THE LAST DRAGON'S EXECUTIONER Chapter 3: The Mountain of Bones
THE LAST DRAGON'S EXECUTIONER
Chapter 3: The Mountain of Bones
The journey to Mount Veyr took twelve days.
Twelve days of cold winds, sleepless nights, and growing dread.
Kael and the mysterious woman left the capital before sunrise.
Neither trusted the king.
Neither trusted the priests.
And after what Kael had discovered, he wasn't sure he trusted history itself.
The woman's name was Seraphine.
She belonged to an order long believed extinct.
The Wardens of the Gate.
For thousands of years, her ancestors had guarded the prison beneath Mount Veyr.
Not from the outside.
From the inside.
That distinction haunted Kael.
"Why didn't anyone tell the truth?" he asked one night beside a campfire.
Seraphine stared into the flames.
"Because the truth terrified people."
Kael laughed bitterly.
"And dragons didn't?"
"Dragons were easy."
Her answer surprised him.
"Easy?"
"People understand monsters."
The fire crackled softly.
"They don't understand sacrifices."
Kael thought about that for a long time.
As they traveled north, strange things became impossible to ignore.
Entire forests had died.
Trees stood black and lifeless.
Animals had vanished.
Rivers flowed in silence.
Even birds avoided the region.
It was as though nature itself feared something ahead.
On the tenth day they found the first village.
Or what remained of it.
The houses still stood.
The food remained on tables.
The fires still smoldered.
Yet not a single person remained.
No bodies.
No blood.
No signs of battle.
Nothing.
The village looked frozen in time.
As if everyone had simply vanished.
Kael entered a small house.
A meal sat untouched beside a window.
Half-eaten.
Still fresh.
Impossible.
The village had been abandoned for weeks.
Yet the bread looked as though it had been baked that morning.
Then he noticed something even stranger.
A family portrait hanging above the fireplace.
Four people.
A mother.
A father.
Two children.
Kael blinked.
Something felt wrong.
Very wrong.
The image changed.
Not physically.
Mentally.
Every time he looked away, he remembered fewer faces.
The father disappeared from memory first.
Then one child.
Then the mother.
A cold sweat covered his skin.
He looked directly at the painting again.
There were still four people.
Yet he could only remember three.
The fourth face blurred inside his mind.
As if reality itself refused to hold it.
Kael stumbled backward.
"Seraphine."
His voice shook.
She entered the house.
One glance at the portrait was enough.
Her expression hardened.
"It has started."
"What?"
"The forgetting."
Those two words frightened him more than dragons ever had.
Three days later they reached Mount Veyr.
And Kael immediately understood why nobody returned from the region.
The mountain wasn't a mountain.
Not entirely.
At first it appeared normal.
Snow-covered.
Massive.
Ancient.
Then the clouds shifted.
And Kael saw what lay beneath the snow.
Bones.
Millions of bones.
Entire cliffs were formed from skeletons.
Entire valleys buried beneath skulls.
The mountain itself had been built upon a graveyard larger than any civilization.
Kael stood speechless.
Even Seraphine looked shaken.
"Who are they?"
Her answer came quietly.
"Everyone who tried to leave."
The words hung in the air.
Kael slowly turned toward her.
"What do you mean?"
Seraphine didn't answer immediately.
She looked toward the summit.
Toward something hidden among the clouds.
Finally she whispered:
"Whatever is imprisoned beneath the Gate..."
A pause.
"It wasn't placed there."
Kael felt ice crawl through his veins.
"It came willingly."
The realization struck like a hammer.
The prison.
The dragons.
The mountain.
The bones.
Everything suddenly felt wrong.
Because prisons are built to keep things in.
Yet Mount Veyr looked like something built to keep something out.
Something beyond the Gate.
Something worse.
They continued climbing.
The air grew colder.
The sky darker.
The silence heavier.
Near sunset they reached the summit.
And there they found the Gate.
Kael had seen drawings.
They hadn't come close.
The structure stretched across the horizon.
A colossal black arch carved into the heart of the mountain.
Covered in ancient runes.
Covered in claw marks.
Covered in scars.
And at its center...
A crack.
A single crack running from top to bottom.
Golden light leaked through it.
Pulsing.
Breathing.
Alive.
The Gate was opening.
Then Kael noticed something standing before it.
A figure.
Human-shaped.
Waiting.
For one brief moment he thought it was a statue.
Then it moved.
The figure turned.
And Kael's blood froze.
Because he recognized the face.
His own.
Not similar.
Not familiar.
Identical.
The stranger smiled.
Exactly the way Kael smiled.
Then spoke.
"Hello, Executioner."
The voice matched his perfectly.
Seraphine immediately drew her sword.
But the stranger ignored her.
His eyes never left Kael.
"You've been looking for answers."
The smile widened.
"And I've been waiting a very long time to meet you."
The wind howled across the summit.
The Gate pulsed behind him.
Golden light spilled through the growing crack.
Then the stranger said something that shattered everything Kael believed about himself.
"You think your family hunted dragons."
A pause.
"But that's not why they created you."
Kael felt his heart stop.
The stranger pointed toward the Gate.
Toward the ancient prison.
Toward the crack.
Toward the end of the world.
And smiled.
"You're not the last Dragon Executioner."
Another pause.
May you like
"You're the first key."
To be continued in Chapter 4: The First Key.
