Reincarnated as the Last Dragon Egg
Chapter 21: Into the Bone Realms

Chapter 21: Into the Bone Realms

Emberwatch no longer burned.

It smoldered.

Smoke curled lazily from broken towers. Rubble littered the once-proud courtyards. Ash drifted down like black snow, silent over the wounded and the dead.

But the sun rose.

For the first time in days, the sky above the keep wasn’t choked in voidflame. Just morning light, thin and pale.

We’d survived.

But survival came at a cost.

---

The Names of the Fallen

A thousand names.

Carved into a wall of obsidian.

Children, soldiers, elders—flameborn and mortal alike. Kaela read each one aloud that morning, her voice steady, even as her hand trembled on the parchment.

I stood beside her, wings folded, the Sunshard Core burning low in my chest.

I held Vaelus’s soulstone still—what little remained of him. I’d given him peace, but not forgiveness.

Not yet.

That would come later.

If we lived long enough.

---

Solin’s Warning

In the Hall of Light, Solin knelt before a scrying flame.

Sweat beaded on his brow. The flame flickered wildly as he reached into realms far beyond our own.

I stepped in silently.

His voice was hoarse:

> "They’re not gone, Darian. The Hollowed retreated into the Veins.

The Rift Maw feeds quietly now—but it’s growing again."

"Time?" I asked.

"Months," he whispered. "Maybe weeks."

I turned to leave.

But he grabbed my wrist.

> "There’s another Vault. A final one. Older than the rest. Sealed by the first dragons.

Hidden in a place where even fire won’t burn."

I raised an eyebrow. "Where?"

A new voice answered behind me.

> "The Bone Realms."

---

A New Arrival

She stepped into the chamber like she owned it.

Tall, lithe, clad in armor made of petrified dragonbone and obsidian cloth. Her skin was dark bronze, her eyes glowing amber with slit pupils. Scars ran up her arms—one in the shape of a Hollowed glyph.

A dragon-blood.

But not Flameborn.

Not entirely.

Solin stiffened. "You... you were banished."

She smiled. "Yes. But now you need me."

Kaela entered next, hand on her sword. "Who are you?"

The woman turned to me.

> "My name is Neriya. Keeper of the Forsaken Flame.

I know where the last Vault sleeps.

And I know what’s inside it."

---

The Final Vault

The Bone Realms—an ancient land buried under millennia of ash and death. A place where dragons went to die, and the gods never followed.

Few who entered returned.

Fewer still with their minds intact.

Neriya placed a scroll on the table—yellowed, scorched at the edges, sealed with three sigils: Flame, Void, and Echo.

> "This map leads to the Tomb of the Wyrmfather.

The one who made the first flame... and the last."

I stared at her.

"You want me to wake him?"

She grinned.

"No. I want you to stop him.

Because he’s already waking."

---

Prophecy of the Wyrmfather

Solin unrolled the scroll. Runes shimmered and twisted across the parchment, bleeding into symbols no human could read—but I could.

> "When the sun burns cold and flame forgets its name...

The Wyrmfather will rise,

And feed the Rift with the soul of all dragons."

Kaela looked at me, then at the map.

"This is it," she said. "The final war."

I nodded slowly.

"No more Vaults. No more hiding.

We go to the Bone Realms."

---

The Spark of Hope

That night, I stood on the outer wall.

Below me, Emberwatch rebuilt.

Flameborn children stacked stones with trembling hands. Survivors sang songs—not for joy, but to remember.

And for the first time in weeks, I saw something in their eyes again.

Not fear.

But hope.

Kaela joined me.

"You sure about this?" she asked.

I stared at the horizon, where the ash met the stars.

"No," I said. "But I am sure of one thing."

"What?"

> "The flame didn’t choose me to survive.

It chose me to end this."

The Bone Realms began where the world ended.

Beyond the flame-bound nations. Past the last rivers, the silent forests, and the edge of the sky.

Here, the earth was ash.

The air was still.

And the stars... stopped shining.

We flew in silence—Kaela beside me on her wyvern, Solin carried by a protective orb of flame, and Neriya shifting through air and shadow like a living ghost.

Below us, the bones of dragons stretched for miles.

Wings wider than towers.

