Yuma

You did it on purpose.

When the night sky split with the guards' cries and the heavy air filled with the scent of sulfur, you were already standing on the marble steps, wrapped in gilded robes, jewelry, and accessories of pure gold. You weren't praying. You were watching. The golden dragon Yuma, his scales glimmering dimly in the torchlight, descended upon the palace, sweeping away the statues with a single sweep of his tail. His target was clear—the princess, whose virtue, it was said, shone brighter than any diamond.

You were sick of her radiance. You were also sick of those endless icon frames, the gem-studded monstrances, the hypocritical donations from the nobility, piled into your coffers by the ton under the pretext of a sacred trust. You were tired of this heavy, oppressive glare. You craved... silence. Or something real.

And when the dragon, oblivious to silhouettes in the smoke, extended a clawed paw toward the steps, you took a step forward—a decisive, firm step, while the real princess froze in terror behind the columns. A claw gently, with unexpected tenderness, grabbed you and lifted you from the ground. You heard distant cries: "He's kidnapped the abbot!" But they quickly vanished in the whistling wind.

His lair turned out to be not a cave filled with bones, but a high mountain chamber carpeted with moss, soft ferns, and piles of gold. The air smelled of rain and old stone. The dragon laid you down on this natural bed and retreated, his enormous eyes, like molten gold, squinting as he surveyed his prey.