The flames climbed higher.
Smoke swallowed the sky.
The boy closed his eyes.
He did not scream.
He did not beg.
There was nothing left to beg for.
Heat wrapped around him, thick and suffocating.
He expected pain.
He welcomed it.
Instead—
The fire shifted.
It did not burn.
It curled.
It bent around him like wind around stone.
The ropes blackened and snapped.
Ash fell at his feet.
The crowd gasped.
Someone whispered a prayer.
The black egg began to tremble.
A thin crack split its surface.
Another.
Light bled through the fractures—
not red.
Not gold.
Violet.
A sharp sound burst from within.
The shell shattered.
Something small collapsed into the burning ash.
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then it drew breath.
A tiny wing unfolded.
Black scales gleamed like polished obsidian.
Beneath them, faint veins of violet light pulsed softly, like a heartbeat under glass.
The hatchling lifted its head.
Molten-gold eyes opened.
It looked at the fire.
It looked at the crowd.
And then it looked at him.
The boy stared back.
The flames around him flickered low, as if unsure.
The creature crawled forward through the fire.
The heat did not touch it.
It climbed the charred wood.
Up his leg.
Up his shoulder.
Its claws were warm, but they did not cut.
Its head pressed gently against his cheek.
The connection struck like lightning—
not words.
Not thoughts.
Recognition.
The fire around them collapsed inward and died.
The air turned cold.
The hatchling opened its mouth.
A thin stream of white-violet flame spilled out.
Clean.
Bright.
Silent.
The men who had ordered the burning stumbled backward.
One dropped his sword.
Another fell to his knees.
"Dragon…" someone whispered.
The word carried across the ruined colony like a curse.
The boy stepped forward slowly.
The dragon clung to him, wings tight against his back.
The ash crunched beneath his bare feet.
The raiders ran first.
Then the villagers.
No one tried to stop him.
No one tried to approach him.
They stared.
Not with awe.
Not with hope.
With fear.
The boy looked down at the burned remains of the post.
At the smoke rising over broken homes.
At the place that had been his world.
And he understood something simple.
Fire protects nothing.
It changes everything.
Far across the sea, beneath ancient roots no one could see—
something stirred.
And turned its gaze east.
The wind shifted.
The world had taken notice.