Chapter 9: Where Dragons Dream

The peaks of Johto narrowed as Kael entered Blackthorn City, a place cradled in cold and quiet power.

Snow clung to the rooftops like frost-bitten lace. The city was small but formidable—built along high ridges and spiraling stone paths carved by hand and time. Towering pines stood like sentinels on the cliffs, watching as Kael passed beneath them. Echo walked silently at his side, her fur glittering like freshly fallen snow.

Blackthorn wasn't like the other cities. There were no vendors shouting in markets, no trainers looking to challenge newcomers. It moved slower. More solemn.

Kael could feel it in the air: the weight of legacy.

Here, dragons slept.

The Gym stood at the top of a ridge path flanked by two old statues: a Dragonair on the left, a Gyarados on the right. The building itself was like a dojo built into a cliff, a training hall carved from ancient stone and echoing with unspoken rites.

Inside, He expected someone like Falkner — formal, proud, maybe a little cold.

But instead, the Gym Leader stood barefoot on the stone floor, sparring with a Dragonair, her blue hair flying behind her as she ducked a strike and countered with a staff wrapped in red ribbon.

She was fierce. Precise.

When she noticed Kael, she paused, exhaled steam into the cold air, and approached.

"You're the boy with the silver Eevee," she said without introduction.

Kael blinked. "I… yeah. Kael. From New Bark."

"I'm Clair," she said simply. "I've been expecting you."

They sat cross-legged at the edge of a training mat. Echo sat at Kael's side, perfectly still, yet watching everything.

"I received word from Morty," She said, her voice low. "He told me you were heading north. That your journey would bring you here."

Kael nodded. "He said my father passed through Johto years ago. He thought there was something dangerous awakening… something he called Amaranth."

Clair's jaw tightened. "I've heard the name. Only in whispers. The monks of the Dragon's Den spoke of it once—very quietly. They said it was a voice without a speaker. A presence that fed on the breath between words."

Kael exhaled. "That sounds… familiar."

Clair stood and motioned for him to follow.

She led him and Echo past the Gym, down a narrow spiral trail toward a ravine behind the cliffs. It opened into a stone bridge leading across a deep, frozen lake. At the far end stood the mouth of a cavern lit with soft lanterns.

Dragon's Den.

"This is sacred ground," Clair said. "No ordinary trainer is allowed beyond the threshold."

"But I'm not ordinary?" Kael asked.

Clair didn't answer at first. Then she pointed to Echo.

"She carries the mark. We don't know what it means, but ancient carvings inside the Den show that same crescent-eye symbol. It appears next to dragons… and to something else. Something twisted."

Kael stepped forward. "I have to see it."

Clair watched him a moment longer, then nodded once. "You'll go alone. That's the tradition. You and your Pokémon. No guide. No help. Just the truth."

The stone steps of Dragon's Den descended into darkness, lit only by faint blue crystals lining the walls.

Kael moved slowly, Echo at his side, every footstep echoing like a distant heartbeat.

Eventually, the path opened into a chamber of staggering height. Stalactites dripped frozen water from the ceiling, and ancient murals covered the walls in faded red and gold.

Kael raised his lantern.

What he saw made his blood run cold.

Carved into the far wall, surrounded by swirling dragons and tower motifs, was the crescent eye. But not alone.

Behind it was a shape like a gaping mouth or a broken halo—claws curling around the eye as if trying to pull it open.

And below the carving was a name:

"Raiyen — the first to hear it."

Kael stepped closer. That name… he had seen it before. In his father's notes.

Echo stared at the wall, the mark on her shoulder beginning to glow faintly.

Then Kael heard it again.

A voice.

A whisper.

"Kael…"

Not menacing. Not even dark.

Just tired.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

Echo didn't answer. Instead, she stepped forward and pressed her paw to the stone carving.

The chamber pulsed. Kael's lantern flickered and dimmed. The ice on the ceiling began to shift, cracking slightly, dripping in rhythm.

Then something changed in Echo.

Her body flared with silver light — but this time, it wasn't just shimmer. Symbols appeared across her fur: Unown letters, broken glyphs, even draconic spirals.

She didn't evolve — not physically.

But Kael knew.

Another stage had awakened.

Not power.

Memory.

And it had chosen her.

Clair was waiting at the Den's entrance.

Kael stepped out with Echo beside him, both quiet, both changed.

Clair studied them and nodded. "You saw it, didn't you? The carvings. The symbol."

"And the name," Kael said. "Raiyen. Do you know who that was?"

Clair frowned. "A trainer. Centuries ago. Said to have gone mad after hearing voices in the Silver Mountains. Some say he was the first to vanish… but not die."

Kael looked to the north. The mountains waited, their peaks now shrouded in stormclouds.

"I think he was the first to hear Amaranth. And I think my father went looking for him."

That night, Kael wrote in his journal by lantern light.

"Echo is evolving again, but not into anything physical. It's like her soul is shifting. Like she's remembering something I've never lived. And the Den… the dragons knew. This power, this echo… it's older than anything the League wants to admit."

He closed the book and looked at Echo.

She was staring at the moonlit sky, her eyes glowing faintly — not with fear.

But recognition.