Mira, a young cartographer from the Lower Birch, knew the mountains like the ropes of her own hand. Below the Silver Ridge, stalls were already being packed for the Night of the Husks, a festival remembering the time of the dragons. In the town archives, she smoothed over burnt maps and transcribed songs where the river had gills and the rocks had memory. That morning, she received a package without a seal: a single shell, cool as morning and heavy as a vine stone. On the back it concealed a strange arrangement of coordinates, written in a script she had only seen on ancient steel stelae. Mira carried the husk into the Hall of Atlases and laid it on the outstretched map of the massif. The lines on the parchment twitched as if someone had awakened them, and the husk began to tinkle. The trembling led towards the Cloud Cave, where children were frightened with a short spell about fire and salt. She remembered her grandmother's words about the guard sleeping underwater, and decided to check the truth. Olek from the night guard wanted to turn her away, recalling harsh fines and heart attacks. She smiled pale, put the shell in her pocket and quietly set off before dusk. The cave welcomed her with a breath of coolness, smelling of moss and the rust of ancient sharp troughs. Dragon engravings swirled on the walls, rough lines formed into sentences of warnings and requests. Mira read a passage: Do not wake unless you lift the fire, yet she walked on. Where the map ended in a white spot, an underground lake, smooth as obsidian, awaited. She pressed her scales to the water and heard a clear tone, penetrating like a nail in ice. The mirror parted into a narrow corridor, and pale amber lights lit up at the bottom. Walking down the stone walkway, she felt the air thicken, carrying the scent of resin and heated ore. From the gloom rose an arch of ossified ribs, glued together by ancient magic and salt. Behind them pulsed a rhythm unmistakable: a heavy, slow heart that knew no winter. On the clearance she caught sight of a scales glinting like mica and looked into a face not face, strewn with moss and sparkle. The dragon was asleep, yet its breath raised a fine dust, as if it sensed footsteps. Mira raised her hand, uncertain whether she was greeting or apologising, and whether she had a right to be here. The shell tore out of her pocket and sucked on her ribs, emitting a short, metallic laugh. The mechanism, hidden in her bones, creaked and the water under the platform churned like a cauldron. The clatter of boots and Olek's voice, rising in panic, came from the distance, but was drowned out by another sound. An eye opened behind her ribs, golden as the autumn sun, and looked straight at Mira. The air suddenly thickened with heat as the ancient breast rose for the first time in centuries, and the dragon drew in air.