The man knelt before the ancient snow, his broad shoulders lowered as the cold wind brushed past his body. His face carried nothing but pain. It had been too long since he last saw this place, so long that even he had almost started to believe he would die without ever returning here.
Before him, thick ice stretched across the ground like a frozen wall, and deep inside it, sothing massive lood in silence. Even buried under all that snow and ice, the pressure coming from it had not faded. It still pressed against his blood, reminding him of who he was, and what the Ice Dragons had lost.
"Progenitor, your child, Henry, son of Dravik, has returned to your side..." His voice ca out rough, quieter than usual. "Has the frozen heaven been treating you well?"
He pressed his forehead against the ice, allowing himself a mont of silence.
The cold bit into his skin, but he did not move. Snow gathered on his shoulders, and the blood of wild beasts on his clothes slowly froze under the wind. He stayed like that for over five hours, unmoving, as if kneeling for anything less would be disrespectful to the one buried beneath the ice.
Only after a long ti did he finally lift his old, heavy eyes and raise his head.
He looked at the giant dragon head beneath the ice for a mont longer, then rose to his feet.
His legs were stiff, his body tired from crossing the forgotten snow mountains, but his eyes carried a strange light now.
He turned toward the broken peaks of the old citadel.
The place was almost completely buried. Only a few towers and pillars still rose above the snow, cracked and broken, looking as if one strong storm could finally finish what ti had started. Yet even in that ruined state, Henry could still recognize it.
"Ho," he muttered.
This was not the village he had protected for so many years. Not the small place where the remaining Ice Dragons had hidden like hunted animals. This was the true ho of the Ice Dragon Clan.
"Never did I imagine I would one day co ho. If not for my blood awakening and returning my purity, the curse would have eaten alive from the inside..." he muttered to himself.
He walked toward one of the old pillars, stopping before what looked to be a window sealed by a heavy block of ice. Henry placed both hands against it, his fingers sinking slightly into the frozen surface as purple frost spread from his palms.
He pushed hard. The ice groaned under his strength. Cracks spread through it slowly, and for a mont, the sound echoed across the empty ruins like sothing waking from a long sleep. Henry gritted his teeth and pushed harder until the ice block finally shifted, breaking away from the old window and falling inward.
A breath of ancient air rolled out.
It was colder than the mountain outside, carrying the scent of old frost, frozen stone, and a place that had been abandoned for far too long.
Henry stepped in carefully. Darkness stretched far and deep below.
He stood at the edge for a mont, staring into the black space beneath his feet. He could not see the bottom, but he could feel sothing down there. The pressure was stronger inside, pressing against his chest and making his blood move in a way that felt almost painful.
Purple ice fla lit up on his palm.
The faint light revealed broken walls, frozen stairs, and old carvings along the inner pillar. So showed dragons spreading their wings above mountains. So showed warriors kneeling before a crown of ice. So were too damaged to be understood anymore, their aning taken by ti and frost.
Henry’s jaw tightened.
His body transford into his full dragon hybrid form. White scales spread over his skin, horns rose from his head, and wings unfolded behind him. His claws touched the ancient stone, and for the first ti in hundreds of years, awakened Ice Dragon blood stepped into this ruin again.
Without wasting any more ti, he jumped down.
The old air rushed against his face as he fell into the darkness. His purple fla flickered in his palm, revealing pieces of the ruin with every passing second. Broken statues. Walls covered in nas he could no longer read.
A tear slipped from his eye, freezing against his cheek before it could fall.
For a mont, he could almost hear voices in the darkness. Children running through halls. Warriors marching. Wings beating sowhere above the citadel before it fell into ruin. The sound was faint, almost like a dream, but it made his chest ache.
Henry gritted his teeth as he kept falling.
His feet struck the hard floor with a dull thud, the sound rolling through the silent hall.
The purple light from his palm spilled outward, lighting up the vast chamber. Henry froze for a mont, grief biting into his chest so sharply that it almost made it hard to breathe.
At the far end of the hall, the skeleton of a man sat upon a throne. He wore a crown of ice, yet it was golden, still gleaming faintly even after all this ti. A thick sword hung from his rib bones, as if the dead king had refused to part with it even in death. Henry walked closer, his fingers trembling more with each step, until his knees crashed heavily against the floor before the throne.
"Your failure of a son has returned ho, father," he muttered, his voice shaking. His eyes were heavy with devastation. During the war, he had been unable to save his father. He had been too weak, and his bloodline had cracked beneath the sin of his father.
He remained there for a long mont, kneeling in silence before the throne.
Then his eyes slowly lifted above his father’s corpse, climbing toward the tall ceiling, where sothing golden shone in the dark like a giant gem.
"Now it’s my turn to sin, father."
A dangerous aura began to rise around Henry as his eyes remained fixed on the shining gem above.
The golden gem pulsed once, as if answering him.
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