“You had to choose the worst possible region to go to? What about the Crag? Or the Gale Islands?” Audax the Reckless, a nickname coined by many of his friends for his behaviour shrivelled hesitantly when he realised my idea of adventure was to visit the home of the ice dragons, Glacier Crest. Father laughed at his complaining and my pleading.

“It can’t be that bad,” I taunted him a little.

He scoffed and looked at me, his reptilian slits for eyes staring into mine with a contemptuous glare, “Can’t be that bad?” he mocked, “it’s hell! Why do you think the only creatures there are haughty ice dragons?” he questioned, turning his head away.

“Are you afraid?” I asked, a humiliating yet condescendingly caring way, “It’s okay to be scared,” I comforted, laying the traps for him. He replied virulently, claiming he feared nothing and even wanting to prove it.

I mounted him, quickly taking the chance, but still assuring him there was no shame in his cowardice. He had to be thoroughly persuaded in order to commit to the full trip. His pride would disallow him to turn back.

We ventured through the Crag and travelled for about a week to the north. Hunger would weaken us if not for a little tweak I made to my green pills that fooled our brains into thinking we were full. And much worse, hypothermia would set in if I didn’t create a specialised lava pill, one orange in colour that regulated body temperature. The red pills would give his body a huge boost and allow him to fly over longer distances.

Finally, we landed onto the main chunk of ice that lifted the land of Glacier Crest. Audax immediately nosedived into a cavern for rest. The pills kept his muscles fed with nutrients and strength, however, I failed to prepare any that dismissed the charms of seduction utilised by somnolence.

After I tended to the dragon with a few pills, I transmuted some icicles into firewood and enchanted them so they’d last through our much-desired slumber. I blew fire onto the wood and made a campfire in the cavern large enough to satisfy Audax, however, he still shivered a little, having to lie on ice. I placed both palms on the ground and replicated the warm earth salamanders are so fond of in Emberscale. The nearby walls were also transmuted to a more suitable place for him, I also found it quite homey.

I slouched up against his side for extra warmth and we both fell asleep the moment we rested our heads. After resting about twelve hours, we continued our journey, spotting the main mountain that earned this land the name Glacier Crest. Even though we flew, I couldn’t see the summit. Thankfully, we came across some grounds in which we could rest. Already, there were many ice dragons flying about, some perched in rather bizarre crevices along the mountain’s slippery walls.

“What now, Emily? Do we continue? Or ask one of them?” Audax posed the question, to which my answer was to continue, but I held that thought within me instead. I’d rather have ended this journey as quickly as I could, but fate wasn’t so compliant.

“Hello?” I called out, but they only showed clear distrust. Some flew away, some slithered back into their caves and others outright ignored me. Audax laughed at me, concreting the fact that they believe they’re better than humans and dragons alike. How cheeky.

I decided to fly farther upward again, between the unnervingly deep valleys. Suddenly, an ice dragon, almost hornless, cut in front of us and landed on the side of the mountain, digging its claws into the earth to ensure grip, “Outsiders,” he hissed, “are not allowed beyond this point. You cannot continue.”

“Fine then,” Audax spoke out for me, knowing I’d have trouble projecting my voice over the distance and echoes of the hollowing wind, “but tell us, what does the ice dragon clan know of Samael Winter?”

“Do not speak that name!” he said quickly, stern and harsh, almost as if he was trying to shut us up after the fact. “If that is why you came here, then turn around and return from whence you came, salamander!” he hissed on the word’s beginning.

I relayed some words to Audax so he’d speak for me. “My friend here has a message. She says ‘no way we’re turning back’. She never gives it up, so can you allow us passage?” My scaled friend asked once more.

“Turn, back!” he steeled himself, standing tall, despite being diagonal, etched into the mountain’s side.

I exhaled, “Alright, Audax, buddy. We’re bustin’ through.” I swallowed a blue pill, and gave him two blue and two red pills. “Ready?” I asked, and he gave a nod.

