The Moon Below the Mountain

Long ago, the skies trembled under the wings of dragons.

They were not monsters. They were wisdom and fire, protectors of balance, and the heartbeat of magic in the world. Beside them stood the Dragon Keepers, chosen souls who spoke the language of flame and understood the pulse of the wild.

But time turned stories into superstition. Kingdoms feared what they could not control. The Keepers were hunted. The dragons vanished. And magic was buried beneath the noise of steel and kings.

All that remained was a whisper:

When the last Keeper awakens, so shall the flame.

In a small village nestled in the craggy green hills of Ellira, sixteen-year-old Maelin lived a quiet life as an apprentice herbalist. She wasn’t important. Not in the way heroes are. She gathered roots. Boiled water. Listened to birdsong.

But at night, she dreamed of fire.

Not destruction—warm fire, ancient and alive. A dragon curled in a nest of stone. A voice that said:

You are not forgotten.

Maelin never told anyone. Not until the night the stars fell.

It began with a red glow in the sky. Comets, the villagers said. But Maelin felt the earth shiver. Her pendant—a trinket left by her long-dead mother—grew hot against her chest.

That night, the voice returned:

"Come to the Vale of Echoes. The last flame waits."

She left before dawn.

No one followed.

The Vale was wild and overgrown, filled with ruins carved with symbols that pulsed faintly beneath the moss. Maelin stepped carefully, guided by instinct and the pull of her pendant.

And then she saw it.

A crystal cocoon, half-buried in ivy. Inside slept a dragon—not large, but radiant, its scales glinting with shifting colors: copper, jade, and starlight.

As she touched the crystal, it cracked.

The dragon stirred.

And in that moment, her pendant flared.

Memories that weren’t hers rushed into her mind—of soaring skies, whispered pacts, flames shared, and a bond older than memory.

She gasped and fell to her knees.

“I… I’m the Keeper?” she whispered.

The dragon opened its eyes—ancient, sorrowful, and wise.

“You are the last.”

The dragon’s name was Seryth, and he was the final guardian of the old flame. He had waited, in slumber, for the one who would hear the call.

“There were once thousands of us,” he said, as Maelin helped clean the dust from his wings. “Now there is one dragon. One Keeper. And one kingdom hunting what remains of our kind.”

Indeed, the glow in the sky had not been comets—it was a sign of the return of magic. And not all welcomed it.

The Black Flame Order, sworn enemies of the old ways, had sensed the awakening.

They were coming.

Seryth taught Maelin the ancient language of fire. Not to destroy, but to protect, to heal, and to connect.

Each day she grew stronger—feeling the warmth in the wind, the heartbeat of trees, and the sleeping ember inside her soul.

But time was running out.

The Order arrived under a moonless sky.

Dark-robed figures with metal staffs that hummed with poisoned magic. At their lead was Inquisitor Vale, a man whose ancestors had helped purge the last Keepers.

“You don’t know what you carry,” he hissed. “The world is better without dragons. Without fire. Without you.”

Maelin stood before him, unshaken.

“I know enough,” she said.

Behind her, Seryth spread his wings—brighter now, stronger.

“Then burn,” Vale growled, raising his staff.

The battle that followed shook the Vale.

Seryth rose like a storm, breathing fire that did not scorch but illuminated. The Order’s magic faltered beneath the light. Maelin, her eyes glowing like molten gold, summoned flame not from anger, but from love.

Roots answered her call. Stone moved beneath her feet. The ruins came alive, glowing with the fire of the past.

In the end, the Order fell—not destroyed, but overwhelmed by the return of something they had tried to bury: hope.

When dawn broke, the Vale was silent.

Seryth rested beside Maelin, their bond sealed not by blood, but by belief.

The flame was not gone.

It had changed.

And now it was hers to carry.

Epilogue

Years later, travelers speak of a girl who rides a dragon of starlight, helping villages when crops fail, healing rivers, and restoring the old places.

They say she doesn’t rule or seek glory.

She listens to the wind. She speaks to fire. And where she walks, the land remembers magic.

Her name is Maelin.

And she is…

The Last Dragon Keeper.