? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  Their legs burned with exhaustion, their lungs were shredded by the thin mountain air, and their hearts hammered against their temples like mallets. Behind them lay death, ash, and screams. Ahead stood the stone giants—grim and indifferent, their faces scarred by wind and time. Their shadows stretched across the earth like the fingers of a forgotten deity. Yet, Violetta felt a pull. Something felt kin, warm, and achingly familiar, like a childhood song heard through a dream.

  They climbed with the last of their strength until even fear began to feel distant—worn and weathered away like the scent of a fire after the rain.

  Then, it appeared.

  A gate, carved directly into the cliffside. No trace of paint or metal, only bare, black rock scorched by time and silence. The surrounding stone was fissured like the scars on a giant’s skin. The doors were ajar. From the depths drifted the scent of moss, smoke, ancient herbs, and... something else. A presence. Not human. Not hostile, but something that required no permission to exist.

  “Is this... the village?” Brenn asked, swallowing hard. “Or a trap?”

  “Both,” Violetta said softly, her voice swallowed by the hollow air.

  They were admitted without a word. One brief look, and the sentries stepped aside as if they had long been expected. Two dwarves in armor that looked as if it had been forged by gods and tempered in the heart of a star. The metal of their plate shimmered dully, drinking the light rather than reflecting it. One of them winked at Violetta. It wasn't friendly; it was the look of a hunter recognizing another—an equal, and a danger.

  [DWARVES,] the AI-Sphere’s voice echoed in her mind. [GENETIC INSERTS DETECTED. HYPOTHESIS: REMNANTS OF A PRE-MODIFICATION ERA. NO COMMON MARKERS WITH SUBJECT BRENN OR PREVIOUS SCANS. INITIATING HIGH-RESOLUTION SURVEILLANCE. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.]

  The settlement was larger than it seemed. Hewn into the mountainside, it resembled an ant-hill, yet... it was alive. Stone houses tucked into the cliffs like birds in nests. Their roofs were carpeted in lichen and a thin crust of frost that sparkled under torchlight. The streets were narrow but clean, as if scrubbed by mountain springs. The air carried the scent of hearth-fires, metal, and beasts. There was sound, but not noise. It was the hum of craft: the strike of hammers, the rasp of whetstones, the muffled chanting of spells. Nothing here was accidental.

  They reached the central plaza—an open space with a circle of fire at its heart. The flames flickered strangely—blue with a yellow core, pulsing rather than flickering. Surrounding it were wide benches of dark wood draped in animal furs.

  There were humans here, a few elves, beast-kin—foxes, bears, wolves in human form. Their eyes glinted in the dark, and the muscles beneath their skin remained coiled, ready. All were armed. All were silent. And all were dangerous.

  “This isn't a town,” Irellis whispered. “It’s... a fortress masked as a village.”

  But the strangest sight was the wyverns. Several of them lay peacefully on stone terraces above the houses, tails curled around them like cats. Their black bodies steamed in the cold, their skin shimmering like a midnight lake. A local approached one, stroking its flank. The beast allowed it. As if it were normal.

  “Grey beard's ghost...” Brenn was on the verge of a breakdown. “They’re living together? Bloody hell.”

  “A compact,” a voice drifted from behind them.

  They turned.

  The man looked like an elder, his white hair falling over his shoulders like snow on a ridge. His face was plain as wood. But his eyes... they were like a serpent’s. Not predatory, but deep. You did not argue with those eyes. He stood leaning on a staff, dressed in simple, worn clothes, but he carried himself with the gravity of an emperor.

  “An ancient compact,” he said. “Between those who fly and those who stand. Forged in blood and fire, not by the sword. We are one.”

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  “Are you... the headman?” Violetta asked.

  He smiled. Creases appeared at the corners of his eyes—not from age, but from a lifetime of laughter.

  “No. Or, not exactly... I am the protector of these lands. I am a dragon.”

  A pause hung in the air like a headsman’s axe before the drop. Brenn instinctively stepped back. Dragons don't take human form. That’s just folklore! the thought flashed through his mind.

  But the man only sighed.

  “We do not hide. We are the remains of the old world. From a time when the sky burned and the mountains sang. Our code is simple: we do not accept those with black hearts. But you... you are not like them. Even if you do not know it yet.”

  They were given rooms. Simple, stone-walled, but stocked with essentials: thick fur blankets, clay pitchers of warm water, fresh hay for pillows—soft and fragrant as herbs from a childhood memory.

