...Carla landed lightly on a slanted stone ledge and broke into a quiet sprint, slipping deeper into the tunnels that branched like the hollow chambers of a titanic beehive.
The deeper she went, the more the air changed—thicker, hotter, vibrating with suppressed fury and the scent of ancient beasts.
Dragon nests littered the passages.
Some were heaps of molten-gold coins and crystallized mana stones, fused together by dragonfire into glimmering mounds. Others were pits of scorched bones, the remnants of meals or enemies, the marrow long sucked dry. Many contained younglings, fist-sized or horse-sized, depending on their age and type. They hissed, chattered, or slept in tangled piles, scales glowing faintly like smoldering embers.
Not a single egg.
Carla wasn't surprised.
All dragons—true dragons—did not breed the mortal way. Their progeny came from a single, ancient source.
