In a valley forgotten by time, veiled in mist and shadowed by mountains, lived a dragon with scales like starlight and eyes heavy with sorrow. Her name was Vaelthira, the Last Ember of the Celestial Flame. She had watched kingdoms rise and fall, seen countless skies burn with war—but it was in the cry of a single abandoned infant, swaddled in a basket by the river, that she felt the deepest call of all.
She took the child in, against every instinct, every law of her kind. A dragon was not meant to raise a human. And to nurture one, to bind life to a creature of flame, she needed to take Lirasbane—a poison brewed by ancient sorcerers to weaken the eternal fire within dragons, muting their heat to cradle fragile flesh.
Each drop of the venom dulled her fire, cooled her blood, and carved cracks in her bones. But the child—whom she named Kael—grew strong, laughing in the glow of her winglight, sleeping against her heart, asking stories of old skies and stars long dead.
Years passed. Kael grew into a boy of spirit and wonder, climbing cliffs with dragon-scale boots, reading runes Vaelthira carved into stones, training with a blade he forged from her own shed talon. He dreamt of adventure, of distant lands, of making her proud.
And she smiled, even as her claws trembled, even as her breath thinned and her wings ached to fold forever.
One night, during a foray into the ancient ruins of the Hollow Peaks, Kael stumbled upon a forgotten chamber—its walls carved with depictions of dragons and humans, of a ritual of fire, and of Lirasbane. It told of its effects in agonizing detail: erosion of the spirit-flame, the slow death of dragons who dared love mortals too closely.
At first, Kael refused to believe. But when he returned home, he saw it—the dimming in her eyes, the wheezing beneath her breath, the scales duller than moonless ash.
She had taken it.
She had been taking it every day, to keep him alive.
The knowledge shattered something inside him.
That night, Kael sat by the fire, unable to eat, unable to speak. He stared at the blade he had once called his honor, and he pressed its edge to his wrist. If his life cost her hers, then what worth did it have?
But his hand trembled. The memory of her singing lullabies in a tongue older than the mountains held him still. The way she nuzzled him after his first fall. The time she wrapped her massive wings around him during a storm and whispered, "You are my only warmth."
He couldn't do it. He couldn't throw away what she gave up everything to protect.
So, Kael told her nothing.
He laughed at her jokes. He brought her mountain flowers and listened to her stories again, pretending they were all new. But every day, he watched her fire fade more and more.
Until, one dusk, when the sky was the color of dying embers, Vaelthira collapsed by the river where she once found him.
She looked up at Kael, her eyes tired but still so full of love.
"Your wings," she rasped, "they were never mine to keep. But I'm glad… I could help you grow them."
And Kael, who had not cried since childhood, wept like the sky had cracked open. He held her massive head against his chest and whispered, "You knew I knew… didn't you?"
She gave the smallest smile, as her scales began to crumble into ash.
"I raised a human," she whispered. "But I made a soul who understood love."
And then, with one final breath, she was gone.
No tomb could hold her. No flame could honor her enough.
So Kael carved her story into the cliffs of the valley and swore that her sacrifice would not be the end—but the beginning.
He became a guardian of dragonkind, of lost things, of bridges once thought burned. He carried her fire not in blood, but in soul.
And every time he looked to the stars, he saw her—his mother, his fire, his sky—watching from the heavens, wings outstretched, never dim again.