He leapt and spread his wings, soaring through with speed closer to that of a wind dragon and force similar to that of an earth dragon, or at least what I thought they’d be like.

The moment he took off, I casted a barrier around him, nullifying any ice spells they threw at us that happened to be released before I bound their jaws shut and wings tight together with my arcane bind spell. Dozens of them attacked, adding on more and more to their numbers the farther up we flew. They were so numerous, I had to breathe out gushing water to act as a propelling force so they’d keep away.

“I can see the peak!” Audax yelled out as we approached the top. Finally, we breached the apex. Flying above, I noticed a familiar face, a face that shouldn’t have been there. The face of Samael Winter peering expressionlessly at us. We landed in front of him, rustling the snow gathered atop Glacier Crest’s summit.

Other ice dragons were darting towards us in a rage, but a simple hand dismissal from Winter caused them to fly by without attacking. “You must be a big fan to look for me in Glacier Crest,” he commented, as if his arrest didn’t even happen. My mind was raddled, I didn’t know what to think.

“Ah, well, your visits won’t exactly hinder me, but your ignorant and blind sense of justice leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I see you,” he formed two small rings of ice, and protruding out of it was at least eight long, sharp pieces of curved ice, each one likened to the shape of a machete. Their bases were welded onto the outer surface of the circle.

“It’s called the ‘winter star’, beautiful, isn’t it?” They began spinning, so rapidly, a singing, strange noise emanated from the spell, likened to the buzzing of a swarm of bees.

He threw it, created another one in an instant and threw that too. It hit the barrier, making a slight crack. Seeing that, Audax dodged the second one, but there were many others incoming that I hadn’t even noticed him creating.

Audax stepped to the side, barely avoiding the next attack but stumbled right into a portal set up by Winter. We landed in the seas to the south, disturbing the dragons’ slumber. Audax swam up immediately, clawing his way into the loose sand desperately. I teleported right back to Glacial Crest, as I had just seen the place, but Winter was long gone.

I went back to the castle and bolted to the dungeon. There the man was, his hair ruffled and unkempt, his clothes in tatters and his skin dirty. He glared at me, eyes full of hatred whilst he struggled against the magic restraints around his neck and wrists, disallowing his magic. Am I going mad? Who did I see at Glacier Crest then? That was definitely him, wasn’t it?

I left, wordless. King Sven was a little perturbed, asking if everything’s okay and I replied in kind. After all, how demented would I sound if I claimed to see Winter at the top of an arctic mountain? For now, I kept this discovery between Audax and I.

Mandy’s arms wrapped around me tightly and she planted kisses all over my cheeks, “Welcome back,” she smiled. I could finally have some peace of mind to a word plaguing my mind all day, ‘how’?

I went to bed that night, my mind still afflicted by self-doubt.

“Emily,” a whispering called to me, “do not fear,” the shadowlike voice tempted me, gently tugging me away from my first good night’s sleep in a week.

I awoke, the sun now dimly lighting the horizon for a beautiful mesh of blue and gold. I snuck out of bed, making sure not to wake Mandy and went to the pool of Eblis blood. I knew fully well what it was, but all the times I’d drenched myself in the demon’s blood always made me feel renewed, a feeling that I was in need of at the moment. I looked down at the mystifying blood and began undressing.

Once again, I woke up. I, fell asleep again? A yawn escaped and I teleported back the minute I put my clothes on. Mandy was just leaving the room. “How many days was I gone?” I asked, bracing from the answer a little.

She tilted her head, her wavy pitch black hair falling at the side, “Uh, days?” she asked. I breathed out in relief, resting my hand on my chest. Going there after I just woke up only made me sleep a couple hours, thankfully.

That morning, I made my daily rounds to distribute blue pills to the teachers, preferring to walk and take time to get my head into second gear. I tied my curly hair into a loose bun, allowing the morning winds to peck at the nape of my neck. The small sacks of pills were getting heavier with each step, so I began casting a teleportation spell, but the heavy beat of wings butchered my attention and the spell failed miserably. Morning’s really weren’t my most productive time of day.

