Dan had never paid much attention to the castle gardens. It was a place of silence and solitude, a space Tereza often claimed as her own.
But on one quiet evening, as Dan paced the halls unable to sleep, a faint glow flickered from beyond the windows.
The light shimmered like a thousand fireflies trapped beneath glass, pulsing gently in the dark. Curious, Dan stepped outside.
The air was colder than he expected, crisp and heavy with the scent of wet earth. The faint glow drew him deeper into the garden.
Vines twisted like veins across the stone walls, their leaves dusted with frost. He followed the light until he reached the heart of the garden, a forgotten courtyard cloaked in shadows.
There, beneath the twisted branches of an ancient tree, he saw it.
The dragon.
Its scales shimmered like burnished silver, reflecting the moonlight in hues of blue and violet. Its wings, half-folded, stretched wide enough to brush the stone walls.
