The winds screamed over the Mythral Spine, twisting through jagged peaks like wraiths in flight. The mountain range was endless, a labyrinth of black stone and burning rivers where the skies blazed with heat lightning and the stars were seldom seen. At its highest point rose Vaeronthar, the Obsidian Throne, carved not by claw nor chisel but shaped by the will of the Ancients in an age before memory.
Upon that throne coiled a shadow vast enough to eclipse cities. Sareth en Myros, Queen of the Dragon Realm, Ancient of Flame, last of her kind.
Her body shimmered in the half-light of a dying sun. Obsidian scales, sleek as polished glass and rimmed with veins of molten gold, shifted subtly as she adjusted her weight. The glow beneath her skin wasn't light, it was power, ancient and terrible. Across her chest and wings, runic sigils pulsed with quiet fire, each one older than the kingdoms of men, each one tied to the root-magic of the world.
The Queen did not blink. She did not need to.
Below her, a congregation of lesser dragons gathered in the Sanctum of Calling, an amphitheater carved directly into the spine of the mountain. Highborn Elders, their horns long and curling like obsidian serpents, perched alongside armored Skyclad Sentinels, whose gold-etched breastplates caught the red light of the rune-fires below. Rune-Bound Scholars, draped in scaled cloaks and inscribed rings, moved slowly and deliberately, each word, each breath part of a greater ritual.
This was not a war council. It was far more sacred.
It was remembrance.
The Order of Flame
To understand the world was to understand the Order, not of mortals, but of dragons. Where kingdoms of men were built upon conquest, and elven courts upon cunning, dragons were ruled by one thing: lineage of power.
At the pinnacle stood the Ancient Dragons.
Sareth en Myros was the last.
The Ancients were not born. They were forged, beings made not from egg and scale but from the raw will of the First Flame. Only seven had ever emerged. The other six had long since turned to stone, flame, or legend.
Below the Ancient was the Highborn, dragons of the First Broods. Many were thousands of years old. Their memories stretched back to the Age of Sundering, when the realms of dragon and mortal split and the Veins of Flame nearly bled dry.
Next came the Skyclad, the warriors and wardens. Each bore runes of loyalty and fire-kinship etched into their scales by Scholars, binding them to the defense of the Throne and Realm.
The Rune-Bound held no claws for war, but wielded power as dangerous as wildfire. These dragons could manipulate the Rune Tongue, an ancient system of glyphs and sigils that bound reality itself. They could anchor winds, silence storms, seal wounds in space, or unravel time-worn curses. But each rune came with a price. Misdrawn or misunderstood, they did not simply fail—they consumed their bearer.
Beneath them were the Broodkin, unranked dragons, young or weak, whose place in the realm was yet to be determined. Some would grow into greatness. Most would serve in shadow.
The Rune Tongue
In the heart of the Dragon Realm ran the Veins of Flame, not lava, but streams of living fire, saturated with the residual energy of the First Flame. These rivers of essence flowed beneath every stronghold, feeding the runes, the throne, the forges, the magic.
The Rune Tongue was not a language in the traditional sense. It was a logic of reality, made manifest through symbols. Each rune represented a principle, binding, severing, concealment, growth, memory, flame, silence, dream.
Sareth alone bore the Primordial Runes, the first ever written, etched into her bones by the First Flame. Their names were lost to time, for even speaking them could ignite the soul of the unworthy.
Once, rune magic had been taught freely. Once, the dragons shared their knowledge with the mortal world.
That was before the Sundering.
History Etched in Fire
Ten thousand years ago, the realms were one. Dragons soared above mortal cities. Elves and humans studied at the feet of Rune-Bound scholars. But greed is the child of admiration, and the mortals hungered for the secrets they could not wield.
A coalition of kings, queens, and rogue dragonkin sought to sever the Veins of Flame and harvest their power.
The war that followed tore the world asunder. The Sundering of Tharizdane, the final battle, shattered mountains and broke time itself. The dragon god Tharizdane the Chainbreaker, once Sareth's brother-in-flame, fell to madness and tried to rewrite the world with forbidden runes.
Sareth killed him.
Or so she thought.
The Stirring of Dreams
Now, as the sun dipped below the ridge of the world and painted the clouds in blood, Sareth felt it again.
A name. A presence. A dream.
Her dream sense drifted through the minds of her kin. Their thoughts were at peace, flames steady.
