THE BIRTH OF TWO PATHS
The mountains of Kyrethron were not mere stones piled up by nature. In their depths, there was a pulse, a living heart that beat with contained fury. Among those peaks, in a time so remote that even the gods barely whispered of it, the Lightning Shard was born.
The storm had been tearing across the sky for days. White, spear-like lightning pierced the darkness, making the earth tremble. The winds roared, and in the midst of this tempest, a group of ancient sages and warriors gathered in the sacred circle of Aeryndor .
"This is not a simple tear in the sky," said one of the elders, his beard soaked by the rain. "Something has awakened in the essence of the world. Something that does not belong to the natural order."
Another answered in a broken voice, trying to raise it above the thunder. "The lightning always strikes the same spot. The mountain is opening up... it's giving birth to something not even dragons have ever seen."
When the earth finally tore apart, it wasn't fire or magma that emerged, but a vibrant, bluish-white light, as if the heavens had descended in the form of crystal. The air smelled of ozone, and the sound was neither silence nor thunder, but an incessant murmur of pure energy.
The old man in dark robes cautiously extended his hand. "This... is the Fragment. The Lightning Fragment."
The voices fell silent. No one dared touch it, for the fragment not only shone, but watched , as if it had consciousness. Then, among them, a man stepped forward.
He was tall, with tangled hair and dark eyes, marked by the pain of a past steeped in war. He wore no crown or insignia, only scars on his arms and the gaze of someone who had lost more than he could say.
"If this fragment has been born," he said firmly, "it must have a guardian. And if none of you has the courage to bear its weight, I will."
The elders regarded him with suspicion. One spoke: "Lightning is not for ordinary men. He who tries to master it will be consumed."
The man smiled bitterly. "Then let me be consumed. At least my end will serve some purpose."
He approached the fragment, and as soon as his fingers touched it, the sky roared. A clap of thunder struck him directly, forcing him to his knees. His body trembled, his skin burned, but his hands wouldn't let go of the crystal. The lightning bolt pierced him, and when it seemed he would turn to ash, something unexpected happened: the fragment accepted him .
A lightning bolt-shaped mark appeared on his chest, and his eyes blazed like a raging storm. The man screamed, not from pain, but from an uncontainable power.
The old man recoiled in horror. "No... he shouldn't have survived."
Another, however, bowed his head in respect. "He didn't survive. He was reborn. Now he is the Bearer."
That man, whose name was erased from history, became the first wielder of the Lightning Fragment . His footsteps echoed like thunder wherever he went, and it was said he could split mountains with a single gesture. Yet his fate was tragic: he never sought glory, but redemption, and the lightning robbed him of the peace he so desperately craved. His name was deliberately forgotten, so that only the power would remain, not the man.
But it wasn't the only one that time saw born. Far away, in a cavern lost in the deserts of Darakthar , a deeper and more secret power emerged: the Secret Fragment .
It didn't flash like lightning, nor did it roar like fire. Its essence was like an abyss and a dawn at the same time. No one knew when or how it appeared, but the one who found it was unlike any other.
They didn't call him king, or bearer, or warrior. They proclaimed him Dragon Master . No one knew his true name, because he himself gave it to the fragment, leaving it to be forgotten.
The dragons followed him, not out of submission, but out of recognition. He was a man with a serene gaze and a firm step, whose mere presence made even the most ancient beasts bow their heads. He never needed to demonstrate strength, for the whole world responded to his voice.
A disciple once asked him as they walked among the dunes:
"Master, what does it mean to carry that fragment that has no name or limit?"
The man gazed at him with eyes so deep they seemed to hold all the ages. "It's not a fragment I carry. It's a mirror. Whoever looks into me sees what they fear, what they yearn for, and what they can never attain. And that is heavier than any weapon."
The disciple persisted, innocently. "So you're a god?"
The Dragon Master smiled gently. "No. I am merely the bridge between them and us. To be a Dragon Master is not to rule… it is to bear the destiny of all those who cannot bear it."
