The eyes behind the sealed door did not look at the dragon.
They looked at the prince.
His sword burned brighter.
Gold raced through the ancient markings beneath his boots, spreading outward in branching lines until the entire chamber seemed to wake around him.
The prince tightened both hands around the hilt.
His own glowing eyes reflected in the polished steel.
Then a voice came from behind the gate.
“You returned.”
The prince froze.
“I’ve never been here.”
The dragon lowered its head.
For the first time since carrying him into the mountain, the enormous creature looked almost afraid.
The golden eye behind the door narrowed.
The cyan one remained fixed on the prince.
“You carry his blade.”
The prince looked down at his sword.
The weapon had belonged to his father.
At least, that was what he had always been told.
The crowned figure that had appeared moments earlier in the golden light had worn the same crest engraved into its guard.
A broken sun beneath a crown.
The royal symbol of his bloodline.
But the carvings surrounding the door were far older than his kingdom.
The prince raised the sword.
“Who are you?”
The darkness moved.
Not forward.
Around.
Something enormous shifted behind the stone gate, and dust fell from the ceiling.
The dragon beside him growled.
The sound rolled through the chamber.
The creature behind the door answered.
One deep breath.
The ancient symbols flickered.
The prince stepped back.
The dragon immediately moved one wing in front of him.
The prince looked at it.
“You brought me here.”
The dragon did not move.
“You knew what was behind that door.”
A low sound came from its throat.
Not quite a growl.
Not quite agreement.
The prince looked again at the gate.
“What does it mean that I returned?”
The golden eye disappeared.
For several seconds, only the cyan eye remained.
Then that vanished too.
Darkness filled the narrow openings in the door.
The chamber became silent.
The prince waited.
Nothing.
He approached the gate.
The dragon blocked him with one claw.
“You wanted me to come here.”
The dragon’s claw remained in place.
“But you don’t want me to open it.”
The creature lowered its head until one enormous golden eye was level with him.
The prince finally understood.
The dragon had not brought him to release whatever was imprisoned inside.
It had brought him to see it.
There was a difference.
He lowered his sword slightly.
The glow dimmed.
So did his eyes.
Immediately, the symbols on the floor began fading.
“No.”
The prince raised the blade again.
The gold returned.
He watched the symbols carefully this time.
They were not random decorations.
They formed a sequence.
Sword.
Crown.
Dragon.
Gate.
And beneath them, repeated across the floor, was another symbol.
Two eyes.
One gold.
One cyan.
The prince crouched.
He touched the carving.
The moment his fingers made contact, the mountain disappeared.
He stood beneath a red sky.
Armies covered a vast frozen plain.
Dragons circled above them.
Not one dragon.
Hundreds.
Some breathed fire.
Others released blue-white light that froze the air around them.
At the center of the battlefield stood a man wearing a crown.
The same crowned face that had appeared in the temple.
The man carried the prince’s sword.
The prince stepped toward him.
“Who are you?”
The vision did not respond.
The crowned warrior raised the blade.
Across the battlefield stood a creature so large that even the dragons seemed small around it.
One gold eye.
One cyan.
The prince looked back toward the sealed door that no longer existed.
The creature inside.
The vision changed.
The crowned warrior was no longer attacking it.
He was standing beside it.
The sword was planted point-first in the ice.
A golden dragon stood on his other side.
Three figures.
King.
Dragon.
Ancient beast.
Not enemies.
Allies.
Then the sky split open.
Something black descended through the clouds.
The vision shattered.
The prince stumbled backward into the temple.
The dragon caught him with one wing before he hit the floor.
He gasped.
“What was that?”
The creature behind the gate answered.
“A memory.”
The prince stared into the darkness.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
He shook his head.
“Impossible.”
“Not yours as you are.”
The golden eye opened again.
“Yours as you were.”
The prince raised the sword.
“I am not that king.”
“No.”
The cyan eye appeared beside the first.
“You are what remains of his oath.”
The prince looked toward the dragon.
The dragon lowered its head.
That reaction told him more than the voice had.
“You knew him.”
The dragon’s eyes closed.
The prince stepped closer.
“You knew the man who carried this sword.”
The dragon opened its eyes.
A deep rumble filled its chest.
Then it touched one claw to the symbol of the crown.
Gold spread through the carving.
Another image formed in the air.
