A boy's frozen fingers slipped on the icy rock, and he nearly fell off the mountain. He caught himself and kept climbing. At the top he crawled into a black cave that smelled of old smoke. Deep inside, one huge yellow eye slid open. "Go away, child," the dragon rumbled. "Please," the boy gasped. "The Ashen Legion is coming. They burn my village at sunrise. You're the last dragon. You have to fight them." The eye narrowed. "I don't fight. Not anymore."

The boy didn't leave. He sat in the cave mouth, wrapped his thin arms around his knees, and talked. He told the dragon his little sister's name. He told it about the bread his mother baked. He talked all night, his voice cracking. The dragon listened, silent. Near dawn, something old and heavy stirred in its chest. It hadn't felt it in three hundred years.

The dragon stood, but its legs trembled. "I'm still afraid," it admitted. "I have been afraid for three hundred years." The boy put his small hand on its huge scaled foot. "So am I," he said. "We can be scared together." The dragon looked at him a long moment. Then it breathed in deep, and for the first time in centuries a curl of real fire glowed at the back of its throat.