The wind swept across the towers of the ancient fortress, a silent monument to power that watched over the realm. The castle walls were black and gray from the breath of countless winters, its battlements as sharp as a dragon's teeth. Here, within this age-old stronghold, lived Elenora—not as a daughter, not as a princess, but as the king's ward. A bastard child, her name whispered in shadows, never spoken aloud.
Elenora knew nothing of her mother. No one ever spoke of her, and whenever she dared to ask, she received only evasive glances or the cold silence of the servants. At times, she imagined her mother as a mysterious stranger from a distant land, perhaps even a sorceress who had vanished before Elenora drew her first breath. Yet deep in her heart, a bitter suspicion gnawed at her—that the truth was far more ordinary, and far more painful.
Her half-siblings made her life at court a torment. Prince Elrond, the firstborn, the darling of the realm, never missed a chance to remind her that she did not belong. With his cold smile and venomous tongue, he mocked her in the corridors, his words often cutting deeper than any blow. Serafina and Emeralda, the princesses, were no less cruel. They despised her, treating her like filth that was tolerated but never acknowledged. When they walked the grand halls together, they would lift their gowns high, as if afraid Elenora's mere presence might stain them.
The king himself—her father, the Dragon King—was seldom in the castle. The burden of his crown was too great, his duties too vast. He traveled ceaselessly between kingdoms, delivering justice, forging alliances, quelling disputes. To Elenora, he remained a distant shadow, a man she barely knew, yet who decided her fate. When he was present, the castle seemed to blaze with life. But his visits were brief, and for his bastard daughter, he had scarcely a word.
The castle itself was a place steeped in secrets and legend. Its stone halls echoed with the weight of old stories, and in its shadowed corridors, time seemed to stand still. The ceilings rose like the heavens, painted with frescos of the royal family's glory and the power of dragons. Everywhere were reminders of this bond—carved dragon heads on the doors, mosaics of scale-patterns across the floors, iron braziers where flames burned day and night.
But the true heart of the fortress lay in the caverns beneath its walls: the dragon chambers. Here dwelled the last dragons of the realm, proud and mighty, remnants of an age long past. Their numbers had grown few—only a handful remained—and only the king's bloodline could ride them and hear their voices. The dragons accepted no outsiders; they opened their hearts only to those who bore the ancient bond of blood.
Elenora often dreamed of descending into those shadowed halls herself, of feeling a dragon's gaze fall upon her, of hearing its voice in her mind. But she knew such a fate would never be hers. As a bastard, she could never be chosen. So she watched from afar—when Elrond thundered across the skies upon his fiery beast, or when Serafina and Emeralda basked in the pride of their rightful claim to dragonkind.
No ice dragon had been seen for centuries. Legends said they were gone forever, extinguished by the fire-kin and the greed of men. The last ice dragon, so the stories told, had perished in the great war, its body entombed beneath the northern glaciers. But Elenora, who often stood upon the battlements and watched the skies, could not shake the feeling that the world guarded its secrets more tightly than men believed.
And sometimes, when the winter storms howled over the fortress and the snowflakes spun like glittering shards through the air, Elenora thought she could hear the faint echo of a call.
A call not meant for the prince.
Not for the princesses.
But for her alone.