Frostbound Dragon's heir

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 shoved deep into my pocket.

Magical accident. I scoffed bitterly, the rage that bubbled in my chest was so intense it felt like liquid fire, threatening to shatter my ribs. The Empire hadn't just murdered my kin; they had rewritten history before our blood was even dry.

We reached the outskirts of the border village of Duskwood by midday. It was a miserable, sprawling slum filled with people displaced by the collapse of the Vornic wards.

As we waited in the slush-filled queue for the checkpoint, I overheard a group of merchants huddled around a brazier.

"Good riddance, I say," one man spat, warming his hands. "The Vornics were hoarding the dragon-spirit, playing god in their glacier tower. It was only a matter of time before their stability turned into a catastrophe. The Sun-King warned them about those volatile arts. Now? No more monsters, no more freezing taxes."

"Aye," another agreed, sipping thin broth. "My brother works in the trade guild. He says the King’s scouts were sent to negotiate a peaceful surrender of the spirit, but the Vornics panicked. Blew the whole mountain up rather than give up their toys. Stubborn fools."

I stood perfectly still. My vision blurred at the edges, the blue light of the dragon spirit surging in my veins in response to my hatred. The man was laughing—actually laughing—about my brother’s death, calling my family monsters who deserved their erasure.

Don’t look. Don’t react. Breathe.

I felt a sharp pinch on my forearm as my anger sizzled through my pounding heart. Orsa was digging her nails into my skin, her eyes warning me to remain invisible. I forced my breathing to shallow, rough gasps, mimicking the terror of a displaced peasant. 

I stared at the slush, letting the snow cover my boots, acting the part of the broken, frightened boy who had nothing left in the world.

"Next!" a booming voice echoed from the gate.

The checkpoint was guarded by two Sunfire soldiers. They were armored in that familiar, polished gold-filigree plate, the sun-serpent sigil gleaming on their pauldrons. My heart hit my ribs like a battering ram.

These were the same men who had burned my mother alive!

The line moved with an agonizing slowness. I watched the soldiers check manifests, extract bribes, and occasionally pull someone aside for "questioning" in the shadows of the barricade.

My skin crawled with hatred. The dragon spirit was coiling, agitated by the audacity of our killers, the cold in my left hand radiating outward, turning the air around me frostier than the winter wind.

"Papers," the guard barked as we finally reached the front.

Orsa handed over the falsified documents she had scavenged from a dead courier days ago. The soldier barely glanced at them. He was more interested in the way the frost seemed to cling to our clothes, the unnatural chill that followed us like a scent.

I kept my head bowed, my hood low. I was a pebble in the road. I was supposed to be nothing also. I was a scared, orphaned boy with a broken hand and a hollow life.

The second soldier, a young man with sharp features and the harsh, bright eyes of a zealot, stepped closer. He didn't look at the papers, he looked at me.

His gaze traveled from my mud-caked boots up to my shivering shoulders, and finally, he tilted his head, peering into the shadows beneath my hood.

My breath hitched for a split second as I felt the cold in my hand pulse with a dangerous beat.

The soldier’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly. He blinked, a flicker of profound, scared recognition sparking in his pupils.

I knew that look because I remembered him. He had been there, standing in the back of the sanctuary, watching as the Sunfire lances tore through the Vornic elite. He had held a spear, his hands steady and his face was bored.

He didn't just recognize me as a nobody, he remembered the boy who had survived the blast.

His hand drifted toward the hilt of his sun-forged blade, his knuckles whitening. The air between us charged suddenly and I felt a grip of danger. The lie I was living was about to shatter, and I knew—with the cold, crystalline certainty of the dragon—that if he drew that blade, I would have no choice but to unleash the winter. 

I would have to kill them all right here, in the middle of the village, and throw away any hope of reaching the capital!

"Corporal! Report to the commander at the barracks!" an officer shouted from the rampart, his voice cutting through the tension.

The soldier froze but his gaze stayed locked on my face for one heartbeat, then two, his mouth opening to shout an alarm. I held my breath, my lips quivering with the cold.

"Corporal!" the officer barked again, angrier this time.

The soldier hesitated, his fingers trembling on the hilt of his sword. Then, with a grunt of frustration, he spun around, his armor clanking as he marched away toward the barracks.

I stood still, breathing hard, my nerves rattled and pulsing erratically.

"Move," Orsa whispered, her voice filled with urgency. "Now!"

We shuffled through the gate, my heart hammering against my frozen chest. We were past the checkpoint, but the game had changed. I wasn't just a refugee anymore. I was a walking, breathing mistake—a Vornic survivor who had been spotted.

Someone knew!

And as we disappeared into the crowded, smoke-filled alleys of the village, I knew the hunt for me had begun. 

The Empire wouldn't just send a corporal to finish me this time; they would send the fire. I looked at my frozen, numb hand and clenched it tighter. 

Let them come. If they wanted to burn me out, they were going to find that I was no longer a boy, and I was certainly no longer afraid of the dark.