Since then, his figure has become a myth, and even today, not even the bearers of the oldest fragments fully understand what that being was and what his true connection was with the secret of the crystal.
And so, in two different places, two paths were born:
The one with the lightning bolt, which destroys and divides.
And the one of the secret, who observes and unites.
Two stories that still throb beneath the ashes of time, waiting to be told.
The sky over Kyrethron had changed. The night seemed heavier, and even though there were no storms, the air smelled of ozone, as if lightning were waiting behind the clouds to tear them apart at any moment.
In a solitary clearing, illuminated only by the white light of the moon, Sylphra slept with the wings of the wind enveloping her like a cloak. Her dreams were not her own that night.
First he saw lightning tearing through a mountain, opening impossible fissures in the rock. Then, a man kneeling, his hands clutching a gleaming blue crystal, his body burning inside and out. The cry that escaped his throat was not one of pain, but of rebirth.
Sylphra stirred among her blankets, sweat soaking her forehead.
"No... what is this I see?" he murmured sleepily.
In the vision, the man's figure turned. His face was blurred, as if memory itself refused to reveal it, but his eyes… his eyes were a storm.
A voice filtered through the flashes of lightning, a whisper almost impossible to hear:
"The first one... always burns. And nobody remembers its name."
Sylphra awoke with a start, gasping, her heart pounding as if she had just fought a battle. She clutched her chest and lay motionless, listening only to the rustling of the wind through the leaves.
"Why do I feel... like I know him?"
In another corner of the world, Elaris, the bringer of regeneration, also rested, surrounded by a circle of healing herbs she herself had planted. Her dream was different: there were no lightning bolts, but an endless desert, and in it a
A man in a white robe walked with calm steps. Dragons flew above him, and none attacked him; instead, they bowed as he passed.
"Who are you?" she asked in the dream, unable to contain herself.
The man did not look at her, but answered in a soft voice, a voice that seemed to fill the entire air.
"A name... does not belong to me. I have already given it to the fragment."
Elaris tried to reach him, but each step took her further away. She woke up with tears in her eyes, as if she had lost someone she had never met.
"The Dragon Master…" he whispered, though he didn't know why those words came from his lips.
In a frost-covered valley, Glacius kept a fire burning to ward off the night's endless cold. He didn't dream often, but this time he was startled by a deep roar, a roar that didn't come from an ordinary dragon. In his vision, he saw a dark crystal entwined with chains, and he heard voices calling to him from all directions.
The ice around him cracked as if something were buried beneath it. A man of imposing silhouette emerged, and although he had no face, the shadow of two colossal wings stretched out behind him.
Glacius, in his dream, spoke aloud. "Are you... a god or a demon?"
The shadow responded with a calmness that was colder than winter itself.
"I am neither. I am the bridge that connects what you fear with what you desire."
The ice bearer awoke with wide eyes, the fire almost extinguished at his feet. His breath formed white clouds that did not dissipate. He rubbed his face and said softly:
"These are not dreams... something is calling us."
Far away from them, in an ancient stone temple forgotten by the centuries, Aevindor, the bearer of time, also felt the disturbance. He was not asleep; rather, he was meditating, with hourglasses and pendulums floating around him. But even in his calm state, the sands in his hourglasses began to flow backward, forming an impossible whirlpool.
In the midst of that chaos, he heard an ancient murmur, a name that was not a name, a title that weighed more than any era.
"Dragon Master..."
Aevindor gritted his teeth. "Who... is rummaging through the forbidden ages?"
A silence, followed by the echo of thunder that did not belong to that time, was the only response.
The air of the entire world seemed to vibrate with memories that did not belong to them, with fragments of a past that refused to be buried.
The bearers, each in their own corner, agreed on one thing: the visions were not ordinary dreams. They were warnings, they were callings.
And everyone, at some point that night, uttered the same name they had never heard before:
"Dragon Master."
The heir must confront the origin of Kyrethron.