He landed adjacent, holding his wing slightly in front of me to act as a visor to the sun’s light. “Thank you, Audax. You missed me, didn’t you?” I teased him. He scoffed childishly, “I only miss your alchemy,” he said, walking along with me.

His smile quickly faded and he turned to face me, “You checked?”

“Yeah,” I replied, slowing my already crawling pace and sighing in defeat, “he was there too, in the dungeon. I don’t know how he did it, but Winter was in two places at once.”

His bellowing voice groaned slightly. I grew tired, and teleported to the three buildings for each year to deliver the pills. Audax grew to be a more common and even accepted sight at the academy.

For lunch, the dragon, Mandy and I would often be seen near the fountain, leaned against him on the grass under a large tree. This began changing the way students saw dragons. The tailed beasts drifted from the dangerous, fearsome enigma that Winter made them out to be. Salamanders and dragons of the south seas would spectate from afar, taking months before they’d step foot into the border of the school. Progress was sluggish, but assured.

My after-lunch drowsiness kicked in, but Chiron leapt at the opportunity to disembowel my wishful thinking that I’d enjoy a nap and woke me in a dumbfounded state. He instructed me to go to the Crag as quickly as I could, however, after my encounter with the ice dragons, I was a little wary.

“Chiron?” Mandy inquired, “How long are you going to listen to that senile old man?” she asked, a little irritated that he interrupted our time together. I snickered, asking if she’d like to come along with me. Audax was great company, but he was no Mandy.

The winged reptile growled when Mandy accepted my invitation, knowing he’d have to fly her over as well, “Am I some sort of carriage?” he complained, a little sarcastically. Indeed, I’d felt bad about not finding a mode of transport to venture into lands undiscovered. I dillydallied, perhaps because I shunned going to the unknown alone. Audax’s liking to my pills and my need for his wings pulled us together. I started being thankful for capturing him, viewing it as what made us pay attention to each other.

Mandy felt awkward around him, as she would any dragon. She actively pursued the capture of dragons under Winter’s command. Many dragons hated and feared her, so she tried to convince me to use my portal instead, so she would have the least amount of contact with Audax, but the dragon had long seen past her worries.

“We all make mistakes,” the dragon somewhat comforted, though with the maturity of a kid, “I tried to kill your principal after all. And Emily had me captured, she owes me a lifetime of pills, for my incarceration.”

The salamander’s words set her mind at ease a little, at least around him in particular.

We awaited the weekend to make our adventure, not wanting to forsake our duties so nonchalantly. The Sentries were in order and my chemist team was set.

Just after midday, a dragon landed on the school’s campus, its scales pale white. It was exhausted, breathing so desperately for sweet air that it couldn’t even muster the words it needed. As someone who dealt with the injured and sickly on an almost daily basis, I couldn’t ignore him, although he was just tired. I kept three vials on hand, each representing a fast-acting version of the three pills I became a little popular for. I tried making him swallow it but he refused stubbornly.

“Won’t, be alive,” he breathed with every pause, “long enough. Glacier Crest, needs help!” The minute he finished his sentence, a familiar buzzling sound showered the air, and within seconds, the dragons neck fell, along with his head. A clean cut. And the culprit? A deadly ice magic, winter’s star.

I looked up and saw a circle platform speeding by, I knew he was on top of that ice, Winter. Every instinct in my body urged me to use metamorphosis and chase after him, but that form wasn’t something I could just show to the public so indifferently, after all, many students saw the scene.

Audax lowered his neck and my body just moved, no input from me necessary. He took flight and I immediately placed a barrier around him. After flying for about five minutes and dodging many winter stars, we gained on him. I racked my brain over what spell to use. The arcane bind was fine, but with his magical prowess, I was sure he’d break out of it. I needed a way to knock him out without killing him, so the shadow sphere was totally out of the question. I formed a sphere anyway, one made of the white energy that is arcane. Much like the technique used to make a shadow sphere, its construction was also quite similar, but I’d no idea what effect it would have.

