I first spotted the draconic temple from the air, gliding in on slate-grey wings and the turbulence rolling off my furrowed brow.

I’d spent the best part of the past hundred years tracking down rumours of ancient ruins, religious sites and libraries, crumbling cities built to be accessed only from the sky.

I’d traced the exodus of my people from the upthrust lands far to the west, documented in scraps of parchment and faded bas-relief.

The dusk of the interior was lit only by the candles swaying on the tips of my whiskers as I progressed from anterior to altar, from altar to sanctum.

The elevation of each inward chamber radically shifted, breaking sight-lines and proving impassable to any intruder not fit for flight.

And then, deep in their archives, I found what I’d been searching for, all this time. Dark rituals, fit for a draconic soul like mine.

Home once more, I laid out the candles, cast the salt in pleasing arcs. The rumble of the mountain provided an ashen noise to drown out my conscious thoughts.

It’s hard to live so long, you see, to learn so much. At some point in centuries past, my mind became a hornet’s nest, my focus brought low by the passage of time and those I have known and lost.

As the ritual brought a tickle of flame to my lips, I took a breath and began to relax.