I could not name it, but I felt it pressing closer the unseen presence I had sensed on the roof. Not a dream, not a trick of the night. Something vast and ancient moved just beyond the veil of the ordinary, and for reasons I did not understand, it had turned its gaze toward me.
The village lay hushed beneath the pale wash of moonlight, every lantern long extinguished. Shadows stretched across the stones, and the river glimmered faintly as though keeping its own counsel. I should have turned back, but something an unease I could not name drew me closer.
A small figure darted at the edge of the reeds. Bare feet splashed against the bank, laughter light and careless in the silence. It was little Shen, no older than six, chasing fireflies as if the night belonged only to him.
Then the laughter broke. A slip, a cry cut short. The river swallowed him whole.
My heart froze. I called his name, but the current carried him under, deeper than it should, the water strangely bright beneath the moon. For an instant I thought I saw it shimmer a thread of silver, winding like a living thing in the depths.
I did not think. I leapt.
The cold seized me at once, dragging me down. The world above dissolved into ripples of light, muffled and distant. The current coiled around my limbs like a hand, pulling me further, deeper. My chest burned, my mind screamed for air, but beneath the darkness there was something else light. Silver light, curling like smoke, thickening into a path that led where no river should.
Shen was gone, vanished into that glow.
I fought the current, but it was stronger than me, older than me. Just as my strength faltered, the water shifted. A shadow moved vast, immense its shape too fluid to name. Scales glimmered, silver as starlight, eyes bright with a cold, ageless fire.
An ancient dragon.
The river trembled around him. His gaze met mine, and in that gaze I felt not only fear, but the weight of something waiting a truth, hidden deep below the world I thought I knew.
And then the darkness closed in.
Silence.
Not the silence of night, nor of sleep but something deeper, vaster. My eyes opened slowly, and the world that met me was nothing I had ever known.
The river was no river. Its waters glowed with pale light, threads of silver weaving through the dark like veins of living fire. Towers of coral rose in the distance, bending and shimmering as though they were carved from crystal. Strange blossoms floated in the current, their petals glowing softly, casting ripples of color into the depths.
I should have been drowning. My chest should have been burning. Yet I breathed, each breath cool and heavy, as though the water itself welcomed me.
And then I felt it that presence.
I turned, and there he was. The dragon I had glimpsed was no longer a shadow of scales and light. He loomed in the current, vast and terrible, silver coils winding through the gloom. His mane drifted like strands of the moon itself, and his eyes deep, black, and steady watched me with an intensity that rooted me to stillness.