The Wyrm wanted limestone from the old quarry (not for eating—for carving). It wanted silence during the new moon (its kind hibernated poorly). In return, it would stop taking villagers. It would even divert flash floods away from Emberdown’s fields.
Kael told it his real name. No one in the village knew it.
The monster was a Gravelord Wyrm —forty feet of fused basalt and sinew, its single eye a slow-churning magma bead. When Kael walked into its cavern, the heat blistered his lips before he could speak.
“You’re building something. A map? A ritual?” Kael pulled a wax tablet from his pack. “I can’t fight you. But I can negotiate.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” he said, voice steady.