The crowned warrior stood beside the dragon.
Not a dragon like it.
This dragon.
Younger.
Its horns shorter.
Its scales unscarred.
But unmistakably the same creature.
The prince stared.
“How old are you?”
The dragon snorted.
Despite everything, the prince almost laughed.
“Fine.”
He looked at the image again.
The king placed one hand against the dragon’s head.
Then he spoke.
The sound was distorted by time, but the words survived.
“If my blood ever carries the light again, take them to the gate.”
The prince stopped breathing.
The image disappeared.
He looked down at his hands.
His blood.
His light.
That explained why the dragon had found him.
But not what waited behind the door.
The prince faced the enormous eyes again.
“What are you?”
The answer came after a long silence.
“The last guardian.”
“Guardian of what?”
“The wound.”
The prince frowned.
“What wound?”
The creature’s cyan eye brightened.
The stone around the gate became translucent.
Behind it, the prince saw something impossible.
The door was not sealing a room.
It was sealing a passage.
And beyond that passage was not another part of the mountain.
It was a sky.
Black.
Starless.
Split by a thin line of red light.
The prince stepped closer.
“What is that?”
“The place your ancestor closed.”
The red line pulsed.
The dragon immediately growled.
The ancient guardian’s golden eye shifted toward it.
“It has begun again.”
The prince looked at the red fracture.
“What has?”
The guardian did not answer directly.
Instead, another symbol ignited beneath the prince.
A crown divided into seven pieces.
He recognized the shape.
His kingdom’s oldest maps showed seven provinces before they were united.
But the symbol was older than the kingdom itself.
The guardian spoke.
“Seven seals.”
One fragment darkened.
Then another.
The prince counted.
Three remained glowing.
“What happens when all seven go dark?”
The dragon moved restlessly.
The guardian answered.
“The gate ceases to matter.”
The prince looked at the massive stone door.
“You mean it opens?”
“No.”
The cyan eye dimmed.
“There will be nothing left for it to hold.”
The red fracture beyond the gate widened slightly.
A sound traveled through the mountain.
Distant.
Low.
Like stone being dragged across stone miles beneath the earth.
The prince gripped his sword.
“What do I have to do?”
The guardian looked at the blade.
“Remember.”
“I don’t have his memories.”
“You have already seen one.”
“That was a vision.”
“That was the beginning.”
The prince shook his head.
“I need answers, not riddles.”
The guardian’s golden eye brightened.
“So did he.”
The prince stopped.
“My ancestor?”
“The first crowned bearer.”
“What happened to him?”
Silence.
The dragon turned its head away.
The prince noticed.
“What happened?”
The guardian answered.
“He succeeded.”
“That doesn’t sound like success.”
“It rarely does to those who survive it.”
The prince looked at the sword.
The weapon suddenly felt heavier.
He had grown up hearing stories about the founder of his dynasty.
A warrior king who crossed the frozen mountains.
A ruler who returned with a golden sword.
A man who united scattered provinces and established the throne.
None of the stories mentioned dragons.
None mentioned a sealed gate.
None mentioned an ancient guardian.
And none explained why the king’s final tomb had always been empty.
The prince looked at the crowned symbol.
“He never returned from here.”
The dragon closed its eyes.
That was answer enough.
The prince whispered:
“This is where he died.”
The guardian corrected him.
“This is where he remained.”
The prince looked sharply toward the door.
The golden light around his sword began pulsing.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time.
Something answered from deep inside the gate.
Not the guardian.
Something farther away.
The red fracture.
The prince heard a whisper.
His name.
He stepped forward.
The dragon slammed one claw onto the floor.
The impact cracked the stone.
The prince stopped.
“You heard it too?”
The dragon growled.
The whisper came again.
Closer.
The prince’s name.
Then another voice joined it.
A woman’s.
He knew that voice.
His mother.
The prince’s face changed.
She had been dead for eleven years.
He took another step.
The dragon blocked him.
“Move.”
The dragon refused.
“I heard her.”
The guardian spoke.
“No.”
The prince looked toward the enormous eyes.
“That was my mother.”
“No.”
“I know her voice.”
“That is why it used it.”
The prince went cold.
The whisper came again.
This time it sounded like his father.
Then his younger brother.
Then the captain who had trained him as a boy.
Voices layered over one another.
Calling him.
Promising answers.
Asking him to open the gate.