  The food was simple but fortifying. Everyone labored in its preparation. Elves brewed infusions from high-altitude flora. Dwarves prepared mushroom soups on fermented stocks—rich in protein with a faint, metallic aftertaste. Humans baked meat pies with root vegetables and spices meant to stave off fatigue and warm the blood. Beast-kin provided smoked mountain fowl, cured in salt caves, smelling of woodsmoke and hope.

  All of this occurred in a silence that did not oppress, but protected.

  In the evenings, the inhabitants gathered in the central hall. Some repaired armor; others played bone flutes. Legends were told that sounded a thousand years old. In every story, it wasn't the victory that was sung, but the loss. They didn't celebrate heroes; they remembered the price.

  The place felt like a trap, yet it was strangely cozy. The atmosphere wasn't hospitable; it was patient. But even that patience was a gift.

  The locals weren't overly friendly, but they weren't hostile. An old elven woman approached Irellis and gave her an herbal ward. A beast-man helped Brenn repair his gear in silence. Someone handed Tillo a shard of mana-stone with a curt: “Work on your stabilization.” Children ran to Odd—a boy offered an amulet, a girl placed a wreath on his head.

  “There are... connections here,” Brenn said. “They’re linked like an organism. Like a pack.”

  “No,” Violetta replied. “It’s a memory of what we could have been. Not just a place—a reminder. A seed that hasn't sprouted yet.”

  Her dreams changed. The shadows were gone, replaced by light—grand cities where songs drifted through the air, where all races of the Ascari Empire sat at a single table, sharing knowledge. She saw herself—adult, strong, wise—among them. And she saw how that harmony collapsed. But here, in the dark womb of the mountain, a piece of that dream had taken root.

  They stayed for two days. No one asked why they fled. No one demanded stories. They were simply... allowed to exist. And that was more terrifying than the wyverns.

  On the third day, they packed their things. Before leaving, Violetta took one last walk through the village.

  ? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  The girl walked, clutching her newly crafted fox mask. She thought: If the whole world is hunting for me, perhaps I should vanish entirely.

  The dragon in human form approached her. His footsteps fell not as echoes, but as shadows. Heavy as the movement of the mountain itself, yet soundless.

  “You carry their blood, but their stars have gone out... The world fears you, young mistress. Not because it doesn't understand. But because some still remember.”

  Violetta met his gaze in silence—eyes grey as old bark, with the same fissures of time within. Deep as a starlit sky—but from the wrong side of the world. Not from the reality where one could still breathe easy.

  “Not everyone has forgotten the day the sky tore open,” he whispered. “When the gods fell... and left a seed. I remember the star-roads. The silver people who spoke with fire. I remember their names.”

  “Lilia...” she whispered.

  He didn't answer—only smiled. Then he reached out—slowly, as if through thick water—and lightly touched her pendant. She shivered, though not from cold. The air shifted. Matter itself seemed to hold its breath.

  “You are of those who return what was forgotten. Do not destroy yourself for the sake of another’s fear. You are on the right path. Beyond... there will be others. The elves... they have slept long. But some still remember the true stars.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I am older than the lies,” he smiled. The smile wasn't human—it held no warmth, no irony, only an exhaustion as ancient as the world. “And I am tired of being silent.”

  He stepped back. And then, as if a mountain wind swept his form away, his silhouette shifted: before her stood a spectral titan—winged, composed of fire, stone, and the unfathomable. Majestic as the very concept of the elements, and deep as a death that knows more than any emperor.

  “When the sky opens again,” he spoke, “not everyone will withstand the truth. But perhaps, you will.”

  “Violetta! Are you coming?” Irellis called out.

  She looked back. The wind had made him just a man again. Or at least, it allowed them to think so.

  They gathered together, standing in silence, looking at the place where the earth spoke through stillness.

  “You will not return,” the dragon said, watching them go. “But remember: true power is not in magic. Not in the steel of the blade, but in the one who holds it—and does not kill.”

  No one argued. No one questioned his words. They only nodded and moved on. Slowly, step by step, distancing themselves from the island of silence where every look held meaning and every shadow held a memory.

  Ahead of them lay the Empire again. War. Death.

  But here, there was only peace. Dangerous, like the quiet after a storm. But perhaps, that is what truth sounds like when no one is left screaming.