The old man drew breath.
"By the customs that keep our walls standing," he said, voice steady, "by the silence that keeps the stone still—"
The sound did not come from him.
It came from everywhere.
Low. Vast. A vibration so deep it seemed to pass through the ground before it reached the ears. Alex felt it first in his teeth, a faint rattling that turned instantly into pain. The stone beneath his feet trembled, not sharply, but with a slow, rolling certainty—as if something enormous had shifted its weight.
The old man stopped mid-word.
The woman at the post went silent, eyes widening.
The fire guttered.
Then the roar arrived.
It was not loud in the way explosions were loud. It didn't crack or snap. It rolled—a sound too large to belong to a throat, too deep to be carried cleanly by air. It pressed outward, flattening conversation, thought, breath itself.
People screamed.
Not all at once. Not cleanly.
Some cried out in terror. Others in confusion. Some made no sound at all, mouths opening uselessly as the roar swallowed everything else.
Alex clapped his hands over his ears and still felt it inside his skull.
The stone post shuddered.
Cracks raced along its surface like veins, dust spilling down in pale streams. The iron bands shrieked as they strained, metal protesting against forces they were never meant to hold.
"Hold!" one of the guards shouted.
The word was lost immediately.
Another tremor tore through the square—stronger this time. Someone fell. Then another. The crowd surged, bodies slamming together as balance failed and panic finally took hold.
The statue moved.
At first, Alex thought it was collapsing.
The great stone form at the edge of the square—the curled mass he'd barely registered before, half-hidden by angle and familiarity—began to shed itself. Chunks of stone cracked free and fell away, smashing into the ground with thunderous force. Dust billowed outward, choking and blinding.
The head lifted.
Stone split along its jawline, the fracture widening until it was no longer a crack but a mouth tearing itself free.
A roar tore out again—closer now. Realer.
The statue was not breaking.
It was emerging.
Stone plates slid and shattered, peeling away from something vast and dark beneath. Wings unfolded with the sound of grinding mountains, membranes tearing free from centuries of confinement. The ground buckled as claws—long, curved, unmistakably alive—dug into stone and earth alike.
The dragon rose.
Not gracefully.
Violently.
It hauled itself upright in a cascade of falling rock and dust, its body unfurling from the tight, patient curl it had held for generations. Scales glinted dully beneath the debris, dark and ridged, etched with scars older than memory.
Alex stared, unable to breathe.
This was not a creature from stories.
Stories simplified.
This thing dominated.
Its head swept across the square, massive and deliberate, eyes opening one by one—burning, molten gold set deep beneath armored ridges. Each movement displaced air, sent debris skittering, and knocked people flat.
The old man stood frozen where he was.
His robes whipped violently in the sudden wind as the dragon's gaze passed over him—and did not linger.
The fire at the post died instantly, snuffed out by a single downbeat of the dragon's wings.
The woman collapsed forward, coughing, smoke-streaked, and sobbing.
The guards ran.
So did everyone else.
The dragon inhaled.
Alex felt the pressure drop, his lungs aching as if the air itself were being pulled away. Heat built—not yet flame, but promise. The scent of ash and scorched stone filled the square, overwhelming everything else.
The dragon exhaled.
Fire washed over the far end of the village in a screaming arc of light and destruction. Wood ignited instantly. Stone blackened and cracked. A building collapsed inward with a sound like the world breaking its spine.
Alex dropped to his knees.
This wasn't a dream.
Dreams didn't crush stone. They didn't burn this hot. They didn't leave people screaming, bleeding, running with their clothes on fire.
The dragon reared back, wings spreading wide enough to blot out what little sky remained, and roared again.
The village answered with screams.
And the statues—those silent, frozen figures lining the streets—began to crack.
Stone split.
Something inside them moved.