But beyond the edge of the Dragon Realm, in a distant mortal city, there was a flare of light in the stream of dreams. A soul touched by ancient magic. A mind marked by the Sigil of Tharizdane.
It burned like an echo.
Sareth's eyes narrowed, pupils shifting to vertical slits of obsidian.
She reached out, just for a moment, into the dream.
And saw… a human boy. Sleeping. Scarred. With a rune glowing on his chest.
The past was not buried. It had been replanted.
And now, it would grow again.
Below her, a congregation of lesser dragons gathered in the Sanctum of Calling, an amphitheater of black stone carved into the mountain's flank. Lava ran in rivulets between the polished basalt tiles, illuminating the faces of dozens of dragons, each of different hue, size, and lineage. The air thrummed with heat and tension.
At the center stood Voryn Kael, a crimson-scaled Highborn Elder whose mane of flame danced like a banner in storm-wind. His wings were etched with battle runes, and a deep scar crossed the length of his snout, a relic of the Skel War, a conflict now buried in ash and time.
"Your Radiance," he called up, voice reverberating across the mountain, "a breach has been sensed in the Dreamstream. The Rune-Seers claim it bears the sigil of Tharizdane."
A ripple of unrest passed through the gathered dragons. The name carried weight. Tharizdane; the Betrayer. The First and Final Rebellion. The dragon who had dared to bind a piece of the First Flame for himself, and in doing so, fractured the world.
Sareth remained silent for a long moment. The only sound was the crackling of molten rivers and the low hum of rune-energy radiating from her throne.
"Are you certain?" Her voice, when it came, was a chorus of tones, deep, feminine, ancient. It resonated in the bones and bypassed the ears, more felt than heard.
Voryn lowered his head. "The mark was clear. The boy dreams of fire and speaks the Rune Tongue… though he is not one of us."
"A human." The word tasted of ash. "And the mark was true?"
A smaller dragon, pale-blue and sleek, stepped forward, Myllara, a Rune-Bound Scholar. "I read it myself in his dreams, Queen. The rune formed in living flame on his chest. It matches the ancient script from the Vault of Silence. No variation."
Sareth's talons curled against the stone. The Vault of Silence had not been opened in millennia. Within lay the sealed knowledge of the Sundering, and the names of those who had betrayed dragonkind.
And now, it seemed, that history was returning.
She unfolded her wings with measured grace, gold-edged membranes stretching like banners of light. The gathered dragons fell into a hush.
"Then hear me," she said. "The Dreamstream does not lie. If this human bears the Sigil of Tharizdane, then he is not merely a danger, he is a thread woven by fate."
Her gaze swept over her court. "We must remember who we are."
The Dragon Realm had endured for over fifteen thousand years.
Hidden from the mortal world by veils of dream-magic and layered wards, it operated as a self-contained dominion fueled by the Veins of Flame, deep underground rivers of raw, world-shaping energy from the First Flame's fall. These veins nourished their magic, kept their rune-engines alive, and allowed their civilization to exist far beyond mortal comprehension.
But it had not always been so.
Once, dragons walked freely across the world. They built sky-cities and carved rune-glyphs into the bones of mountains. They taught select mortals the Rune Tongue, a mistake, Sareth now believed granting them access to binding spells that should have remained in dragon hands.
Then came Tharizdane.
Once a Highborn Elder, he had sought to tear apart the Veins of Flame and siphon their magic into a physical form. He created the First Rune Engine, a device capable of reshaping reality itself. His betrayal led to the Sundering, a great war that split the continent of Elonyra in two and drowned a third of the world in fire.
Sareth had been forced to destroy him.
She alone had survived the backlash of that war, her soul scarred, her mind haunted by the memory of burning kin. Since that day, she had ruled without rival, ensuring that no dragon, or mortal, would ever touch the Flame again.
And yet now, a child dreamed in fire. A child who bore the mark of the fallen.
Sareth turned away from her court and looked toward the east, past the mountains, past the veils of magic and shadow. Somewhere beyond the horizon, in a world of short-lived kings and broken oaths, the Flame stirred.
"Send a Seer," she said. "One who walks the dreams but fears not the waking world. We must know who this boy is."
"And if he is the heir of Tharizdane?" Voryn asked.
Her eyes glowed like twin suns.
"Then I will decide if he lives… or burns."