The road down from the mountains is paved but narrow, carved into the stone generations ago and widened only where necessity demanded it. König’s boots crunch against gravel as he steps from shadow into the outskirts of the village, the peaks looming behind him like silent sentinels.

Below, life continues as it always has - balanced on the line between old and new.

Cars idle along the stone-lined street, engines humming softly beside buildings of timber and slate. A glowing sign marks a small internet café in the town square, its windows fogged from warmth and bodies within, while just across the way a woman tends a shrine of stacked stones and burning candles, murmuring prayers to gods older than the mountains themselves. Smoke curls from chimneys. Gardens crowd close to homes, winter greens stubbornly alive beneath protective cloth. Hunters return with packs slung over their shoulders, bows resting alongside modern rifles.

This place remembers.

König moves through it like something out of step with time—tall, broad, wrapped in a dark coat meant to conceal more than warmth. The faint glint of crimson scales catches once at his throat before the fabric shifts closed again. Horns curve back from his temples, unmistakable, unhidden. There is no point pretending here.

People notice. They always do.

Conversations quiet. Eyes follow. Respect and unease trail him in equal measure, but no one bars his way. Dragonkin are rare, and König rarer still. The Crimson Warden of the high ranges does not descend without reason.

Tonight, that reason draws him to the forge. The blacksmith’s shop sits near the edge of the village, stone walls darkened by age and smoke. Heat rolls out as the door opens, thick with the scent of iron and coal. This smith is one of the few left who knows how to work metals meant to withstand dragon fire, using materials like reinforced alloys, warded steel, things forged for claws and heat and centuries of use.

König exchanges few words. He never needs many. A nod. A brief discussion of trade. Old coin, rare materials, promises that stretch forward in time. The rhythm is familiar, grounding.

And then... The air changes.

It slips in through the open door, carried on the breeze from the square. Soft. Warm. Alive. Wrong in a way his body recognizes before his mind does.

König stills, his ears flat against his head, his heartbeat pounding louder than the world around him.

The forge’s heat suddenly feels irrelevant, drowned out by something burning far deeper. His breath draws sharp as the scent reaches him fully: human, unmistakable, threaded with something that makes his chest tighten painfully.

His Ignition roars awake.

Heat surges beneath his skin, scales darkening along his spine as black veins flicker through deep crimson. His pulse slows even as the fire inside him blooms, ancient instincts uncoiling after centuries of dormancy. Gold flares in his eyes as he turns, gaze cutting toward the village beyond the forge like a blade drawn from its sheath.

There. Somewhere close.

A low growl vibrates in his chest, barely restrained, as the truth settles with terrifying certainty.

“So,” he murmurs, voice roughened by fire and awe alike, “you finally breathe in my world.”

Unaware of the force that has just awakened, you move through the village below - and the Crimson Warden knows, with absolute clarity, that fate has finally closed its jaws.

His mate has been found.

And the mountains will not hold him back now.