We flew over him and I jumped off Audax and casted arcane bind on the prison escapee, then hurled the arcane sphere down to him before he could think of breaking out of the magic chains. He looked up in a panic and with only time to move his head out of the way, his chest collected the sphere instead. It pitched his body to the ground with frightening power, so much that I wondered if it killed him. I casted metamorphosis and used the shadow energy that engulfed me as wings, gliding down to the unconscious Samael Winter. I stooped near him, and noticed some strange lines on his face, likewise to how old paint would begin cracking.

Suddenly, piece of his face fell inward, into an empty husk. What the… Audax landed after, sharing my puzzlement as the thin ice shell broke apart with the passing of time.

“Do you know anything about this?” I asked the dragon. He shook his head in regret, telling me the only persons likely to know are the archmage and Chiron.

Simply mentioning my uncle reminded me about his request for me to go to the Crag, but there was no clear objective, so I brushed it off as unimportant. What was of importance right now was finding out what was going on in the north, in Glacier Crest. Why did it need saving?

The ice began melting away, so we returned to the academy, walking through a portal. The new principal, a steadfast old man who was once the head of the third years was on the gruesome scene, along with many students who gathered to see, but was pushed back by magic.

Mandy, the principal and the archmage talked for a while, then I returned and stole their attention.

“Emily,” Vaughn called me, “Miss Sikorski tells me you chased the murderer,” he commented, his eyes asking if it’s true. I nodded, and gained a sigh. I was confused as to why it seemed like I answered wrongly.

He created a portal and I used my arcane bind to sort of lift the beast through the portal. A couple hours later a meeting in that glass tower was already taking place, and I was the centre of all the questions. But one question they’d all had on their mind brought forth a series of glares untrusting and sceptical, “Who killed the dragon?”

I froze on the stupendously tall seat as the principal, Vaughn, Mandy, watched on when two officials posed the question to me. What exactly was I going to tell them, that Winter killed the dragon? How was that believable? The man had been in chains for weeks, but I’d be damned if it wasn’t Winter I saw. Even Audax could attest to it. Do I lie? An official tapped his finger on the circular wooden desk, his nail giving the sound extra oomph and laying down gentle pressure on me to answer. If I lied about this, so that I wouldn’t seem like a crazed person who was just delirious, and was found out along the way, I’d be in some deep trouble.

I sighed, got up and walked over to the window, turning around when I was ready to give them the truth, or what I perceived was the truth, “Samael Winter killed the dragon.”

“Inconceivable! Do you take us for fools, young lady?!” an official pounded the desk in irritation and jumped me, “Winter is imprisoned as we speak! In magic restraints! There’s no possible way th–”

“I know!” I shouted back, “I know, alright?! What do you want me to tell you? That’s who I’ve seen! What’s worse, after I caught up with him his body turned to ice and began cracking and melting away! Even I’m questioning what I saw!” I rebound, settling the hot-tempered official into a docile state.

“It’s,” Vaughn’s intertwined fingers blocked his mouth a little whilst his elbows rested on the table, “not impossible,” he said, lifting some suspicion away from me. “Ice dragons, or at least, some ice dragons, have the ability to ‘create’ life, so to speak. Maybe Winter somehow learned that trick.” He explained this, and coming from him, it was well received that I wasn’t demented.

I brought their attention back to me, “I’m sure both of you,” I looked at the officials, “have heard of me suddenly visiting Winter in prison. The reason I did that was because right before, I journeyed to Glacier Crest,” they looked stunned that someone would actually go there, “and at the summit,” they once again showed their awe-stricken faces, “was Winter. He attacked Audax, the dragon, and I. That is why I checked to see if he really was imprisoned there. And he was.”

“What will the king do?” the principal asked the officials.

“Containment. This cannot, absolutely cannot be spread. Ensure no students were to know this. For if, however impossible this may sound, the ice dragons think that we’ve killed one of their own, a war will break out. That is something we do not need,” the elder official spoke of a frightening subject.

