I'd been walking for hours through the frozen tundra, each step crunching through the thin crust of ice that covered the snow beneath my feet. The grey sky hung low, darkening toward evening, promising nothing but more cold and more distance between me and wherever my friends had landed.

  Snow fell in scattered flurries, dancing on the bitter wind before settling onto the endless white plain. My breath plumed in front of me.

  I flexed my fingers. My new body handled the cold better than expected.

  The worms had been burning essence continuously, keeping me warm from the inside out. It was like having a furnace under my skin, though the sensation remained a bit unsettling.

  "Stop fidgeting," Mabel said from inside my head. "You look like you have fleas."

  "Everything feels... different." I replied, rolling my shoulders.

  Something shifted in my mind, it was a memory that belonged to Cedric. Knowledge bubbled from within, a warning encoded in twenty-three years of survival instinct: in Rajkovia, travelers who fail to find shelter before nightfall rarely see morning.

  The night belongs to dragonkind.

  And to things worse than dragons.

  "We need to find shelter," I muttered, scanning the horizon. Nothing but white in every direction, broken only by the jagged line of the Frostspine Mountains.

  My breath, which had been coming out in thick white clouds, now froze completely, falling to the ground as ice crystals that shattered on impact. The frost on the ground thickened visibly, spreading across the tundra like a living being, reaching towards me with its crystalline fingers.

  Mabel stirred from inside of me, clicking together in agitation. The worms could sense the dangers coming.

  I scanned the horizon again, more desperate now. I could see a small shape in the distance, it was dark against the white tundra.

  I started moving toward it as fast as my rebuilt body could carry me, feet pounding against the frozen ground. The sun touched the horizon, bleeding the last rays of light across the snow.

  The moment it vanished, the world shifted and transformed.

  Mist rolled in from the direction of the Frostspine Mountains, it was thick and white and utterly silent.

  It swallowed the entire tundra in minutes, reducing my visibility to arm's length.

  I ran blind through the freezing fog, guided only by the vague memory of where the structure had been.

  "Faster," Mabel urged, her voice tight with what might have been fear. "They're coming."

  "What's coming?"

  "I don't know… but they are dangerous."

  I pushed harder, my lungs burning with the frigid air, as the mist thickened around me, clinging to my skin, my clothes, my hair, freezing on contact. Ice formed on my eyelashes. My ears went numb.

  Then I slammed into something hard.

  It was a massive stone archway leading into a hillside, frost-covered designs were carved into the doorway.

  The carvings depicted warriors in old armor, fighting draconic monstrosities. The stone was weathered by centuries of wind and ice, but the craftsmanship remained visible… It was intricate showcasing the battles of an old dragoon faction.

  Cedric's memories recognized the structure.

  It was an old burial mound from before the Covenant of Horns existed.

  The early settlers of Rajkovia buried their dead in places like this, some of these tombs being a thousand years old… Some hold great treasures.

  I hesitated at the entrance.

  The darkness inside was absolute, a black so complete it felt tangible.

  But from behind I could feel the mist pressing close. I could hear the wails of creatures from deep within that mist… I could hear them weeping, screaming and calling out to me.

  Without another thought I took a step through the archway and I entered the barrow.

  Inside, the air was still and cold but the mist did not follow me through the arch.

  The darkness was complete and all encompassing… I willed the worms into my eyes, urging them to reinforce my vision so that I could see in this tomb of darkness.

  They obeyed and my sight sharpened with unnatural clarity.

  The barrow was larger than I expected.

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  There was a central chamber with stone alcoves carved into the walls. I could make out old bones resting in some of them—long-dead and undisturbed for centuries—there was a collapsed passage to my left, but it was sealed shut by a fallen stone.

  There was a more intact passageway to my right leading deeper into the hillside.

  I settled against the wall near the entrance. Close enough to see out into the mist, far enough back that nothing could reach me easily.

  For a long time, nothing moved outside the barrow entrance.

  The mist hung thick and still, obscuring everything beyond a few feet.

  The creatures became clearer as they passed closer to the entrance. They were human-sized but bent and twisted, they had pale rotten flesh. Eight legs, each ending in curved claws that clicked against frozen stone.

  Where their head should have been… grew the naked body of a beautiful woman.

  Dozens of them skittered past.

  A river of beautiful nightmares pouring across the tundra, screaming, crying and singing… trying to lure the lost into their embrace.

  I pressed myself against the barrow wall, not breathing, not moving.

  The creatures did not enter. They passed the entrance without slowing, without looking, as though the barrow didn't exist.

  There was something about the old archway that kept them out… and the dead within, or wards I couldn't see, or something older that Cedric's memories didn't explain.

  Mabel was silent. Even she seemed disturbed by what I was seeing. I asked her what they were.

  She didn't know.

  Nothing in Cedric's memories matched these things.

  They weren't dragonkin.

  I watched the creatures pass for what felt like hours.

