The silence that followed the earthquake was far more terrifying than the tremors themselves. It was a vacuum of sound, a suffocating stillness that clung to the seventeen thousand people huddled in the Great Arena. Dust motes danced in the unnatural silver glare, and the air tasted of ozone and ancient, disturbed earth.
King Boron stood backstage, his massive hand still gripping Aster's shoulder with a strength that would have crushed a lesser man's bones. His breath came in ragged, shallow hitches. Aster, usually the master of every variable, remained motionless. His mind, a high-speed processor of magical theory and logic, was currently hitting a wall. He had calculated every possibilities he can but still couldn't figure out why it is happening.
None of those equations accounted for a myth coming to life.
The Shattering of the Crown
"Look! In the name of the Goddess, look at the peak!" a voice screamed from the stands—a raw, jagged sound of pure, unadulterated terror that broke the trance of the crowd.
Every head in the arena turned toward the horizon. The Sentry's Crown, the highest and most sacred peak of the Orestian range, was no longer merely glowing. It was hemorrhaging light. The silver radiance that had been a gentle hum during the concert had intensified into a blinding, incandescent white that rivaled the noon sun. It was as if the mountain had swallowed a star and was now struggling to contain its heat.
Then, the world split open.
A sound louder than any explosion—a deep, metallic roar of rending stone—echoed across the valley. The very tip of the Sentry's Crown, a peak that had stood for millennia, disintegrated. Massive boulders the size of villas were tossed into the air like pebbles, ground into dust by an internal pressure that defied every law of physics Aster knew.
"What the hell is happening..." Boron whispered, his voice cracking with a vulnerability Aster had never heard. "The Sentry's Crown... it's falling."
But it wasn't a volcanic eruption. There was no fire, no magma. From the heart of the collapsing peak, a shape emerged. It was sleek, serpentine, and draped in scales that reflected the moonlight with such intensity they looked like polished mirrors. A giant wing unfurled, then another, spanning the width of the mountain's shoulders. With a powerful thrust that sent a shockwave of wind screaming toward the city, the creature rose into the sky.
The earthquake stopped instantly. The ground became as still as a tomb, but no one felt safe.
"By the Goddess..." King Boron whispered, his knees finally buckling. He fell to one knee, not out of weakness, but out of a deep, ancestral reflex he didn't even know he possessed. "The Silver Guardian. It... it isn't a myth. The legends... they were true."
A Legend Made Flesh
For centuries, the story of the Silver Dragon of Orestes had been relegated to children's books and dusty scrolls. It was said that the kingdom was founded not by miners, but by a pact between the first King and a celestial dragon who guarded the deep veins of the earth. But as the dragons vanished, the story became a metaphor for the strength of the Orestian people.
Now, that metaphor was breathing. And it was angry.
The dragon was a masterpiece of biological crystalline structure. Its scales weren't just silver; they were living armor that hummed with the same frequency. Its eyes were two pools of liquid mercury, glowing with an intelligence that felt ancient, cold, and immensely powerful.
Aster stared, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Beside him, Astra had emerged from behind her piano, her face pale, her fingers trembling as she reached for Aster's hand. Both of them felt a strange, humming sensation in their blood—a resonance of recognition that made their very marrow ache.
"This is different," Aster thought, his analytical mind struggling to stay afloat. "The dragon that blessed us in the secret chambers of Wynfall was a Golden Dragon—the Dragon of the Sun and Wisdom. But this... this is a Silver Dragon. The Dragon of the Moon and the Depths. A mirror image."
The two forces—the gold in their veins and the silver in the air—seemed to pull at one another, creating a tension that made Aster's skin prickle. It was a clash of celestial mana.
The Descent into the Arena
The dragon didn't fly away into the safety of the clouds. It banked sharply, its massive wings creating a low-frequency thrum that vibrated through the ribcages of every person in the arena.
"It's coming here," Astra whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind. "Aster, it's coming straight to us."
"Stay behind me," Aster commanded, though he knew his protection was a grain of sand against a landslide.
In the stands, the panic was absolute. "Run! It's the end! The mountain has judged us!" people screamed, trampling over one another to reach the exits. But many stayed, paralyzed by a religious awe that kept them rooted to the spot. The children of the orphanage huddled together in a tight circle, their small voices crying out for Elian.
Elian, however, remained standing in the center of the stage. He looked like a statue, his eyes fixed on the approaching beast. He didn't look afraid; he looked as if he were in a trance, his soul still vibrating at the pitch of the song.
