Chapter Fifteen: The Land Where Dragons Rise
Gold.
Gold.
Damn gold again.
Lilith felt like Bosaklie had stuffed her life full of gold, until every glance tasted metallic. If the Little White Dragon ever got back to her old world, she’d never toggle a gold-themed skin in any game. Ask her why; after eating golden sand in Bosaklie, the color itself made her gag.
The only mercy was this gold ran paler, like watered sunlight, less nauseating on the tongue.
The Little White Dragon stepped onto a golden river—no, a creek, thin as a ribbon of dawn. The shallow flow barely covered Lilith’s slim ankles; when she hit a knuckle of uneven ground, the snow-pale top of her foot poked out, a small island in half-gold water.
There was nothing here but the creek, a single brushstroke across an empty canvas. Instinct tugged. She moved forward, one limping, mincing step at a time, like a heron testing silt.
The creek ran to the horizon, a gilt thread never-ending. Somewhere ahead, a woman’s voice seemed to sing the kind of song that made men collapse where they stood, breath stolen like a tide at midnight. But Lilith kept walking, just like that man had told her. Duty first; fear later.
The good thing—she believed the truth she wanted waited not far ahead, like a pearl buried under the next dune. After Star Canvas had dragged her through so many dreams, Lilith had learned the pattern: rivers, roads, doors—these were only devices, keys to pry loose memories lodged in the marrow. She trusted that if she pushed a little more, the memory carrying her truth would open.
Walking the creek was boring, boredom like dust clogging the throat. To keep from drifting and getting lost in this bottle of memory, Lilith counted primes in her head, beads on a silent rosary.
She hadn’t walked long. When she reached nine thirty-three, the endless creek hit an end. At its terminus burned a clump of gold light, a lantern under deep sand.
Joy jumped like a fish. Lilith broke into a small run, splashes of gold tinkling around her legs, and reached the glow. The memory was tougher than she’d thought; even with her standing right beside it, it didn’t open its arms.
Fine. Not a welcoming host. Lilith shrugged. The memory’s attitude meant nothing; all that mattered was getting inside and seeing what it carried. Welcome or rejection—she’d always been immune to that weather.
The Little White Dragon laid her slender hand on the gold radiance. The light-skin cracked like an eggshell at her touch, opening a neat slit, just wide enough to slip in.
What she saw inside wasn’t rare footage of three houses carving up the Necromancer Cultists, nor the origin of the first Demon building an empire off selling hooks. In this deeply buried memory, Lilith saw someone very familiar—yet still a stranger.
To be precise, a stranger dragon.
The great dragon Lilith had never seen whole sat before the Little White Dragon. Its enormity dwarfed mountains Lilith had once flown over. It was earth; it was law; it was the reason this land earned the word continent.
The Mother of Earth, Gaia—the dragon whose leftover bones could become Dragon Territory for others to roost on. In some sense, Lilith’s foster parent now.
“Uh… hello?” The Little White Dragon blurted, a reflex tossed like a pebble. No response came back. At first she thought her voice was too small. With Gaia that large, even shredding her throat might not carry.
So Lilith decided to go full dragon.
Even when the holy White Dragon returned to the world in light and wing, the Mother of Earth didn’t spare her a glance. Lilith started doubting her own charm. Wasn’t she the Little White Dragon everyone adored? How could any dragon refuse to look at her?
She figured it out quickly. This Gaia wasn’t Gaia’s soul. She was an imprint, a moment the great dragon left in the river of time. If it were truly Gaia, how would dragons ever allow her to linger on Demon land?
She gave up on communication and shifted back into human form. She found a random patch of sand, sat, hugged her knees like a patient child, and stared up at the dragon, waiting to see what Gaia would do.
She didn’t wait long. Another dragon entered the memory. Compared to Gaia, this one was small, no bigger than Nidhogg when he took his dragon shape. Ten or twenty meters still made a monster, especially next to Lilith’s single-digit frame, pocket-sized in contrast. But under cloud-piercing Gaia, it was an ant under a cliff.
The odd part was its color—it was yellow. Lilith remembered no dragons of that color inside Dragon Territory. Maybe an earth-dragon with a rare shade?
The yellow dragon settled before Gaia. It lifted its head high. Lilith couldn’t read its expression, but pride curled off it like heat.
“……”
Huh?
Why was there no sound in this memory? Was Demon tech really that shoddy?
The Little White Dragon tried rewinding a few times, the past flickering like broken film. Nothing. Silence held, hard as stone.
Lilith couldn’t help it—frustration flared, a spark catching dry straw. How could it go silent right at the crucial point? Why make her run all this way for nothing?
Feeling like a fool, she sat on the sand, ready to let the memory finish so she could go find that bartender and demand answers. Chin propped on her hand, she watched Gaia and the nameless dragon mime their conversation, silence thick as felt. Sleep dragged at her like surf, and her eyelids sagged.
Then Gaia lifted her claw. The shadow of it fell like a mountain. She slashed down, a strike bigger than anything Lilith had ever seen. The yellow dragon didn’t even have time to flinch. With a sickening smack, it burst into a blood-flower blooming under Gaia’s talons.
Gaia didn’t even check her paw. Wings boomed once; she soared up, never looking back, and left the desert like a storm departing.
Lilith looked, trembling, to where the dragon had just stood. Only a yellow meat pancake lay there, seeping blood in slow, dark threads.
Now that was a jolt.
That was Lilith’s last thought as the memory booted her out.
