"My grandmother raised me."
"What was her name?"
"Evelyn."
Several elderly priests gasped.
One old temple scholar dropped the scroll he had been holding.
The name spread through the temple in frightened whispers.
Evelyn.
The last Keeper of the Inner Sanctuary.
Official records claimed she had died twenty years earlier during a landslide beyond the northern cliffs.
The High Priest slowly closed his eyes.
History had lied.
Or perhaps...
history had been rewritten.
The dragon suddenly lifted its enormous head higher.
Its silver scales shimmered beneath the sacred firelight like living moonlight.
Then, for the second time in five hundred years, it spoke.
"Evelyn kept her promise."
Every voice inside the temple disappeared.
Elias looked toward the dragon.
"You knew my grandmother?"
The dragon blinked slowly.
"I knew her before she carried you."
The words struck the temple like thunder.
The King staggered half a step backward.
Prince Rowen looked from the dragon to Elias in utter confusion.
"What does that mean?"
The High Priest answered quietly.
"It means she was never merely your grandmother."
Silence.
"She was the last Guardian of the Covenant."
The prince frowned.
"What covenant?"
The old priest slowly walked toward one of the enormous stone pillars lining the temple walls.
He brushed centuries of dust from its surface.
A magnificent mural appeared beneath.
Humans.
Dragons.
Standing side by side.
Not as rulers and servants.
As equals.
The High Priest spoke softly.
"Before there were kings..."
He traced one ancient carving.
"...there were Keepers."
"They carried neither crowns nor swords."
"They carried promises."
Another pause.
"When dragons chose silence..."
"...the Keepers became their voice."
The temple remained perfectly still.
King Aldren slowly lowered his head.
"My grandfather told me those stories."
The High Priest nodded.
"He told you they were legends."
The King did not answer.
Because he remembered something else.
His grandfather had never called them legends.
He had called them secrets.
The dragon slowly lowered one enormous claw.
Resting within it was a crystal no larger than a child's hand.
It glowed with pale silver light.
The dragon gently placed it before Elias.
"Take it."
The boy hesitated.
"What is it?"
"Memory."
Elias carefully reached forward.
The instant his fingers touched the crystal, a brilliant flash filled the cavern.
His knees weakened.
Images flooded his mind.
A woman smiling beside a fireplace.
Her voice singing softly.
A silver dragon lowering its head beside a cradle.
Children laughing beneath enormous wings.
Then smoke.
Fire.
Running footsteps.
Someone wrapping a wooden necklace around a crying child.
Evelyn kneeling before the dragon.
"I'll protect him."
The vision vanished.
Elias gasped for breath.
Tears filled his eyes.
"I've seen this place."
The High Priest smiled sadly.
"You were born here."
Silence swept across the temple.
Prince Rowen looked stunned.
"No."
The High Priest nodded.
"The Sanctuary of Aetherwyn was once home to the Keepers."
He looked toward Elias.
"Before your grandmother carried you away."
The King slowly closed his eyes.
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