THE LAST DRAGON'S EXECUTIONER Chapter 2: The Gate Beneath the Mountain
THE LAST DRAGON'S EXECUTIONER
Chapter 2: The Gate Beneath the Mountain
The dragon's body burned for three days.
That was royal law.
Every dragon corpse had to be reduced to ash.
No bones.
No scales.
No remains.
Nothing that could become a relic.
Nothing that could become evidence.
At least, that was what the law claimed.
For the first time in his life, Kael wondered why.
The silver dragon was dead.
Yet the capital remained restless.
Rumors spread faster than wildfire.
Some claimed dragons had returned.
Others believed the gods were angry.
Priests declared the beast a final remnant from an older age.
An accident.
A mistake.
A miracle.
Everyone had an explanation.
Except Kael.
Because he had heard the dragon's final words.
And they terrified him.
We were never prisoners.
We were the locks.
The sentence repeated endlessly inside his head.
Day.
Night.
Day again.
Like a curse.
Like a warning.
Three nights after the dragon's death, Kael entered the Royal Archive.
Alone.
Officially, he had permission.
Unofficially, he intended to commit treason.
The deepest records of the kingdom were forbidden.
Only kings and high priests could access them.
Tonight, Kael didn't care.
If dragons were locks, then something had been locked away.
And somebody knew.
The archive stretched beneath the palace like a buried city.
Thousands of shelves.
Millions of pages.
Centuries of history.
Kael descended deeper and deeper.
Past records of wars.
Past royal genealogies.
Past forgotten treaties.
Until he reached a chamber sealed by iron doors.
The Restricted Vault.
Inside lay the oldest books in existence.
Documents older than the kingdom itself.
Books copied from civilizations long vanished.
Histories supposedly preserved without alteration.
Supposedly.
Kael pulled the first volume from a shelf.
The Age of Dragons.
He opened it.
The first pages described dragons as tyrants.
Destroyers.
Monsters.
Everything he had been taught.
Then he noticed something strange.
A page number jumped.
Page 143.
Then page 148.
Five pages missing.
He grabbed another book.
Same thing.
Missing pages.
Another.
Missing pages.
Another.
Missing pages.
Every historical record describing the Dragon Wars contained gaps.
The exact same gaps.
The exact same missing sections.
Deliberately removed.
Kael's pulse quickened.
This wasn't coincidence.
Someone had edited history.
Not once.
Not twice.
Everywhere.
Across centuries.
Across every surviving record.
An impossible undertaking.
Unless the order had come from the throne itself.
Hours passed.
The deeper he searched, the worse it became.
Entire chapters vanished.
Entire events erased.
Entire years missing from history.
It was as if someone had carefully removed a single truth while leaving everything else intact.
A surgeon cutting out a disease.
Or hiding one.
Then he found it.
A book hidden behind a collapsed shelf.
No title.
No royal seal.
No catalog number.
It should not have existed.
The cover was made from black leather.
Ancient.
Cracked.
Almost falling apart.
Inside, a single sentence appeared on the first page.
Written by hand.
Not printed.
Not copied.
Original.
The handwriting was shaky.
Desperate.
As if the writer expected to be discovered.
The sentence read:
If you are reading this, the dragons are nearly gone.
Kael froze.
The next page contained a map.
Not of the kingdom.
Of the world.
Or rather...
The world before history.
The continents were different.
The coastlines unfamiliar.
Entire mountain ranges missing.
Yet one location had been marked in red ink.
A single mountain.
Far to the north.
Beyond civilized lands.
Beyond every known border.
Beneath it, another sentence:
The Gate sleeps beneath Mount Veyr.
Kael felt a chill run through him.
The word.
Gate.
The same word spoken by the last dragon.
He turned the page.
And found a drawing.
A massive stone structure.
Buried deep underground.
Covered in symbols.
The image looked ancient.
Far older than any kingdom.
Far older than dragons.
At first glance it resembled a doorway.
Then Kael noticed its size.
The thing was enormous.
Large enough for mountains to pass through.
A final note had been written beneath the sketch.
Only six words.
Six words that made his blood run cold.
Never kill the final dragon.
Silence filled the archive.
Kael slowly sat down.
His hands trembling.
Because ten years earlier...
That was exactly what he had done.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed somewhere above.
Someone else was inside the archive.
Kael immediately extinguished his lantern.
Darkness swallowed the room.
The footsteps grew closer.
Slow.
Measured.
Deliberate.
Whoever it was knew exactly where they were going.
The stranger entered the chamber.
A single candle illuminated part of their face.
A woman.
Young.
Dark hair.
Traveler's cloak.
A sword at her side.
She walked directly toward the shelf containing the hidden book.
As if she already knew it existed.
Kael stepped from the shadows.
The woman instantly drew her blade.
They stared at each other.
Neither spoke.
Neither lowered their weapon.
Finally, the woman broke the silence.
"You're late."
Kael frowned.
"What?"
The woman looked genuinely surprised.
Then disappointed.
As though she had expected more.
"I thought the last Dragon Executioner would figure it out sooner."
The room seemed to grow colder.
Kael tightened his grip on his sword.
"Who are you?"
The woman hesitated.
Then answered.
"My family guarded the Gate."
A pause.
Her eyes darkened.
"And your family spent five centuries destroying its locks."
Before Kael could respond, the ground suddenly trembled.
A deep vibration rolled beneath the capital.
Books fell from shelves.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
The tremor lasted only seconds.
Yet both of them immediately knew what it meant.
Something had moved.
Deep underground.
Far beneath the world.
Far beneath Mount Veyr.
Something that should have remained asleep.
The woman slowly looked north.
Her face had turned pale.
When she spoke again, her voice barely rose above a whisper.
"We're too late."
Far away, beyond mountains and kingdoms, a crack appeared across the side of Mount Veyr.
And for the first time in thousands of years...
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Something inside the Gate opened its eye.
To be continued in Chapter 3: The Mountain of Bones.
