"No one," Kaeryndor said, his voice like glaciers splitting beneath ancient pressure, "leaves this place after learning even the smallest secret buried within it."
The air itself seemed to grow heavier with his words dense and suffocating.
Razeal didn't flinch. Despite the crushing weight of Kaeryndor's presence, he kept his posture straight barely.
"I don't think you can kill me, Warden.
Not without first knowing if I'm worthy enough right?"
At that, the spirit's eyes narrowed, a flicker of something ancient stirring in their depths.
This human… He knows about that thing too?
Kaeryndor's gaze sharpened. "How do you know about that?"
A sudden chill slipped into his voice, wrapping the space like ice creeping across skin. He looked down at Razeal not with rage, but with something far more dangerous: suspicion.
He was perplexed. That information wasn't supposed to be known. Not by anyone.
No one who had ever touched the secret of this graveyard had walked out alive. That was the rule to preserve the sanctity of what lay buried beneath. So how... how had the word escaped?
Did someone find out? If so, that would be a problem. A serious one.
Outwardly, Kaeryndor remained still, his proud and dignified expression unchanged, but inside, thoughts churned.
Razeal's smirk didn't waver. Despite the unbearable pressure weighing down on him his limbs trembling from strain, lungs burning he held himself upright. Barely. But he held.
"You're very wrong, Human," Kaeryndor finally spoke, his voice quiet but edged with steel. "But do not delude yourself. If you think I am bound by rules that spare your life... you are mistaken."
His eyes flashed.
"I am a Guardian. I possess the authority to judge a person worth even before the trial of worthiness begins."
He exhaled slowly, shaking his head in disappointment. "And I have judged you. You are not worthy."
He observed Razeal for a moment longer, seeing only arrogance. A child wearing the mask of control. Bluffing.
"You do not have that fire."
The dragon blade in Kaeryndor's hand stirred with mana as he lifted it slightly, preparing to erase what he saw as an embarrassment one that dared to stain this sacred land with arrogance and ignorance.
But Razeal only grinned wider, spine still ramrod straight.
"I know I'm not."
Kaeryndor paused mid-step, caught off guard.
"What?"
"I don't even want the Dragon Heart in the first place, Kaeryndor. That thing's useless to me," Razeal said, his voice calm after a pause. "I came here for something greater."
The words hung in the air, weighty and deliberate.
A long silence followed. Even the air seemed to hesitate.
Yes, this place held the Dragon Heart one of the strongest magical items in existence. A treasure so rare that even a hero will kill to get. One must know even a dead dragon's heart was nearly impossible to find. Not to say heart of a Royal Dragon nobility among dragons, just one tier below an Archdragon.
Kaeryndor closed his eyes.
Not out of peace.
But like a blade being drawn back into its scabbard tight, controlled, but dangerous.
It felt like he'd been slapped, not by strength, but by audacity. A human, had dared to speak of the Dragon Heart as if it were a mere tool… as if its worth were something to be weighed and dismissed.
That alone should've warranted death.
And yet, Kaeryndor didn't move. Didn't react immediately. Because something about those words about that boy's defiance clawed at the corners of logic. It wasn't just arrogance. It was conviction. And that unsettled him more than any insult could.
His eyes opened slowly, glowing slits that seemed to silence the very air. Even the wind held its breath.
"Human," he said, his voice low and iron-clad, "I will give you one chance just one to apologize and speak reason."
"If you do that, I will grant you a painless death. Quick. Without horror. Without despair. You won't feel the real hell."
His tone wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. The graveyard, the stones, even the magic embedded in the soil everything fell deathly still. The world itself seemed unwilling to interrupt him.
"Your words... they tread dangerously close to blasphemy."
He wasn't just angry. He was insulted to the core. But his pride, though immense, was not blind. Kaeryndor was the Warden of the Graveyard not merely for his strength but for his discernment. His duty wasn't to lash out like a beast at every provocation. It was to protect, to test, to judge.
He could have killed the boy a hundred different ways. Turned his bones to ash. Eaten his spirit whole. But that wouldn't quiet the question now lodged in his mind like a splinter:
Why?
Why would someone especially someone so seemingly insignificant dismiss the Dragon Heart? Did he not know its worth?
Was this arrogance?
Kaeryndor clenched his jaw.
To kill him now would be too easy. And too unsatisfying.
It would leave a nagging unease… a question unanswered… a risk unmeasured.
"Is this truly the rambling of a fool," he thought, eyes narrowing."
The sacred artifact wasn't just powerful. It was sacred. The culmination of lifetimes of sacrifice, pain, and myth. To call it 'useless' wasn't just wrong it was insulting on a cosmic level. But Kaeryndor wasn't a mere beast defending treasure. He was a Warden. A judge. And right now, he had to decide:
Kaeryndor's clawed fingers curled ever so slightly, nails biting into the stone hilt of his weapon. The air around him burned with suppressed fury. His pride his duty could not tolerate such blasphemy.
To insult the Dragon Heart… was to insult the entire legacy of the draconic race.
And he its eternal guardian must hold the dignity.
He was the Guardian of the Dragon Heart its eternal warden, chosen by the flames of fate themselves. And the very idea that someone would dare call it useless…
Unforgivable.
In his eyes, there was only one appropriate response to such sacrilege:
To make the offender kneel. Face pressed into the ground. Begging for mercy with bloodied lips before ending their own life as penance.
Only then could Kaeryndor's fury be stilled.
His hand twitched on the hilt of the dragon blade, already picturing it cleaving the boy in half.
But then
The human spoke again.
---