All Chapters of Frostbound Dragon's heir: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
10 chapters
CHAPTER 1
The air in the Sanctum of the Frozen Dragon was thinner than anywhere else on the glacier. I understood deeply that it had to be. To bind an ice dragon’s spirit, which is unleashing a god-tier entity to a mortal body, required a space of complete stillness and calm.My grandfather, Alros, knelt across from me, his presence radiating the suffocating weight of three centuries of Vornic history. He was the anchor of the North, the Warden who held the Empire at bay with nothing but a gaze and the soul of the dragon, Kyzyl-Vorn, shackled to his heart."You are the second son, Evander," he rasped, his voice a dry rustle of dead leaves. "By tradition, you were meant for the sword, not the mantle. But the frost demands a vessel, and my time is leaking out into the permafrost."He reached out, his hand shaking as he grabbed mine. The air between us shifted slightly and my heart hammered furiously.He was about to bind me to the most powerful dragon spirit in the entire nation and be the vessel
CHAPTER 2
The cold seeped deep into my skin, making my bones tremble. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket that pressed against my consciousness, deeper and more violently than any winter I had ever endured in the Vornic stronghold.I woke up in a tomb of complete black darkness and a quick fear gripped me. My lungs were completely paralyzed, and for a terrifying moment, I thought I was dead. I thought I had finally become the statue the Commander wanted me to be.But just then, a flicker of light—a foreign, pulsing cerulean glow—throbbed in my chest.Thump-thrum. Thump-thrum.It was the dragon spirit. It wasn't beating like a human heart, but thumping like the countdown of a time bomb. It was the only thing keeping my body from shattering into dust.I clawed at the ice above me desperately. The frozen weight above me was thick and dense with the magical residue of the massacre.“Ah!” A scream ripped from my throat as my fingers broke, bleeding into the ice.But the pain didn’t last long. My ner
CHAPTER 3
The road south was a serpentine scar etched into the frozen tundra, leading away from everything I had ever known. We weren't meant to move as normal travellers; we were supposed to be ghosts, huddled in rags, blending into the endless procession of refugees fleeing the Glacier Collapse.Orsa’s body was failing her gradually. The wound in her side had festered, turning a sickly, color of grey, but she refused to stop walking. Every step was a testament to her iron will, and every step was another drop of venom and rage in my blood."Head down," she hissed, her voice barely audible over the biting wind. "The Imperial patrol is ahead. Do not look them in the eye. Do not use your flame and do not let the spirit surface. You are just a frightened boy who lost his family to a magical accident. That is your story, Evander…your only story."I pulled the coarse, lice-ridden wool of my cloak tighter around my face. My left hand—the numb, frozen claw that felt like it belonged to a corpse—was s
CHAPTER 4
The capital city of Oros was made of white marble and gold, a sprawling monument to the Sun-King’s hubris that smelled perpetually of incense. Beneath its greatness, the city was a grinding machine of status and cruelty. I didn’t care for the gold. I only cared for the Imperial Repository—a massive, vaulted building of stone that stood as the center of the Empire.I secured work as a stable hand at the Crown’s Rest, a sprawling complex that backed directly onto the Repository’s outer walls. It wasn't glorious really, nor was it the lowest rung of the ladder—mucking stalls, hauling feed, and keeping my head down while men with far more gold than conscience barked orders at me. But the proximity was perfect. Every night, while I scrubbed the stench of manure from my boots, I mapped the guard rotations of the Repository. I learned where the patrols were weak, where the light-wards flickered, and how many heartbeats it would take to slip past the gates if I only had the strength.But my
CHAPTER 5
The shift from stable hand to grounds-keeper for the Imperial Repository was like a death sentence, yet it was the only path that led through the iron gates.My days eventually became a constant stretch of pruning gargoyle-encrusted hedges and hauling crates of forbidden texts into the massive, echoing vaults of the archives.Every step took me deeper into the belly of the beast, and every step felt like the ice inside me was grinding against my bones.I was cleaning the terrace overlooking the Royal Gardens when I saw her.She wasn't flanked by the usual legion of Sunfire soldiers. She walked alone, a splash of soft, pale silk against the harsh, marble of the capital. Princess Liora. The youngest daughter of the man who had signed my family’s death warrant.I kept my head down, my breath rattling in my frozen chest, and gripped my shears so hard the metal groaned. My left hand was screaming in a silent, numb agony, and the blue glow beneath my skin felt like it was burning through m
