Frostbound Dragon's heir

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. "Before you turn your own blood into shrapnel."

I froze and frowned at him. He wasn't wearing the gold-filigree armor of the Sunfire commandos. He was dressed in the heavy, ink-stained robes of a senior scholar.

"You're the mage from the vault," I hissed, my breath blooming into a thick, crystalline cloud as my heart clenched tighter.

"I am Theo and I am no mage, at least not one of their making," he replied, glancing pointedly at the frost blooming across my tunic. "That chain... it hasn't felt a Vornic pulse in years. You’re the one who survived the collapse, aren't you?"

The question was a blade to my throat, threatening to carve through my flesh if I gave the wrong answer or trusted the wrong person. I backed into the alcove, the cold in my hand surging.

"If you’re here to collect the bounty, save your breath. I’ll turn this floor into a coffin before I go back to them."

Theo sighed, a sound of profound, world-weary sadness. "The Empire wants you dead because you are a loose end. But I want you alive because you are a witness."

He stepped closer, his eyes refusing to blink. "Do you think your house was the first? Do you think the unstable magic narrative was invented just for you? It is a template, Evander. A script written by the King's own hand."

My heartbeat and my breath faltered for a split second, the frost slowing its advance. "What are you talking about?"

"Come," he urged, turning and beckoning me deeper into the sub-levels of the archive.

I hesitated, but the Binding Chain gave a sharp, vibrating tug—a resonance I couldn't ignore. It trusted him, or at least, it recognized him. I followed, keeping a safe distance, watching his every move for a sign of betrayal. 

He led me to a hidden compartment behind a row of crumbling historical maps, pulling a heavy, iron-bound ledger from the wall.

He slammed it onto a stone table. The cover was stained with grease and age. He flipped it open, the pages filled with dense, elegant script and sketches of various noble crests.

"Look," Theo commanded.

I leaned over the book. My eyes scanned the entries. House Valerius: Lightning-bonded. Destroyed 422. Official Cause: Spontaneous detonation of mana-core. House Caleb: Earth-bonded. Destroyed 425. Official Cause: Tectonic collapse.

I flipped through the pages, my stomach churning. Each page was a eulogy for a house that had been erased, their dragon-bonds stolen, their legacies burned out of existence. The logic was cold, precise, and totally horrifying.

"They aren't just policing the spirits," I whispered, the weight of the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "They're harvesting them, all of them."

"They are perfecting a throne of gods," Theo corrected. "Your grandfather held the Ice-Dragon. House Valerius held the Storm. They hunt them, wipe the lineages clean, and then use the captured spirits to fuel the King’s own immortality. You were never an accident, you were more like a resource."

I reached the final page, my breath catching in my throat. It was dated less than a month ago. House Ashborn: Fire-bonded. Destroyed 426. Location: Eastern marches.

"They're still doing it," I realized, the horror sharpening into a crystallized tug in my heart. "Even now, while I’m hiding in their stables, they’re still hunting."

Theo closed the ledger suddenly. "The Empire is currently blind to your condition. They believe the Vornic spirit was shattered in the glacier. If you help me document this—if you help me expose the pattern of their accident to the regional governors and the remaining neutral houses—I will show you how to complete your binding. I know the rhythm of the rites, Evander. I’ve studied the failures for thirty years."

I looked at the Binding Chain on my arm. The blue light within me flickered, a reflection of the fire and ice that had been stolen from the world. My hatred for the Emperor had been a hot, messy thing; now, it was hardening into something colder, something more dangerous.

"I don't want to expose them, Theo," I said, my voice barely a whisper in the echoing vault. "I want to break them."

"Then we are agreed," Theo said, his eyes hard and buzzing with excitement. "But we have to move. The Emperor arrives for the inspection tomorrow. He’s going to look at that empty display case, and he’s going to realize that the one thing he craves most—the Vornic spirit—is walking free in his own capital."

I clenched my frozen hand, the frost-patterns spreading across the stone table as I did. The hunt was no longer one-sided. The Empire was hunting dragons, but they had forgotten one fundamental truth: you don't hunt a dragon without expecting to be burned.

"Let him come," I said, staring at the list of destroyed houses. "I have a lot of ghosts to avenge."