Frostbound Dragon's heir

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 my skin.

I turned to walk away, to sink into the shadows of the hedges, but I suddenly tripped over a loose paving stone. The crate of supplies I was hauling tipped, sending a stack of leather-bound ledgers sliding across the terrace.

"Oh! Careful there."

The voice was melodic, devoid of the sharp, aristocratic disdain I had come to expect from the Empire’s elite. I looked up, and for a moment, I forgot to hate her for who she was.

Liora was kneeling on the cold stone, gathering the books. She didn't look at me like I was a refugee, a carrier of a curse, or a piece of filth. She looked at me like I was an actual  person.

"I’m so sorry, My Lady," I stammered, pulling my hood lower. My heart was pounding, the frost in my veins surging as her closeness—and the proximity of the royal bloodline—provoked the dragon spirit. "I’m just... I’m clumsy, My Lady."

She laughed, a light, genuine sound that felt like a knife to my gut. She held out a book to me, her hand brushing mine. Her skin was warm and the contrast to mine was so violent that it nearly forced me to recoil.

"Everyone is clumsy when they're tired," she said, her bright, curious, and utterly innocent eyes scanning my face. "You’re the new boy from the stables, aren't you? My father's staff have been working you too hard."

"I am fine, My Lady," I said, my voice tight. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to pull a blade, to do something. But I was a Vornic. I was trained to endure, and I was training to kill. I couldn't do either if I moved too soon.

"You look chilled to the bone," she remarked, her brow furrowing with genuine concern. "The Repository's heating wards are failing on this side of the terrace. I shall tell the steward to have them repaired. It’s no way for anyone to work."

She stood up, smoothing her dress. "Carry on, then. And try to stay warm."

I watched her walk away toward the grand archway of the archive entrance. As she reached the door, she didn't show an Imperial seal. She simply tapped a sequence into the stone, and the massive, forbidden doors parted open for her. 

Unrestricted access.

Even the most senior Inquisitors had to wait for clearance, but she moved as if the history of the world were her private reading room.

I stood there, paralyzed by a mixture of loathing and confusion. I was supposed to hate her. She was the daughter of the monster who had turned my home into a glacier, a beneficiary of the same throne that had ordered the massacre of my house

. Yet, when she looked at me, she hadn't seen a weapon. She hadn't seen a curse, she’d seen just a boy.

I am not a boy, I told myself, clutching my freezing hand. I am a tomb.

Later that evening, while the palace guards were preoccupied with a change of shifts, I lingered near the archives. I heard the hushed voices of two high-ranking archivists drifting through a ventilation grate.

"The Princess is in the Restricted Wing again," one whispered, his tone tight with anxiety. "She spends hours in the Age of the First Warden section. If the King finds out she’s reading the soul-binding rites, there will be heads on spikes."

"Let her," the other scoffed. "She’s the only one who can unlock the inner sanctum seals. If the King wants to keep the dragon-spirit’s history a secret, he shouldn't give his own daughter the bloody key."

I retreated into the darkness, my mind reeling. So, Liora was the key. She had the access I needed, and she had the kindness I could exploit.

The disgust I felt for myself was justified; I was already contemplating how to get close to her, how to use her trust, and how to potentially destroy the one person in this city who treated me like a human being.

I returned to my small, miserable quarters in the stable block. The room was freezing, the air thick with the frost that clung to my skin like a second coat. I walked over to a barrel of water kept for the horses, intending to splash my face and wash away the memory of her warmth.

I leaned over the barrel. The water was dark and frozen at the edges. I looked down, expecting to see my own reflection, the hollow, gaunt face of a boy who had lost everything.

But the reflection didn't move in the water.

My reflection stood still, staring back at me with eyes that were not my own. The face was mine, but the expression was ancient, predatory, and infinitely cruel. I froze, my heart stopping in my chest. I tried to pull back, but my limbs refused to obey.

The reflection in the water opened its mouth. My own reflection looked at me, and I saw a golden, slit-pupiled eye shimmering within the pupil—a dragon’s eye, ancient and vast, looking through the water as if it were a window into another world.

It whispered just one word directly into the cold ends of my mind.

Her.

I recoiled suddenly, stumbling backward and crashing into the stable wall. The barrel shattered, the water spilling onto the floor and instantly turning into spikes of ice.

My reflection was gone, back to being just a ripple in the shards of ice.

I slumped against the wood, gasping for breath. The dragon spirit wasn't just a parasite. It was a conscious entity, and it was reaching out, guiding me. It didn't want the Repository nor the scrolls.

It wanted the Princess.

. I was being steered toward a destiny I couldn't comprehend, and the road to my vengeance was being paved with a girl’s kindness.

I was becoming the monster they claimed I was, and the worst part was, I didn't know if I could—or would—stop it.