The Tenth Dragon’s Legacy

The temple loomed, its moss-choked stones exhaling centuries of damp and decay. Moonlight speared through cracks in the vaulted ceiling, illuminating carvings of dragons coiled around celestial orbs—a mirror to the Crown in David’s hands. The relic warmed at his touch, its scales writhing like living flesh. He traced a groove, and the temple’s air thickened, humming with the resonance of a plucked nerve.

A vision tore through him:

Komodo Island, centuries past. His Nusatenggara ancestors stood in a circle, their chants weaving through smoke and sea spray. The Crown hovered above an altar, its light leashed by their palms. A typhoon raged beyond the caves, waves clawing at the cliffs as if the ocean itself sought to claim the relic. “Bind it,” the elder hissed. “Lest the tyrant rise again.”

The memory shattered, leaving David gasping in the temple’s cold silence. The Crown’s glow dimmed, its pulse sluggish, as though ashamed.