The prince backed away.
The guardian’s cyan eye glowed brighter.
“It remembers hunger.”
The prince stared at the red fracture.
“What is on the other side?”
“Not what.”
The guardian paused.
“Where.”
The prince waited.
“A place from which the first dragons fled.”
He looked at the dragon beside him.
The creature’s scales had risen along its spine.
Fear.
The prince had seen the dragon fly through a blizzard.
He had watched it face armed soldiers without hesitation.
He had seen it land on a collapsing mountain ledge.
Nothing had frightened it.
Until now.
“You came from there?”
The dragon looked toward the fracture.
The guardian answered for it.
“All of them did.”
The prince looked at the ancient carvings again.
For generations, his people had told stories of dragons descending from the northern mountains.
The stories were wrong.
The dragons had not descended from the mountains.
They had escaped through them.
The prince turned toward the guardian.
“And the first king helped close the passage.”
“Yes.”
“With this sword?”
“With his blood.”
The prince looked at his glowing hand.
The implication was immediate.
“No.”
The guardian did not respond.
The prince stepped back.
“You said I carry his oath.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t say I have to die for it.”
The dragon turned toward the gate.
The guardian’s gold eye narrowed.
“He believed that too.”
The prince looked at the sword.
“Until when?”
“Until he learned the truth.”
“What truth?”
The chamber trembled.
Dust fell.
One of the seven symbols on the floor flickered.
Then went dark.
Two remained.
The prince stared at them.
The guardian’s voice became urgent for the first time.
“The seals are not failing with age.”
The prince looked up.
“Then why?”
“They are being opened.”
A coldness deeper than the mountain air passed through him.
“By who?”
The guardian looked beyond him.
Toward the path he had used to enter the temple.
The dragon spun around.
A sound echoed from the tunnel.
Metal against stone.
The prince raised his sword.
Someone was coming.
Not a monster.
Footsteps.
Human footsteps.
The dragon moved in front of him.
A figure appeared at the far end of the glowing path.
Then another.
Then six more.
They wore dark armor beneath white mountain cloaks.
The prince recognized the crest on the first man’s shoulder.
Royal guard.
His royal guard.
The prince lowered the sword slightly.
“Captain?”
The lead soldier removed his hood.
Captain Varos.
The man who had served the royal family for twenty years.
The man who had watched the prince grow up.
The man whose voice the red fracture had imitated only moments earlier.
Varos looked at the glowing door.
Then at the prince.
Relief crossed his face.
“Your Highness.”
The prince did not lower the sword.
“How did you find me?”
Varos smiled.
“We followed the dragon.”
The prince looked at the tunnel.
The storm outside had erased tracks within seconds.
The dragon had flown.
There should have been nothing to follow.
Varos stepped forward.
“We need to leave.”
The guardian behind the gate became completely silent.
The prince noticed.
So did the dragon.
“Why?”
“The mountain is unstable.”
Varos extended one hand.
“Come with me.”
The prince looked at the man’s armor.
Something was wrong.
A dark stain marked the edge of his gauntlet.
Not blood.
Black ash.
The same substance he had seen falling from the broken sky in the vision.
The prince’s sword flared.
Varos stopped.
The soldiers behind him reached for their weapons.
The prince looked at the captain.
“Where did you get that?”
Varos glanced at his glove.
For the first time, his calm expression cracked.
Only slightly.
But enough.
The guardian spoke behind the door.
“One seal remains.”
The prince stared at Varos.
The captain’s eyes shifted toward the gate.
Not with confusion.
Recognition.
The prince understood.
“You’ve been here before.”
Varos slowly lowered his hand.
The soldiers behind him drew their swords.
The dragon roared.
The sound shook the chamber.
Varos did not flinch.
He looked at the prince with something almost like regret.
“You weren’t supposed to awaken this early.”
The prince raised his golden sword.
His eyes ignited again.
Varos looked at them.
Then smiled.
Not because he was surprised.
Because he had been waiting to see them.
Behind the ancient door, the guardian’s two enormous eyes opened fully.
Gold.
Cyan.
The last glowing seal began to flicker.
The prince finally understood why the dragon had carried him across the frozen mountains.
It had not brought him there because the gate recognized him.
It had brought him because someone else was already trying to open it.
And the blood that could seal the ancient door was the same blood they needed to break it.
