The corridor opened into a chamber without a floor.
Or rather… a floor so polished it seemed unreal.
The air vibrated, heavy with frozen light.
Nothing moved.
Nothing breathed.
Garlan, Marenna, and Brenuss halted at the threshold.
At the center lay a slab of black ice, placed there since the dawn of time.
No ornament. No inscription.
Only a presence.
Massive. Motionless.
Skjoldür.
Draped in frost, his body seemed still, but not inactive.
His breath coiled upward in bluish spirals, rising slowly like inverted mist.
Two arctic-blue eyes opened at last,
and it was as though space itself withheld its warmth.
He did not speak.
He watched. Long.
As if scanning the blood.
Garlan stepped forward.
He did not assume his draconic form.
He advanced as he was.
But his mana pulsed. Slowly. Instinctively.
— Brother of my grandfather, he murmured.
It’s you, isn’t it?
He wasn’t expecting an answer.
It was an instinct carved into his core.
— You bear the fire, Skjoldür finally spoke,
his voice resonating in the ice like a fossilized memory.
And yet… you have not come to devour me.
— I came to understand, Garlan said.
Silence fell again.
Heavier. Denser.
Skjoldür took a single step.
Under his claws, the ice cracked.
Not from clumsiness.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
But from weight.
From age.
From truth.
— Approach, Child of Fire.
And behold what even flames cannot consume.
Garlan laid his hand upon the slab.
The black mirror stirred.
His reflection appeared.
But behind him, other forms.
A colossal dragon, its wings forged of magma and wind, shrouded the sky.
Before it stood a human silhouette—blurred, indistinct,
yet haloed in gold.
And between them… a woman.
Her skin incandescent.
Her eyes rimmed with wind.
Her red scales streaked with threads of silver.
Garlan staggered back.
His heart thundered.
A heat surged in his throat.
A taste of ash.
Of blood.
— It’s her… he whispered.
My mother.
— She was fire. She was wind. She was will, said Skjoldür.
And she chose a human.
A man nameless to us…
yet one who left his trace in the breath.
Garlan trembled. He lowered his eyes.
But his fists clenched.
— Do you know his name?
— I know his gaze. And his fear.
He had not fled the enemy.
He had fled love.
And the child yet unborn.
— And my grandfather? Ignir?
Skjoldür closed his eyes.
A cold wave swept the chamber.
The slab vibrated.
— He is no more.
But his memory lives.
In you.
Garlan rose slowly.
— Am I a danger to this world?
— Like all who wield power.
You may consume.
Or protect.
Fire alone destroys.
But the circle…
the circle creates.
Marenna watched him in silence.
He was no longer the lost boy of the Ancient Temple.
He was becoming fire. Not flame. Fire.
Skjoldür stepped back.
His gaze met Brenuss’s briefly.
No word.
No warning.
Only a shiver of awareness.
As if he recognized within the little dragon an echo.
A seed.
The slab glowed faintly.
A fragment of memory remained upon it: a shard of black ice, cut in the shape of a wing.
Garlan approached.
When he reached for it, the shard vibrated—then suddenly shrank,
condensing into a cold stone, no larger than a closed fist.
He slipped it into his belt.
His gaze lingered one last time on the silhouette of the ice dragon,
already dissolving into a rain of crystals.
He stepped back.
— One last question, he said, without turning.
Where must I go to find another primordial dragon?
I’ve crossed paths with Emmut.
The silence quivered.
Then came an answer, smoother than the ice itself:
— Emmut watches the waters.
Seek where the sky never sleeps.
Where thunder was born.
At the far wall, an opening appeared, letting through a more natural light.
Marenna drew near, laying a hand on his arm.
— Back to the old dwarf, then?
Garlan nodded softly.
— If there is a palace of wind…
that’s where we’ll find its trace.
Behind them, the chamber sealed shut.
Silence returned absolute.
