darkness, it would have to reach him first.
From somewhere within the darkness ahead, came the unmistakable sound of another chain shifting.
Neither of us moved. The metallic scraping echoed once more through the chamber before fading back into silence.
I looked toward the darkness. "...Please tell me that was just the mountain settling."
Rhaevan didn't answer. Which, unfortunately, answered my question.
He lifted his hand slightly, and the sphere of light drifted farther into the chamber, its glow swallowing only a tiny fraction of the darkness before us.
The place was enormous. The ceiling disappeared somewhere beyond the reach of the light, supported by colossal stone pillars carved directly from the mountain itself.
Their surfaces were covered in the same intricate Ardentian carvings we'd seen throughout the passage, but here, the dragons weren't flying.
They were kneeling, heads bowed as though pledging themselves to something-or someone.
The floor beneath our feet was impossibly smooth, polished by hands that had long since turned to dust.
Rhaevan didn't take his eyes off the darkness ahead. "Stay behind me."
"I was planning to."
Another scraping sound. Longer this time. Followed by the unmistakable clink of metal against stone.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Whatever was making that sound... it was moving. Very slowly.
The sphere of light floated another few metres forward. A section of the floor came into view, then another. Broken chains lay scattered across the stone, just lying there, thick enough that each individual link was nearly the size of my forearm.
I frowned. "...Either somebody here had very unusual decorating preferences..." I glanced at Rhaevan. "...or those belong to something much larger than I'd like."
Rhaevan crouched beside one of the chains, his fingers brushing lightly across the metal. "They're old."
"How old?"
He examined the weathered surface for a moment. "Older than the existing kingdoms."
"...Right." I straightened. "I preferred not knowing that."
We continued forward. The chamber seemed endless. The farther we walked, the more chains appeared-some disappearing beneath piles of collapsed stone, others vanishing into the darkness itself.
The compass was glowing brightly now. The bronze rings rotated steadily inside my satchel, producing a soft, rhythmic clicking:
Click.
Click.
Click.
As though counting down to something.
The sphere of light drifted farther, finally reaching the opposite side of the chamber.
I stopped walking. "...Rhaevan."
"I see it."
At first, I thought it was part of the mountain-a great mound of black stone rising from the chamber floor. Then the light shifted.
The stone... breathed.
A slow rise. A slow fall. Dust drifted from something enormous: a folded wing.
My mouth went dry.
"...That's..."
The light climbed higher. Black scales, scarred by time. One immense foreleg resting upon the stone floor. Curved talons longer than swords. The chamber hadn't been empty; we simply hadn't been able to comprehend its size.
The dragon lay coiled at its centre like a sleeping mountain, its head resting upon the ground, its eyes closed. Massive iron chains wrapped around its neck, its forelegs, its wings-some so deeply embedded that the scales had grown around them over countless years.
I felt my chest tighten. The compass burned hot against my side, almost urgently.
Then-
One ancient golden eye opened. Instantly. As though it had been awake the entire time. Watching us.
The chamber trembled. The dragon lifted its head, iron chains screaming across the stone floor, and the silence of centuries shattered beneath a roar that shook the mountain itself.