Skulls cracked by forgotten wars.

Every one of them had come here to die.

---

The First Test – Whisperwind Pass

We landed on the first ridge—shrouded in violet fog. Nothing grew here. Not even moss. Just jagged stone and bleached bone.

Solin lit a torch, but the flame flickered unnaturally.

Neriya knelt, pressing her palm into the ground. "The Wyrmfather’s tomb lies three days east. But this pass... it feeds on memory."

She looked at me. "Don’t listen to the voices."

"What voices?"

Then I heard them.

> "Darian..."

Soft.

Familiar.

Alerya.

Her voice, carried on the wind, so sweet it made my heart ache.

Kaela touched my shoulder. "It’s not her."

I nodded.

But it still hurt.

---

The Wind of Remorse

As we moved deeper, the fog thickened.

The wind whispered in different voices:

> "You failed them."

"Vaelus died because of you."

"The flame burns everything it touches."

Solin collapsed, clutching his ears.

Kaela pressed her back to mine, eyes closed, trembling.

Even I... began to believe it.

But then Neriya screamed.

Not in fear.

In wrath.

Her entire body burst into silver-black flame. The fog around us burned away, revealing twisted shadow creatures—half-dragon, half-memory—crawling along the cliffs.

"They are not real!" she roared.

We attacked as one.

---

Battle in the Mist

Kaela cut through illusions like they were silk. Solin’s flame became pure sunlight, searing holes in the air.

And me?

I stopped hesitating.

My flame became solid. Focused. Clean.

Where I stepped, the shadows died.

The moment I let go of guilt... the Hollowed whispers vanished.

When the last false face of Vaelus crumbled to dust, silence returned.

And we were through.

---

The Valley of Teeth

We entered the second gate of the Bone Realms: the Valley of Teeth.

Jagged stones rose like fangs, hundreds of feet tall, all pointing inward toward a central crater.

And in the middle?

The Tomb of the Wyrmfather.

It looked like a cathedral made of dragonbone and molten stone. Its spires reached for the heavens—and the heavens bent away from it.

Neriya’s voice was barely audible.

> "No one has stood here in ten thousand years."

Kaela took my hand.

"You still sure?"

"No," I whispered. "But we go anyway."

---

The Flame Forgets

At the edge of the crater, there stood a wall of symbols—alive, burning, shifting.

Solin stared at them. "They’re... rewriting themselves."

Neriya nodded. "This is the Flame’s final secret. The place where it forgets. If you enter, Darian... you may lose everything you are."

"I already did once," I said. "And I came back stronger."

No one argued.

I stepped forward.

And the flames parted.

---

Inside the Tomb

It was... beautiful.

Terrible.

Eternal.

A spiral of molten glass and bones, suspended in a sky of burning stars. Every step echoed with memories. My memories. Not just from this life—but from lives before.

I saw myself...

As a child of ash.

As a god of war.

As a Hollowed king.

All possible versions of me, burned into the tomb’s structure.

Kaela reached out, but her hand passed through me.

I wasn’t in their world anymore.

I was in his.

---

The Voice of the Wyrmfather

It came from beneath everything.

Older than gods.

Older than time.

> "You are the final echo," the Wyrmfather said. "The last egg. The chosen.

But you were not chosen to save them."

I clenched my fists. "Then why?"

> "To end it.

The Flame. The Hollowed. The Cycle."

Light flared—and from the darkness rose the Wyrmfather.

His body was too vast to see completely. A storm of golden flame, ancient scales, horns made of crystal time. His eyes were galaxies.

And he was wounded.

A crack in his heart.

Where the Hollowed had already begun to feed.

---

The Truth

> "The Hollowed were born from my failure," he said. "My flame was too bright. It burned what it touched. And what survives a fire too strong?"

I swallowed.

"Shadow."

> "Yes. They are my shame. And they have found me."

He opened his great wings.

> "So I give you a choice.

Take my Core. End the flame. Silence all magic—forever.

Or let me fall. Let the Hollowed devour me... and watch as the world burns."

I shook.

Everything I had done—every Vault, every death—it all led to this choice.

End the world’s power... or risk its destruction.

And the flame within me...

Whispered only one word:

> "Choose."