Page 7 of Ice King

My stomach growled and I turned to the shelf, seeing several baskets covered with a cloth. When I pulled away the fabric from one, I squealed with glee to find freshly baked bread, dried fruit, and meat jerky of some kind. The muffins were still soft and broke off easily in my hand. I popped a bite into my mouth, and the fruity flavors of some unidentifiable berry exploded over my tongue. It tasted along the lines of a raspberry, but maybe also a blackberry or a blueberry. I took another bite, but I was nowhere near figuring out what it was after I finished chewing.

I sat down by the fire. Now that I was finally warm and filling my belly, I didn’t really know what to do.

Hopefully, I’d wake up from this bad dream or whatever this was soon, safe and warm in my own bed, and the memory of this all would fade, and I’d be able to go back to my normal life.

CHAPTER2

Nykor

The cool air whipped around me like an icy caress, and I swept through the sky, surveying the Frostpeak Mountains. They ranged through the northern reaches of Icegard. Within its sprawling peaks and valleys, the harsh climate was home to several of the realm’s most terrifying creatures. Enormous snow wolves roamed the deeper valleys, able to climb the rocky cliffsides with ease to monitor large distances and their ever-changing territories. Ice giants inhabited the caves in small family units. Yetis and snow foxes wandered in the lower reaches, but the mountain range’s close proximity to the rift was starting to lower their numbers, despite everything I was trying to do to prevent it.

Helheim’s monsters were coming through in hordes now. Droves of orcs sullied the pristine white snow, but the disturbances didn’t end at their messy campsites or their overhunting of the natural wildlife. Several avalanches had wiped out some of the smaller villages to the south. What appeared to be stone giants, wargs, and hellhounds had come through too, yet the magic of Icegard had changed them so that they could survive in the frozen landscape. Their red eyes had turned into a cold deep blue, their scales thicker and reinforced with coarse, wiry fur meant to keep them warm.

The magical transformation made them even more formidable than anything I’d fought in the past, at least in my human form.

When I took to the skies as a dragon, nothing stood a chance against me. For centuries, my surveillance of the mountain range had kept the people of Icegard safe, but there’d been a noticeable uptick in activity close to the rift in the past few months. I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with it.

I’d have to work harder. I’d have to kill as many monsters as I needed to so that my realm remained out of reach of the Dark King.

The alternative was far worse.

I couldn’t do what the king of Blazelheim had done. I had turned my back on prophecy long ago while he hadn’t. Truthfully, I hadn’t really believed the rumors until I’d gone to his realm myself to see the sealed rift with my own eyes.

He’d found his one true mate and marked her, taking her as his forever and for always. She’d once been human, but there was a decidedly mystical energy within her fiery gaze since he’d claimed her.

I didn’t want a mate. I wouldn’t give my heart to a human ever again. Plus, the chances of finding the one meant for me were close to none.

There was a time that I’d abided by prophecy. I knew the rift could be sealed by mating a human touched by realm magic, at least temporarily.

I’d done my duty as Dragonborne long ago. I’d mated with the chosen humans when they were the proper age for centuries, but then there was one that made all the others pale in comparison. Her name had been Yasmina. When I thought about her, there was only pain and loss because in a short amount of time, she’d become my whole world.

The odds had been stacked against us, right from the very beginning. She was human, and I was not. Her humanity came with a certain fragility. She was vulnerable in ways I hadn’t expected, which included an extreme weakness to the cold.

I took care of her for as long as I was able, but fate is a cruel master. I searched for years for any solution to her fragility, finding nothing that would extend her exceedingly short human lifespan. There was no spell that would transform her into a creature that lived as long as I did.

I failed her and she died.

Her beautiful face flashed before my eyes, and I pushed away the unwelcome memory with a savage growl. I didn’t want to think about her. The pain of her loss was still too much to bear even though she’d died decades ago.

I hadn’t mated with another human since.

Instead of sealing the rift with mating magic, I used a strategy dependent upon brute force. I’d place a steward on the throne and taken to the skies in a vow to protect the realm with whatever force was necessary. I’d given up the crown for the sake of Icegard.

That had worked, at least until recently.

The uptick in monster activity had become increasingly noticeable. I hardly spent any time in my human form these days. I remained as a dragon because I needed to be prepared to act at all times. I hadn’t rested in days, spending hours patrolling the mountains for the Dark King’s monsters. I kept to the skies, using my superior senses to ensure that those that made it through the rift didn’t get far enough to hurt anyone else.

Just last week, though, an alarming new creature had appeared, one that wasn’t susceptible to physical attack and that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. They’d become a real threat.

These monsters came from the deepest pits of Helheim, going through a magical transition as soon as they passed through the rift.

My people called them ice wraiths.

They were invisible to the naked eye. The only way to detect them was by recognizing the chill that accompanied their presence. Once I encountered a group of them, I could sense their hazy auras by sight, but none of the humans or elves they attacked had been able to see them the way I could. They had zero defense against them, except for me.

My dragon ice fire was the only thing that killed them.

The wraiths moved over vast amounts of land with the wind. They were incredibly fast, and several of the smaller, more isolated villages had been wiped out since they’d first appeared. There had been reports of several attacks spread all over the northern territories. I’d arrived at many of them far too late.

---