  Hours passed. The mist outside thinned slightly but didn't clear. The weeping and singing had faded to distant echoes. I wasn't going back out there, not until dawn, not until the night ended.

  I decided to scout the tomb so I extended a single worm from my palm, then split it into dozens of smaller forms. They flowed across the barrow floor like pale water, pouring into the intact passage that led deeper.

  Through the worms' senses, I saw the passage slope downward, widening into a larger chamber. I could see old weapons lining the walls.

  The worms found a large set of bones.

  A skull the size of a cart lay half-buried in rubble, fanged jaws frozen in a permanent snarl.

  Dragon bones.

  An old kill, brought here as a trophy by warriors who died centuries ago.

  The worms went deeper, entering into another passage… another room.

  This one held more bones, more weapons, and something that made my blood run cold.

  There were claw marks on the floor and walls, the stone was gouged deep.

  Something had been living down here…. something large.

  The worms retreated quickly, burrowing back into my hand. I absorbed them, processing what they found.

  I sat perfectly still against the tomb wall.

  Listening.

  At first there was nothing, just the soft sing-song sounds from the monsters outside, the soft sound of settling stone.

  Then a scraping noise from deep within the tomb. Stone against stone. Something moving.

  I formed the worm-sword in my grip.

  The weapon solidified silently, radiating cold, a ghost of the frost drake whose horn from which the original blade.

  I raised it toward the dark passage and waited.

  The scraping grew closer, it was slow and deliberate… whatever it was, it knew I was here.

  A shape began to form from within the darkness.

  It was low to the ground, four-legged, and scaled.

  It was a young drake, maybe three meters long. Grey-green scales showcased its forest drake lineage, based on Cedric's memories.

  The drake had been living in this tomb, hiding from what was out in the Mist… the same as I was doing now.

  The drake hissed a warning.

  It was territorial. But it didn't attack. It studied me with a cold reptilian intelligence, assessing whether this intruder was a threat.

  I didn't move, I didn't break eye contact.

  Cedric's memories told me forest drakes were a type of predator that would ambush its victims. If it was going to attack, it would have struck from the shadows.

  A long moment passed as neither of us moved.

  Then the drake backed away slowly, retreating into the darkness of the passage.

  It had decided I wasn't worth the risk.

  I didn't let my guard down. I kept the worm-sword ready and my back to the wall.

  Light filtered through the tomb entrance. It was pale and grey, but light nonetheless. I moved to the archway and looked out.

  The mist was receding, pulling back toward the Frostspine Mountains like a tide going out. The sing-song sounds had faded to nothing.

  The tundra outside was covered in tracks.

  Thousands of them, criss-crossing the frost in every direction. Evidence of how many creatures moved through here during the night. Some tracks were small, some were enormous, I could make out deeper impressions that could only be dragon-sized.

  I stepped out of the tomb carefully.

  The cold was still brutal, but manageable.

  The sun was pale and weak but present. I'd survived the Long Dark. I'd need to do it again tomorrow night, and the night after that, all the way to Horn's Rest.

  I looked back at the barrow entrance.

  At the carvings I couldn't see clearly in the dark when I first arrived. Now, in the grey light of dawn, I could read them properly.

  The carvings didn't show warriors fighting dragons.

  They showed warriors kneeling before dragons, worshipping them… offering tribute. The figures were prostrate, arms raised in supplication, while dragon shapes loomed above them.

  I walked around the hillside, following the carvings.

  They continued across the stone, scenes of dragons receiving sacrifices, humans building temples in their honor, a civilization that served dragonkind willingly.

  On the far side of the tomb, half-buried in snow, I found a statue.

  The statue was massive, it was at least twenty meters tall.

  A dragon carved from black stone, wings spread wide, its jaws open to the sky. Its surface was pitted and scarred by centuries of wind and ice, but its form remained imposing, and dominated the landscape.

  Beneath the dragon, kneeling in supplication, were seven human figures. Each one wearing robes and carrying offerings, they held bowls, weapons, what might have been infants.

  I stared at the statue for a long moment. Cedric's memories held nothing about this.

  Whatever cult built this place existed before the Covenant, before the Dragon Wars, before humanity learned to fight back.

  There were people here who chose to serve dragonkind. Who worshipped them as gods.

  There was movement at the corner of my vision, as the forest drake was emerging from a crack in the hillside. It gave me a long look—one predator acknowledging another—then loped away across the tundra.

  I stood there watching it go.

  Then I picked a direction and began to move again... Horn's Rest.

  Two days now, if I kept a good pace. Behind me, the dragon statue stared at the sky with empty stone eyes.

  I walked in silence for a while, thinking about what I'd seen. About the carvings, the statue, the creatures in the mist.

  The sun climbed higher, casting weak light across the frozen tundra. I walked, following Cedric's memories toward Horn's Rest. Behind me, the barrow and its statue of worship disappeared into the distance, swallowed by the vastness of the Hearthlands.

  Night would fall again.

  The Long Dark would return.