CHAPTER 6
The deception was a slow, agonizing poison, and I didn’t realize it yet, but was the one drinking it.I began to craft my presence around the Repository grounds like a ghost who knew exactly where the sun hit the marble. I ensured I was pruning the bougainvillea when Liora took her mid-afternoon walks. I made myself useful by fetching a fallen scroll, clearing a path, or simply holding the gate so she wouldn’t have to strain. It was all very coldly calculated. It was everything the Vornics were taught to despise, yet I did it with a bowed head and a voice of practiced, trembling humility."You again," Liora said one afternoon, her smile bright enough to hurt. She was holding a stack of scrolls that looked heavier than she’s supposed to carry."Just doing my rounds, My Lady," I murmured, my eyes fixed on the hem of her silk gown. My left hand was screaming. The frost had moved up to my elbow now and the skin there was now a translucent, ghostly grey, and if I wasn't careful, I’d leav
CHAPTER 7
The air inside the inner sanctum of the Repository was sterile, reeking of incense and old parchment. It was a place where history went to be dissected and completely silenced.I hauled the heavy display crate toward the pedestal, my muscles trembling slightly. Every movement felt like a chore to me. The frost was no longer just in my veins; it was a physical weight, a lethargy that made every limb feel like it was forged from lead. My left hand was entirely useless now. It had become a pale, mottled grey claw hidden inside my tunic, and the cold was crawling up my shoulder, nipping at the base of my neck."Careful with that," the chief curator barked, his face a mask of nervous sweat. "The Emperor is due in three days. If that glass is smudged, it’ll be your head, boy."I nodded, keeping my gaze lowered. I maneuvered the crate onto the velvet-lined dais. As I began to unseal the transport locks, I caught the metallic clink—a sound I had heard in my nightmares for months.My grandfat
CHAPTER 8
I ran to the deepest, most suffocating darkness the Repository had to offer. My heart was a frantic, freezing drum, and the Binding Chain, wrapped tightly around my forearm, was pulsing in perfect, agonizing synchronicity with my icy veins. Every step I took left a trail of rime on the floor, it was like a shimmering breadcrumb path for every guard in the city to follow and there was nothing I could do about it.I ducked into an alcove beneath a grand staircase, my lungs burning with the effort of holding back the ice. I was preparing to fight, my hand raised to unleash a wave of ice capable of freezing the whole city, when a shadow detached itself from the wall.I whipped around, the Binding Chain rising like a striking snake, but the man didn't attack. Instead, he held up his hands, his palms open, his face aged and lined with the weary wisdom of a man who had seen too many secrets rot in the dark."Put it down, boy," he whispered, his voice as thin as parchment and careful. "Befor
CHAPTER 9
The morning of the Emperor’s inspection arrived with a brutal, sun-drenched clarity that felt like a mockery. Oros was transformed into a city of gold and noise, the streets choked with citizens cheering for the man who had orchestrated the erasure of my family. I moved through the crowd like a freezing blade in a velvet sheath.Theo had provided the decoy—a masterfully crafted replica of the Binding Chain, weighted with lead and etched with runes that mimicked the dragon-steel’s aura.It was a brilliant forgery, but it wouldn't hold the truth. It would only hold the gaze of the Emperor for long enough for me to vanish."Remember," Theo whispered as we stood in the shadow of the Repository’s outer colonnade, his voice barely cutting through the blare of imperial trumpets. "You are not a warrior today, you are a shadow, boy. If you react, if you let the spirit break the surface, you won't just die—you’ll be a cautionary tale for the next century of students.""I know," I muttered.My
CHAPTER 10
The vault doors slammed shut with the weight of ancient, enchanted iron, sealing the inner sanctum into a tomb of our own making. The gold-filigreed guards didn't rush me with drawn blades. They formed a perfect, suffocating circle, their weapons held low, their faces blank behind sun-etched visors. They were waiting for an order that never came because the Emperor was already standing right in front of me.He didn't look like a tyrant at that moment. He looked like an archivist who had finally found the missing volume to a collection he’d been curating for decades."You really are a persistent creature," he said, his voice echoing against the cold stone. He gestured toward the shattered display case, then toward the frost-crusted floor where the true Binding Chain was currently tucked against my freezing skin. "I must thank you for bringing that back to me. It is so much harder to forge a new anchor than it is to simply reclaim the one already tuned to your frequency."I backed awa