The cold was the first thing Kai registered. It was a biting, cruel cold that sank deep into his bones, a stark contrast to the warmth of his own blood spreading beneath him.
Memory returned in a painful flash.
Liam's hand on his shoulder. A friendly smile that didn't reach his eyes. The sudden, brutal shove that sent him stumbling backward over the edge of the cliff. The world turning upside down, the sky shrinking to a slit of light as he fell into the Glacier of Endings. The sickening crunch as he landed on a hidden ledge, an icicle as thick as his arm punching through his side.
Betrayal. That was the last, sharp feeling before the numbness set in.
He tried to move, but his body was a leaden weight. The icicle had pinned him to the frozen floor of the cavern like a butterfly in a collection. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps, each one a lance of agony. The warmth of his life pooled around the wound, only to freeze almost instantly, gluing him to the ice.
This is it, he thought, his vision blurring. I'm going to die here, alone and forgotten. And Liam… Liam has the Frost-Blossom. He'll be hailed as a hero.
A bitter taste filled his mouth. Not just from blood, but from the sheer, ugly truth of it. He had been weak. Trusting. And weakness was a sin the world punished without mercy.
As his consciousness flickered, a new sensation began to bloom. It wasn't the sharp cold of the air, but a deeper, more profound chill that emanated from the very walls of the cavern. The ice around him started to glow with a soft, ethereal blue light.
Then, a voice. It didn't sound in the cavern; it resonated directly inside his skull, a rumble so deep it felt like the mountain itself was speaking.
"Child… you dare bleed upon my domain?"
Kai's eyes, heavy with approaching death, struggled to focus. The cavern wasn't a cavern. The walls weren't just walls of rock and ice. They were scales. Immense, shimmering scales, each one the size of a shield, patterned like frozen constellations.
He was lying in the lair of a creature from legend.
Before him, uncoiling from an ageless slumber, was a dragon. Not the feral, fire-breathing beasts of common folklore, but a being of pure, primordial ice. Its body was a river of solidified moonlight, its horns like jagged peaks, and its eyes… its eyes were twin abysses of ancient, frozen time. This was Aurelis Glaciem, the Eternal Wyrm, and Kai had desecrated its sanctuary with his dying blood.
Terror should have stopped his heart. But there was no strength left for terror.
Am I… dying? The thought was a feeble whisper in his mind.
"Not yet," the dragon's voice thundered silently. "Fate is seldom so kind. I taste the bitterness in your soul, little mortal. The sting of betrayal. The hunger for strength you never possessed."
The dragon's gaze felt like it was peeling back the layers of his life, seeing every moment of weakness, every time he'd been overlooked, every false smile from Liam that he'd been too naive to question.
Images flashed behind his eyes: Liam's smirk as he fell. The promise of shared glory. The lie of friendship. A hot, pure rage cut through the paralyzing cold. It was the last ember of life in him, and it burned brightly.
Yes! He screamed the word in his mind, putting all his pain and fury into it. I want power! Enough to never be weak again. Enough to make them all see… to make them all regret!
Aurelis's laughter was the sound of glaciers calving into a silent sea. "Good. Rage is a fine catalyst. But power is not a gift; it is a burden. My legacy is a storm that will freeze your very soul. Can you bear it?"
Kai had no choice. It was this or oblivion. He focused every shred of his will into a single, clear thought.
Yes.
"Then rise, my Incarnate."
The sigil on the dragon's forehead flared, and a matching pattern of intricate, glacial blue lines bloomed across Kai's chest. It was agony beyond anything the physical wound had caused. It was as if his blood was being replaced with liquid nitrogen, his bones reforged with diamond-hard ice. He arched his back, a silent scream trapped in his throat as power—raw, ancient, and terrifying—flooded into him.
He felt his hair bleach from raven black to the white of a fresh blizzard, strands now streaked with ethereal cerulean. His hazel eyes shattered and reformed into crystalline orbs that saw the cold not as an enemy, but as a part of himself.
When the pain finally receded, he collapsed, gasping. But he was gasping air, not blood. The terrible wound in his side was gone, replaced by the glowing dragon crest. The icicle that had impaled him lay shattered around him like broken glass.
He pushed himself to his feet. There was no tremble. No weakness. The cold that had been killing him moments ago now felt like a comfortable blanket. He breathed out, and a plume of frost crackled in the air, making the ice at his feet thicken.
He was alive. He was whole.
He was changed.
The great dragon lowered its colossal head, one ancient eye fixing him with a stare that held the weight of eons.
"The boy who was betrayed died here. What walks out is my legacy. You are the vessel of frost, the Dragon Incarnate. Now, go. Survive. Grow. And remind this world of the chill that precedes the dawn."
The dragon's presence faded, its form settling back into the mountain, becoming once more indistinguishable from the ice.
Kai was alone. But for the first time in his life, he was not afraid. He looked at his hands, flexing his fingers. A sheen of frost coated his palm.
A slow, cold smile touched his lips. It held no warmth, only the promise of a coming winter.
Somewhere above, Liam was celebrating his ill-gotten prize. He thought his problem had been solved.
He was wrong. His problem was just beginning.
Kai turned, and with a will that was no longer entirely human, he began to climb out of the abyss.