Chapter 196: The Dragon’s Heart

The trip to the dragon’s heart was a silent one.

Jonah and the Headmaster walked past the empty halls of the Grand Cathedral, their footsteps making sounds in the huge space. This was the most holy place in the Golden Dragon Nation, a place of peace and respect.

But Jonah knew it was all a lie. It was a golden cage built on top of a hidden prison.

The Headmaster led the way into a small, hidden door behind the grand altar. He placed his hand on the stone, and a pattern of glowing, golden runes spread out from his touch. With a deep, groaning sound, the door opened. It showed a spiral staircase that went down into total darkness.

“No one has entered this place in over fifty years,” the Headmaster said, his voice a low whisper. “What you are about to see, Jonah… it is our nation’s greatest triumph, and its greatest shame.”

He went down the stairs, and Jonah followed him, feeling scared and worried.

Going down felt like it never ended. The air became colder, heavier, and it buzzed with a strange, powerful energy that made Jonah have goosebumps.

Finally, they got to the bottom. They stood before a huge, circular door made of a strange, dark metal. It was covered in complex, ancient runes, a lock designed by the first Artificers to hold a god.

The Headmaster placed his hand on the door. He did not speak a word or give a command. He simply just closed his eyes and seemed to give a piece of his soul to the ancient lock. With a loud sound, the runes glowed, and the huge door opened quietly.

The room beyond the door was a huge, round space. It was so wide that the far walls were completely lost in the deep, silent darkness. The room was not lit by torches or by magic lights. It was lit from the very middle of the room. And in the middle of the room, a massive heart floated in a complex, beautiful, and terrible web of glowing, golden energy beams.

It was a real, living heart, but it was the size of a small house. It was not made of flesh and blood, but of a pure, translucent crystal that looked like it was cut from a huge diamond. Lines of liquid gold pulsed within it.

It beat with a slow rhythm.

Thump-thump… Thump-thump… Thump-thump

Each slow, heavy beat sent a gentle, warm wave of golden light pulsing through the huge, dark room. This was the Heart of the Dragon, the last physical piece of the god-like, celestial beast that the nation’s founders had captured hundreds and hundreds of years ago. This was the living, breathing, and suffering machine that gave power to their entire way of life.

The look of it was both impressive and deeply disturbing. It was a beautiful thing trapped in a terrible prison. The golden beams of light were not just holding it up. They were like magical drains, slowly draining the life force, the very essence of the creature, to power the city above.

Jonah felt sick to his stomach. He could feel its pain. It was a constant pain that had lasted for hundreds of years.

This was the worst wrong act of the ’forced synthesis’ philosophy. To take something beautiful and powerful and turn it into nothing more than a power source.

As Jonah took a careful step closer, something new entered his mind.

It was neither a voice nor a thought; rather, it was a feeling. An ancient and impossibly weary consciousness that had been sleeping for a thousand years and had just been stirred awake by his presence.

He was a Weaver. His power, his soul aligned with a frequency that was familiar to the ancient, celestial being. He was a creator. A shaper of life. He was family to it, in a way that the jailers who had built this prison could never be.

The feeling came over him, a silent, psychic wave of pure emotion.

It was a loneliness so strong that it nearly knocked him down. The loneliness of a creature that once flew among the stars, now trapped in a cage of stone and magic.

It was a feeling of betrayal. The memory of being lured and tricked to this world, a world of interesting, young, and lively creatures, only to be ambushed, broken, and imprisoned by the creatures it had come to observe.

And under all of that pain, there was a deep, unending wish to be somewhere else. It was a powerful feeling of missing a home that Jonah could not even begin to picture. A wish for the cold and lovely freedom of space full of stars.

Jonah stood still, his mind completely filled with the silent, emotional, and tragic story of the Golden Dragon. He was no longer a soldier on a mission. He was a visitor in a tomb. He was a witness to a terrible crime that was so old, it had been forgotten and turned into a celebration.

The Headmaster stood back by the open door, and his old, tired face looked very sad. He could not hear the silent, psychic voice, but he could see how it was affecting Jonah. He could see the young boy shaking under the heavy, crushing weight of a god’s grief.

Jonah finally understood the real reason he was here. He had come here to take something. He had come here to tear off a piece from this creature’s soul to power his own creation. He had come here to do the same thing his nation’s founders had done, only on a smaller scale. He realized he was here to be a thief.

And he was completely certain that he could not do it. It was wrong. It was a violation.

He had come here to make a deal. But now he knew he had nothing to offer this ancient, imprisoned being. Nothing except, maybe, one promise that seemed impossible.

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