TO THE HEART OF THE MOUNTAIN
1285 Words
For a moment, a silence covered them both, but then Winter let out a laugh so loud it echoed off the stone walls.
“Prince?” she managed between breaths.
“You? The man who nearly bled to death in my cabin? You expect me to believe that?”
Red didn’t smile. His expression stayed calm, almost sad. “I don’t expect you to believe me. I only expect you to understand what’s coming.”
Winter shook her head, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “This is insane. Dragons, guardians, kingdoms… What’s next? You’ll tell me I’m a queen?”
He looked at her then not amused, not angry, but with a kind of quiet certainty that froze her laughter in her throat.
“You’re not a queen,” he said softly. “But you are the keeper of the immortal dragon. Which means every hunter in this realm will come for you, and for me.”
Winter’s smile faltered. “You’re serious.”
He nodded. “The Hunters already know the seal has awakened. And when they find this place, no legend or disbelief will save us.”
Winter looked around the temple again, searching for something that can support his words. She didn't believe him if all of it was true, yet but she knows that what he told to her is something true and different. Now her eyes stop on the carvings, now glowed like molten gold, and in the center of the floor, she noticed a symbol shaped exactly like her bronze watch. It pulsed faintly, in rhythm with her heartbeat.
Winter swallowed hard. “Then what do we do now… Prince Red?”
He glanced toward the shadows at the far end of the chamber, where a hidden passage breathed cold air.
“We should follow the path,” he said. “To the heart of the mountain... where the Dark dragon sleeps.”
"A Dark dragon? Are you insane?!" Winter reacted in her high pitch voices.
"We need an answers to unanswered questions" he replied calmly.
And as they stepped into the dark, the temple walls shimmered one last time, showing the image of a woman and a dragon bound by a circle of fire. Winter didn’t see it. But the ancient carvings knew her name, since birth.
The passage was narrow, carved from obsidian-black stone that swallowed their torchlight whole. Winter stayed close behind Prince Red, her hand grazing the wall as they descended. Every few steps, the flame guttered, threatened to die, then flared again, as if the mountain breathed with them.
“Are we close?” Winter whispered.
Prince Red didn’t answer immediately. His steps were steady, deliberate. “You’ll know when we are,” he said at last. “The air changes near the heart. You can feel the dragon’s pulse.”
Winter frowned. “Dragons have a pulse?”
“They do,” he said quietly. “And so does the bond.”
The word bond stirred something deep to Winter's chest, a faint echo that wasn’t her heartbeat but something older, and heavier. She touched her bronze watch again, the metal now warm against her skin. It throbbed softly, as if responding to the mountain itself.
Then, the tunnel opened.
They stepped into a vast cavern, a hollow space so immense the torchlight vanished into shadow before it could find a ceiling. Columns of crystal rose from the floor like frozen lightning, and veins of gold pulsed through the rock, faintly alive.
Winter’s breath caught. “This… this isn’t real.”
“It’s real,” Prince Red said. “And it’s waking.”
At the center of the cavern, a massive figure lay coiled, partially hidden under layers of stone and ash. Its scales shimmered softly beneath the dust, dark as storm clouds and trimmed in darkest ground. With each breath it took, ripples danced through the air, subtle, yet enough to make Winter's skin tingle.
The dragon!
Prince Red knelt at the edge of the stone platform. His hand trembled slightly as he pressed it to the ground. “Valcanar,” he whispered, voice barely audible. “Ancient flame… my ancestor’s vow still stands.”
For a long moment, silence enveloped the cavern, creating an atmosphere thick with anticipation. Suddenly, the dark veins embedded in the stone walls began to pulse with a luminous intensity, igniting one after another in a mesmerizing display. This illumination gradually coalesced into a vast, radiant circle that encircled the slumbering dragon, casting an ethereal glow across the rocky terrain.
Winter staggered back. “Prince Red, what’s happening?”
“The oath is responding to the keeper’s presence,” he said. His eyes glowed faintly again, brighter than before. “You’ve awakened him.”
“Me?” she stammered. “I didn’t..."
Just as she was about to articulate her thoughts, the dragon's eye abruptly opened, capturing her attention with an intensity that was impossible to ignore. Unlike the conventional hues of red or gold typically associated with dragons, this eye was a striking, ancient black that seemed to absorb the surrounding light.
Winter felt it, as if she were seeing it through the very fabric of time. And then, she froze in the same place where she was standing now. The world around her went completely silent, the torch flickered out, leaving only that all-knowing gaze, patiently watching her.
Then an unspoken voices played in the air...
“At last… the circle is whole again.”
The atmosphere trembled with an unsettling energy, causing Prince Red to collapse onto one knee, his hand pressed firmly against his chest as if to quell an unseen force.
Meanwhile, the bronze watch adorning Winter's wrist began to radiate an intense, fiery glow, its heat becoming almost unbearable as the metal transformed into a luminous sigil that hovered delicately above her outstretched palm.
ln the midst of this extraordinary phenomenon, the dragon began to awaken, its ancient scales shedding fragments like shards of ice breaking apart, signaling the resurgence of a power long dormant.
“Keeper of flame,” the voice rumbled, “the world has forgotten my name. But you're here to awaken me.”
Winter started up, trembling. She didn't expect that this kind of beast could talk like a normal human being. Apart from that, she has no idea on how to behave in front of this huge black dragon, this is her first time and unexpectedly seeing unnatural things in her entire life, so she asked. “Wh–what is your name?”
The dragon’s vast head lowered until its eye filled her vision. When it spoke, the mountain itself seemed to bow.
“I am Valcanar. The last of the Firstborn. And you, Winter a helpless female human, have woken the storm”
"Is it really me..?" Winter murmured.
The cave trembled after the resonant echoes of the dragon's voice had dissipated into silence. Ash particles floated through the air, like a falling snow and drifted gently to the ground. Above Winter's hand, the sigil that had once radiated with vibrant energy gradually lost its brilliance, its light waning until it finally receded into her skin. She stared at it, her pulse is uneven. "What... what storm? What does he mean?”
Prince Red rose slowly, his breathing ragged. His eyes, once gold-tinged, now blazed like living embers. “He means the curse of his eternal sleep was broken he said softly, his gazed is on the dark dragon “And I am no longer hidden.”
Winter took a step back. “What are you talking about? You said you were a prince of this kingdom and you were cursed"
- Writer
