Frostbound Dragon's heir

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 strength was slowly becoming a ghost.

My left arm was now little more than a dead weight, a slab of marble-cold meat tucked under my tunic. The blue veins that traced my skin had moved from my forearm to my neck, pulsing with a sickly light every time I grew angry or hungry.

"You're fading, Evander," Orsa whispered that night. She was hiding in a cramped, straw-filled loft above the stables, her health failing even faster than mine. The infection in her side was turning black, a creeping necrosis that mirrored the frost in my own body.

"Your spirit isn't just hungry. Its panicked. It senses the presence of its true anchor, that is the ancient rites inside that building. It’s trying to force a connection, and it’s going to tear your soul apart to get it."

"I don't have a choice," I muttered, collapsing onto a pile of damp hay. My head throbbed with a cold, hollow ache. "If I don't get those scrolls, I stop breathing. If I do get them, I’m a criminal in the heart of the capital. I'm choosing between two different ways to die, Orsa.

"

Orsa didn't answer. Her eyes were clouded with fatigue, and she drifted into a shallow, fitful sleep. I followed soon after, the exhaustion of the day dragging me down into a dark, dreamless sleep.

I didn't wake up to the sound of the cock’s crow. I woke up because I couldn't breathe.

The air in the stables was biting, sharp enough to cut my lungs. I sat up, gasping, only to find my breath blooming in front of me like a thick, white cloud of fog. I looked around, my heart hammering frantically against my ribs.

The stable was in complete ruin.

The warmth of the previous night was completely gone, replaced by a heavy, unnatural hoarfrost coating every single wooden post, every bucket, and every piece of tack.

The horses—four prize-bred mounts belonging to the Imperial courier division—lay on their sides, their bodies encased in thick shells of ice. Their eyes were wide, frozen open, their breath solidified in their nostrils. They had been flash-frozen in a heartbeat.

I scrambled back with a terrified gasp, my skin crawling. I looked down at my hands and the realization hit me. They were caked in a thin layer of rime, my veins glowing with a frantic, pulsing blue light. 

I had done this. My body had acted as a conduit for the dragon spirit while I slept, a subconscious leak of raw, destructive power that had radiated outward like a shockwave.

"Orsa!" I hissed, scrambling toward the loft.

She was already awake, clutching a support beam, her face pale as she looked down at the carnage. Her eyes locked onto the dead horses, and her expression crumpled into a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. 

"Oh my goodness! It’s accelerating," she choked out. "Evander, this shouldn't be happening for months! You aren't just leaking... it seems like you are detonating!"

"I don't remember doing it, Orsa," I said, my voice shaking. "I swear, I was asleep."

"The spirit is fighting for control," she said, her voice rising in panic. "It wants full control from the bond. If you have another flare-up like this, the entire stable block will be a tomb, and every Sunfire guard in the district will be on your throat. You don't have weeks, boy, you have just  days."

The reality hit me with the force of a falling mountain. I wasn't just a boy on a mission anymore; I was a freaking walking, breathing hazard. I was like a weapon that didn't know how to holster its own trigger. Every time I closed my eyes, I risked murdering everyone within fifty feet.

I crawled to the edge of the loft, peering down at the stable floor. I heard the approach of boots—heavy, and purposeful. The shift manager. I gasped and looked at Orsa helplessly.

"Gods above!" the man shouted, his voice echoing through the frozen aisle. "What in the Seven Hells? Is this an attack?"

Other workers were scrambling in, their shouts growing louder. I saw the manager pointing at the frozen carcasses, his face twisted in horror.

"Look at this ice! It’s not natural. It has to be that curse," one of the stable hands whispered, his voice trembling. "The northern refugees. I heard they brought a blight with them when they fled the collapse. One of them arrived the night this happened. Who was it? Who was the boy assigned to this block?"

I pulled back, my blood running cold—or perhaps, it was just the dragon spirit taking another inch of my heart.

"I heard he came in with that old woman," another man said, his voice dropping to a suspicious, conspiratorial hiss. "Looking for work. They didn't say much and that makes them suspicious. Where are they? If there’s a curse in my stables, I want it hunted down and burned."

Orsa looked at me, her eyes wide. We were completely trapped. The horses were the evidence, and the whispers were the noose. The proximity I needed to reach the Repository had just become my cage.

I looked at my hand, then at the frozen, dead animals below. I couldn't stay here. I couldn't risk another sleep, another explosion of winter. I was a disaster that announced itself with every freezing breath I took. And someone was already asking for my name.

The hunt for me was already inside the gate.

"We have to leave," Orsa whispered and the cold in my veins intensified, a hungry feeling that made me want to lash out. "We leave now, or we wait for them to find us."

I turned toward the back of the stable, toward the darkness that led to the wall of the Repository. I didn't know if I could get inside, or if I would just freeze to death on the stones before I reached the first door.

But I knew one thing: I was finished with hiding. If the Empire wanted a monster, I would give them one.