THE HIDDEN DRAGON

Beneath The Ice

"You're hiding something, Rey Soren. And ice doesn’t lie. It preserves what fire tries to erase."

Aeris Dawnvale’s breath shimmered in the cold air of the Lunar Chamber. Before her, the frost mirror pulsed with ethereal energy, fragments of Rey’s battle in the arena playing in broken loops. Flames licking around his silhouette. Rage in his eyes. The unmistakable signature of ancient power.

She narrowed her eyes, drawing her fur-lined cloak tighter.

She would find the truth. Even if it meant shattering Rey’s carefully woven mask.

The Academy of the Seven Towers was quiet after dusk, though shadows moved between pillars like whispers searching for secrets.

Rey sat on the eastern balcony, the burn scars on his knuckles faintly glowing beneath moonlight. Zayne leaned against the railing beside him, tossing a small knife from hand to hand.

"You nearly tore Kade in half. Everyone’s still talking about it."

Rey didn’t answer.

Zayne frowned. "I’m not afraid of you. You know that, right?"

"Maybe you should be," Rey said quietly.

The words were soaked in guilt. In exhaustion. The aftermath of what had happened in the Trial still clung to him like ash. The way Lyra had looked at him—fear, awe, and something else—haunted him more than Kade’s broken body.

Zayne turned serious. "What happened to you in there? That wasn’t just rage. It was... primal. Like the fire wanted blood."

Rey didn’t respond. He didn’t know how. Because even now, the Dragon System still pulsed inside him—its ancient judgment echoing in his skull.

Worthy… for now.

Aeris stood before the Grand Library’s sealed archive, her hand glowing with frost sigils as she bypassed the wards. She wasn’t supposed to be here. But suspicion wasn’t something you buried. It was a splinter, growing deeper until it bled truth.

She moved quickly, scanning the forbidden scrolls: the records of the Night of Scorching Winds, the fall of the Drakar Clan, and a single line that caught her breath.

> “One infant was never found. Presumed dead. Or hidden.”

Rayden Drakar.

Aeris stepped back. Her mind raced. Fire and ice were ancient enemies—yet here, standing in their sacred halls, a flame may have survived.

In a lavish estate at the northern edge of the Academy grounds, Lyra Kael stood before her father’s shrine, the flickering candles dancing in her golden eyes.

Commander Kael had led the charge that annihilated the Drakars. He’d told her tales of their brutality, their madness, their hunger for power masked as prophecy.

But Rey didn’t seem like a monster.

She remembered the sparring match—the way he moved like someone remembering rather than learning. The rage in his veins, yes, but also… control. Pain. Discipline.

She clenched her fists.

“What if you were wrong, Father?”

The shrine remained silent.

She turned and slipped out into the night.

Drax Thornhelm grinned as he slipped the sealed letter into Rey’s locker.

He’d forged it expertly: a note from a fabricated ‘witness’ who claimed to know Rey’s lineage. An abandoned house in the ruins of the old city. Midnight. Come alone.

He didn’t care if Rey was Dragonborn or just another orphan with a temper. What mattered was that the boy was dangerous. And dangerous things? Needed caging.

Or killing.

Zayne had fallen asleep on the balcony, but Rey couldn’t. His dreams came even while he was awake now.

His mother’s voice called to him through the fire.

Rayden… remember who you are…

When he opened the locker the next morning and found the letter, his hands trembled.

Midnight. Alone.

The fire inside him stirred.

He didn’t tell Zayne. He didn’t tell Juno.

He just went.

The ruins were buried in ice and time. Shattered statues of old gods and empresses stared with eyeless sorrow as Rey stepped through broken archways. Midnight fog licked at his boots.

“Hello?” he called.

No answer.

Then—

Clang.

He turned, fists raised, but too late.

A sigil detonated beneath his feet. Chains of shadow and frost erupted, locking around his limbs. He fell hard.

From the dark, Drax emerged.

“Did you really think no one would come for you?”

Rey snarled, flames licking around his wrists.

Another sigil exploded. The flames died instantly.

Nullifying ice.

“You're not a student,” Drax said, circling him. “You’re a threat. A dragon pretending to be a lamb.”

Rey struggled. “You don’t know anything.”

Drax crouched beside him. “Oh, but I do. I know that the Drakar line isn’t as dead as they say. And now I know… it’s you.”

He drove a dagger into Rey’s shoulder.

The scream echoed through the ruins.

Lyra woke with a start.

Something’s wrong.

She threw on her cloak and raced through the halls, her instincts screaming. She didn’t know where Rey was, only that he wasn’t safe.

Rey’s vision blurred. Blood soaked his tunic. His body burned, but not with power—only pain.

“I’m going to bring your corpse to the Council,” Drax said. “Let them see what kind of monster they’ve been sheltering.”

Rey gasped, coughing blood. “Even… if I die… you lose.”

Drax frowned. “What?”

“I’ve seen it… in fire… the Empire burns… because of men like you.”

A blast of ice tore through the wall.

Lyra stepped in, golden eyes blazing. “Step away from him.”

Drax laughed. “Daddy’s little soldier. You think you can—”

She moved faster than thought.

Her blade shimmered with light. One strike and Drax screamed, staggering back, blood blooming on his cheek.

He fled into the shadows.

Lyra rushed to Rey.

“You idiot,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Rey groaned. “Didn’t… know who to trust.”

She lifted his arm over her shoulders.

“Next time,” she said, voice shaking, “you trust me.”

Aeris watched them from the rooftop, frost gathering at her fingertips. Her suspicions had become certainty.

Rey Soren wasn’t who he claimed to be.

But as she watched Lyra cradle him, as the fire flickered softly in his wounds, she hesitated.

Maybe the Drakar blood didn’t mean evil.

Maybe it meant danger. Or destiny.

Or both.

Zayne was waiting when they returned to the dormitory. His eyes widened at the sight of Rey’s bloodied frame.

“Tell me who did this,” he demanded.

Lyra looked at Rey. He nodded.

Zayne’s hands clenched. “We’ll burn him down.”

“No,” Rey said weakly. “We wait. We’re not ready.”

He looked to Lyra, then Zayne. “But when the time comes… we fight together.”

They both nodded.

Far across the sea, in the frozen halls of the Frostspire Keep, the Ice Queen stirred.

“The Drakar flame flickers again,” she whispered.

A courtier stepped forward. “Shall we extinguish it?”

“No,” she said, rising from her throne. “We watch. Fire and ice are ancient enemies… but I sense the winds changing.”

She looked into her frost mirror.

“At the heart of fire… may be the salvation of ice.”

And somewhere in the ruins, Drax bled beside a frozen statue, whispering to the darkness.

“Come. He is ready.”

A pair of burning red eyes opened in the shadows.

And the true hunt began.