He did not speak the human tongue, nor did he understand it well. But he understood well enough to know what they were.
They killed not just the dragons, but each other. He watched them burn their own villages in civil war. He watched men hang thieves in the square. He watchedmothers abandon their babes for being born with imperfect skin.
The humans killed for land. They killed for power. They killed for superstition. They killed for sport.
And still, they called thedragonsmonsters.
The last dragon no longer roared. Instead, he growled. It resonated deep in his chest when the rage swelled, but no one was left to hear it. No one left to understand the pain and the agony that lingered there.
No one left who would even care.
Many years into his solitude, at the turn of the century when the humans celebrated another rotation around the sun, he lay curled up in the furthest corner of his hoard, his massive tail wrapped around a broken harp, stray coins clinking as they rubbed against his hardened scales.
He thought about fire. Not the kind in his heart nor the kind in his throat.
He thought about the fire that was meant to warm. The soft kind. He remembered a time when he was, too, a young hatchling, sleeping in piles with the others like kittens. Their tails and wings would tangle together and they would coo and purr at the comfort it brought.
He remembered hearing his mother hum ancient songs in the dragon language as she turned eggs in the communal nest.
Dragons were not meant to be lonely creatures. They lived in large prides, filled with tens of families. He had siblings, not just from his own mother, but from the others, too.
It had been so long since he had felt the heat of anotherbody beside his own. He almost forgot how it felt, for none of that heat remained, not even a single ember.
Now his heat was meant only to destroy. In wiping out the monsters, the humans made him into the very thing they feared.
He was no longer young, but neither was he old. His body was strong, his flame hot, his instincts apt. Yet in all those years of solitude, he had grown into something unrecognizable even to himself.
There were nights when he woke snarling from dreams of flame, confused and fearful of the silence in his cave. He would rise, prowling and hungry.
Not for food, but for sound. For life.
There was none. Only stone. Only treasure.
And rage.
Always rage.
The starsof the night bled over the ridge as he descended into the forest.
His wings beat the wind into silence—into submission. Each gust sent pine needles to the ground below. Birds scattered. Deer fled. Even the mountains seemed to hold their breath.
He had not hunted in two days. Not a hunt with prey—that was daily. But the hunt forthings. It was time again for him to take from the humans as they took from him.
He landed deep in the forest, where things lie mostlyuntouched by the unclean human hands. There, overgrown and forgotten, was an ancient temple from a time long past.
From a time when the humans believed in gods.
The ruins were covered in moss and bird droppings. The once grand spires were blackened and dirty from neglect. Though it had been abandoned for a long time, he could still smell the humans. Their scent sat in the air like rot.
He approached the temple, the ground beneath him cracking under his weight. His sharp claws scraped against the old stones as he climbed the steps, his tail dragging like a flail behind him. He sniffed the air first, his nostrils flaring in disgust at the scent of man.
He could still see their footprints on the stone. He followed their path until they reached an ancient altar of worship. And there, a small glimmer rested on the smooth rock.
He sniffed again, his chest rumbling on the exhale.
Gold.
With his body too large to move any further into the temple, he extended his long, forked tongue to wrap around the golden trinket. He pulled it toward himself and out of the temple to examine it in the moonlight.