“Indeed,” Vaughn agreed with him, “they believe they’re higher than humans and dragons alike. Their arrogance is unrivalled. We cannot let this spread, not even to your spouses.”

“Agreed.”

They decided to cover it up as best they could, and made it so that event never even happened. It was smart of them, I guess, to avoid a war like they claimed it would. Certainly, my interaction with the ice dragons would make me believe their choice was an intelligent one.

Days passed by uneventfully. I kept practising metamorphosis as much as I could, and perfected my unrefined arcane sphere, but there wasn’t much effort needed since I’d already had the basics down. I wondered, since I was able to form a sphere of shadow, and one of arcane, could I also use draconic or elemental magic? I breathed fire slowly into my palm, but making the gaseous flame form a ball was quite difficult. It needed a base, something maybe to hold it together, but what? An evening, I asked Audax, and his reply was quick, almost as if the answer was an obvious one. Earth.

Of course, molten rock. The arcane and shadow spheres were simple, but this one had several layers to it. I needed to superheat rock, until it formed a thin, low viscosity state, flowing lava in other words. I needed to form a layer of rock around that lava, strong enough to hold the lava within for at least ten seconds, but thin enough to explode on contact. A couple weeks passed by, and I showed this to the salamanders after I’d mastered it. The lava sphere floated a few inches from my palm, and when I chucked it to a faraway rock, it didn’t exactly explode, but enveloped the rock with lava and gaseous fire alike, burning it up rather badly.

This, to me, was the middle-ground between the arcane sphere and shadow sphere. It wouldn’t take a life like the shadow sphere depending on where I aimed it, but it wouldn’t leave you uninjured like the arcane sphere. I reckoned it wasn’t something I’d need to use, but the feeling of accomplishment after struggling to learn it was worth the time.

In a week, three dragons, all from Glacier Crest, visited the courtyard of the castle to speak to Sven. Whilst the talk went on, Vaughn opened portals so I could attend this meeting of sorts. I supposed he thought I was too deep in this dragon business to not be included. The reason for their visit was simple: to hear the reason for the murder and missing carcass of one of their kind.

How did they find out? Who told them? Vaughn, the king and I shared a similarly suspicious face. “If you do not appease us with a proper answer within seven days, this place shall become a frozen wasteland.”

With that warning, two of them flew off but one stayed behind. “Liberator of dragons,” it called out, “I must speak with you,” he turned to me, his eyes sharp like a knife.

“You, know me?”

“I was one of the chained dragons,” he said, then sighed. “You have no obligation, youngling, but you are strong, and so I ask that you use your strength.”

“For what?”

“To help us. There is something strange about our clan. The elders especially. It’s as if their mind is no longer their own. Their orders are absolute, so we cannot disobey, and this,” he exhaled depressingly, “cannot be. Our presence here is because of their command. Glacier Crest will fall if we continue like this. Help us, I beg of you.”

This dragon, the second icy reptile to ask of my help said some interesting things. “I, must go,” he said, turning away.

“The last dragon to ask for my help was killed right before my eyes,” I stopped him, “do you plan to be a martyr too?”

His jaw opened, about to say something, then closed. He knew that I knew they’d probably kill him for these words he spoke to me. Of course, he could hide, but Glacier Crest was a vast, open land, hiding was probably hard. “Then what do you suppose I do?” he asked.

Do I just let him go to his death? How could I help? If I personally helped, it would brand him a traitor, I thought, so instead, I gave him a pill of each colour and made him wait until it took effect. He flew off afterwards with amplified strength and magic, he could more than defend himself from the two other emissaries he came with.

He flew away, and just as he began gliding over the lower courtyard, a winter star flew up from below him, splitting his head in two.

The dragon dropped, and so did my hesitance to stay uninvolved in Glacier Crest’s affairs.

I teleported to the balcony and jumped onto it, lava sphere already in hand. I leaped, diving downwards towards the perpetrator.