"You do not wield dragons. You do not ride them. You suffer beside them.
And if it lets you live, you call it a bond."
— The Hollowwyrm Codex, page scorched and half-erased
I.
The air around Reginal J. Ashveil had changed.
It no longer shimmered with heat.
It trembled — like the world itself had begun to doubt its own rules in his presence.
He stood now at the foot of the Nameless Wyrm, the last dragon of Yr'Thalos — once forgotten, now bound by oath.
It spoke in a voice that peeled stone from mountains.
"You carry the Flame Unnamed… and a grief old enough to burn continents."
"Then rise with me," Reginal replied.
"Because I've got a world to punish."
II.
The binding was not ritual.
It was pain.
Not his. The dragon's.
To forge the Ashbound Pact, the beast had to remember everything it had forgotten — every friend lost, every sky blackened, every time it bowed to men not worthy of wings.
And Reginal had to witness it all.
They knelt together — king and monster.
And when they rose, there was no leash.
No saddle.
Only a pact written in scream and soot.
"What is your name?" Reginal asked.
"It was taken," the dragon rumbled.
"But if I must carry one again… call me Ma'karash."
"Then let the skies remember," Reginal said.
"And let the world kneel… or turn to cinder."
III.
When they returned to Emberhall — Kammy silent, Milo hollow-eyed — the war council was waiting.
Their eyes widened when they saw Reginal dismount the dragon not like a rider… but like a brother in fire.
He walked barefoot across the council table.
His voice thundered.
"We sail at dusk.
The Silent Circle will bleed.
The kings of old will beg.
And if the heavens protest —
I will burn them too."
IV.
But beneath the waves, in the ruins of Old Ariveth, a woman opened her eyes.
She was older than kingdoms.
Her name: Vessira the Hollow-Womb.
First of the Silent Circle.
Bearer of the Spell That Unnames.
She looked into a mirror of smoke and saw Reginal.
"He carries too much pain," she whispered.
"And pain… is the doorway."
"Shall we stop him?" her servant asked.
She smiled.
"No. Let him come."
"Why?"
"Because the deeper he goes… the more he'll remember what we buried inside him."
V.
That night, Reginal stood alone atop Emberhall.
He held a blade of ash — Ma'karash's fang, ripped free and reforged into a weapon that remembers pain.
He named it: Mournshard.
It whispered to him.
Not in words.
But in promises.
"You'll never lose again," it said.
"Not because you're stronger…
But because now, you've got nothing left to lose."
TO BE CONTINUED…
Next: Chapter XVI – "The Spell That Unnames"
The war begins. Reginal sails for the Circle. But the Silent Ones don't wait. They strike first — and what they unleash will challenge Reginal not as a king… but as a man who dares to feel.