One
Before the silence,before the fire and the screams, the dragons lived in great prides that spiraled through the mountains like living storms. They were communal creatures bound by ancient bonds older than stone. The young slept piled upon one another in warm mounds of wings and soft bellies, purring in low, rhythmic hums that echoed through the caverns like song.
Dragons did not fear the darkness—they illuminated it. Their fire was not only a weapon, but a hearth, a beacon that lit their homes and warmed their eggs through the long winters.
In those days, every pride had a Matriarch, chosen not by strength, but by wisdom. It was said the Matriarchs could feel the emotions of every dragon under their care, a tether woven from flame and instinct, so that no hatchling was ever truly alone.
When dragons took flight at dawn, they didso in great sweeping arcs, wings overlapping like a tapestry across the sky. Their bodies cast shadows large enough to paint entire valleys in dusk, but their hearts were gentle toward their own.
The humans never saw this. They saw only the shimmer of scales from afar and imagined greed. They saw great wings blotting out the sun and imagined conquest. They watched flame dance across the horizon and imagined destruction.
And because the humans never saw the tenderness, they convinced themselves it did not exist. So when the Dragon War came, they only saw it as destroying monsters.
He remembered the screaming.Not dragon screams. Not the deep, thunderous roars of his kind. That was low and ancient. It was the breath of the kings of the mountains.
No.
The screams he remembered were the screams of the humans. Shrill and chaotic and frenzied with fear. But what followed was much worse.
It was the cries of the dragons dying.
He was young when it happened. Far too young to understand war and suffering, but old enough to vividly remember it all. The sky was black with smoke the day his kind fell.
He remembered his mother’s golden scales. Her regal, vast wingspan covered his small body as she stood with theother mothers to defend the young. She whispered in their ancient, draconic tongue to run if they fell. And when they did, she begged him to save himself. To be brave.
He ran. His small wings were barely strong enough to carry his body, but he forced them to. He ran until the ground no longer shook from battle, and he ran until the mountains flooded with the blood of the dragons.
He ran until silence was the only thing left. He hid, curled into a small crevice of fallen rock, letting out terrified cries for help in his tongue, hoping another would find him, but they never did.
The humans called it a victory. Their laughter echoed off the charred cliffs as they carved weapons and armor from their scales. They celebrated as they hung bones on their mantles as trophies.
He survived, but only just.
For years, he did not speak, did not cry, did not show his flames. But when the world forgot the language of the dragons, he did not.
Time forced the slaughter of the dragons into stories for the humans. But for him? It hardened him. He grew into the exact thing the humans thought his kind was. He grew into the exact thing they slaughtered the dragons for: a savage beast. The last of his kind, left with nothing but fire and fury in his heart.
He could not weep for what was lost, so instead, he vowed he would neverloseagain.
He began hoarding.
In a cave carved deep into the tallest, jagged mountain in the region, his treasures grew vast and mismatched. Gold coins. Goblets inlaid with precious gems. Pearls and shells.Senseless trinkets. Cracked instruments. Children’s dolls. Jewelry.
He did not know why he kept these things, only that once he found something, he could not let it go. He could not discard it. It washis.
The humans had taken everything from him, and so he took from them. It wasn’t about hoarding petty human wealth—he had no use for such trivial things.
To lose things meant he was weak, and he could not allow himself to be weak.
The last dragonlived alone for nearly a century.
He did not fly far from his cave. He only hunted when necessary. Only glided through the sky under the cover of thick clouds.
Sometimes, when the anger hit him, he would fly over the human villages late at night, eyes narrowed, watching them huddle near their fires because they feared the dark.
But hewasthe dark.
Still, he left them alone, though it was hard sometimes.
