The library was silent, save for the slow turning of pages. Lantern light flickered against the carved stone, shadows bending across shelves of dust-stained tomes. At the center sat a dragon cloaked in silver scales, round spectacles balanced on his snout as his claw traced ancient script.
He was Orpheus—the immortal keeper of knowledge, bound to his solitude.
The stillness shattered when the book trembled in his claws. From its parchment rose a girl, draped in a black cloak, tears cutting pale lines across her cheeks. She did not belong to flesh or shadow, but something in between. Her sudden form startled even the ancient dragon, who slammed the book shut—but she remained.
"Why are you here, weeping child?" Orpheus rumbled, voice echoing like stone splitting.
Her eyes glimmered with sorrow, yet her words fell with the weight of prophecy:
"One day, the child of betrayal will rise, bearing the Ring of Dragons. He will carry the knowledge of eternity, and the dragon who sealed himself in the ring shall walk beside him. Together they will face the one born of eternal darkness.
But beware, for the one who gave the child hope shall fall. From that fall, the shadow will awaken. And only by facing the love that became a shadow… can the cycle be broken."
Her voice fractured at the end, as though the words cost her more than she could bear. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, the girl dissolved into nothing—like ash caught in a wind that Orpheus could not feel.
The dragon's talons dug into the book's cover. He knew the truth when he heard it. The cycle had turned again.
Orpheus crafted the Ring of Dragons with his final act of will, its black surface veined with living light, and pressed it into the hands of the only human he trusted.
"Guard this," he whispered, his voice raw with dread and resolve. "Until the child of betrayal awakens. For in his hands… lies the end of us all."
With that, Orpheus sealed himself inside the ring, his body dissolving into a storm of light and memory, until only silence remained in the library once more