The dragon descended with terrifying speed, its shadow swallowing the arena. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in a matter of seconds, turning the humid air into a chilling mist. As it flared its wings to slow its descent, the wind was powerful enough to knock over the heavy lighting rigs Aster had installed.
The creature landed on the rim of the arena, its claws digging into the reinforced stone, cracking the obsidian as if it were dry parchment. It towered over the seventeen thousand people, its long, elegant neck snaking down toward the stage.
The Meeting of Two Worlds
The dragon's head was the size of a carriage, and as it lowered its snout, the hot, metallic breath of the beast washed over Elian, ruffling his hair. The boy didn't flinch.
"Elian! Get back!" King Boron shouted, scrambling onto the stage, his regal cape torn and dusty. He reached for the boy, but stopped when the dragon let out a low, warning growl that vibrated the very air in Boron's lungs.
The dragon ignored the King. It ignored the thousands of screaming citizens. Its mercury eyes shifted, focusing with startling intensity on the twins.
"You..." A voice didn't speak, but a thought exploded in Aster's mind, heavy and ancient. "Children of the Sun... why have you woken the Moon?"
Aster took a step forward, his voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through him. "We did not seek to disturb your rest, Guardian. we sought only to give this nation its voice back. We used the songs we wrote to wake the hearts of the people, not the protector of the peak."
The dragon's eyes flared with a silver light. the dragon's presence rumbled in their minds. "His voice... it carries the frequency of the First Compact. It is the key that has not been turned in a thousand years."
Astra stepped up beside Aster, her fear replaced by a strange, melodic curiosity. "He didn't know," she said softly. "None of us knew. We were just singing a song of the peaks."
"A song?" The dragon tilted its head, its scales clinking like coins. "You call the awakening of the earth a 'song'? You have played with forces you do not comprehend, little children."
"As per the prophesy, the chosen one will wake from my slumber, Using the soft melody of music, So be it, it seems the time has come for my awakening, I can feel the Gold's blessing on you children, but the one who woke me up, should have the orestes royal blood in their veins, so tell me , who is it that woke me up."
King Boron fell to his knees again, his head bowed. "Great Guardian, have mercy on us! If these foreigners have offended you, we will—"
"Silence, King of Orestes," the dragon hissed, a puff of silver frost escaping its nostrils. "Your line has forgotten the me. You have turned the mountain into a tomb of history and attraction. These children... they have reminded the stone how to breathe."
The silence returned, but this time it was different. It was the silence of a courtroom waiting for a final verdict. The seventeen thousand people were frozen, staring up at the literal god of their ancestors.
The dragon opened its mouth, revealing rows of teeth that looked like daggers carved from starlight. A soft, silver glow began to gather in the back of its throat—a breath of power that could erase the arena in a second.
Aster stepped in front of Astra and Elian, and signaled him to start singing, without telling anything else, though he knew the futility of it. But Elian, still in his trance, did something no one expected. He raised the microphone, which was somehow still active, back to his lips. His voice was a whisper, but through the speakers, it echoed like thunder.
when the people were panicking Elian started singing again "Everyone one on the arena stopped panicking for a second and saw him singing between all this"
The dragon's eyes softened, the mercury swirling like a storm. It let out a sound that wasn't a roar, but a singular, perfect musical note—the final, missing chord of the "Voice of the Peaks" that Elian had been too afraid to finish.
After that the dragon talked inside Elian's mind and told him "I see, so you are the royal who woke me up child"
"It seems it was not a mistake that I woke up today"
After telling him that, The Dragon spoke inside the mind of every people present there and declared,
"Today, I choose Elian Orestes as my heir of Silver Moon"
After that with a bright light it blessed Elian in front of all the people and the Silver Dragon's mark appeared on his hand.
After that the silver dragon told Elian, "Do what you will with your new powers, child of Orestes"
With a thunderous clap of its wings that sent a final, cool breeze through the arena, the Guardian took to the sky. It circled the Sentry's Crown once, then vanished into the clouds, leaving only the silver moonlight behind.
The arena was deathly quiet. Seventeen thousand people stared at Elian, the "orphan" they had seen begging in the markets just weeks ago. A heavy, confusing doubt began to rise in everyone's head.
"Why did the dragon refer to an orphan kid as a Royal?" a voice whispered from the crowd, quickly taken up by hundreds of others.
King Boron stood on the stage, his eyes wide and his face pale. He looked at the mark on Elian's hand, then back at the empty sky where the dragon had been. His mind was a storm of confusion. If Elian was a royal... then who were his parents? And what did this mean for the line of succession?
"Why...?" Boron muttered to himself, his voice trembling. "How can this be?"
The concert was over, but the real mystery of Orestes had just begun.