After 78 years of sleep, Valdor slowly regained his consciousness.
Silence fell around him like fog, his body was heavy, like he was made out of stone. He opened his eyes — darkness. He felt the cold surface of the stone slabs beneath him.
— Where.. am i... — he croaked, but his voice echoed against the stone walls.
He didn't remember much. War. Scream of his mother. Fire. And then... void. He tightened his fists, when the flashbacks were flying through his head like sparks: dragons, flashes of steel, the burning sky. He knew one thing — he shouldn't be alive.
He barely got up, supporting himself against the column. He was surrounded by ruined pillars, cracked sarcophagus, faded, long forgotten runes. The Tomb, his own grave.
Suddenly, the figure of a woman emerged from the darkness — tall, a slim figure with eyes that shined like purple crystals.
— Who are you? — He asked in disbelief, taking a light step back.
She didn't answer. Instead she raised a hand and the quiet, melodic words of the spell flowed from her lips. The air trembled, the runes around Valdor flashed, and the curse that held his body in the jail of time began to crack like a thin sheet of glass.
— Wait!— he called out and moved towards her, but the woman disappeared into the darkness, like the shadow of a dream.
Valdor walked out of the tomb. Rays of pale sunlight penetrated through the overgrown cracks in the ruins.
What he saw, was worse than death. Ruins, silence, empty roads. His father's castle — lay in ruins. Villages he protected — burnt to the ground. And over it all flew the black flag of the empire. A symbol of betrayal. A symbol of those he had fought with until their last breath.
Valdor looked at the sky. The wind blew through his long hair, and his eyes shone with a glow of fire, that never went out.
— I am the only one who will... revive the dragon world.