The Ascent
Travel to the Frost Kingdoms required three additional days, each of them colder than before.
Lioran walked behind Captain Valdis over mountain passes that looked as though they'd been carved from pure ice, their walls reflecting in pale sunlight. The air was thinning and cutting, each breath searing his lungs with cold that even the ember's heat couldn't adequately repel.
"You were fortunate you arrived when you did," Valdis said as they ascended the most steep of the passes. "A month from now, these passes would be totally closed. Fire will not protect you from an avalanche."
"Anyone ever attempted?" Lioran asked.
"Once. A southern mage in the Third Crusade, believed he could blaze through. We discovered remnants of him scattered over half a mile when the mountain collapsed." She looked back at him. "Frost doesn't concern itself with power. It simply exists. That is the first lesson of the north—nature here doesn't bargain."
They climbed up over a ridge, and Lioran's breath stopped.
The capital of the Frost Kingdom lay beneath them—Glaciheart, constructed into the side of the mountains. Ice towers loomed like glittering spears, casting light in the form of rainbows. Compressed snow was carved into streets as hard as stone, winding among buildings that seemed to have grown organically from the mountain itself, rather than upon it.
And at the very center, looming over all, was the Ice Throne—a palace of frozen waterfalls and glacial walls, so large it was more like a force of nature taken shape.
"Undoubtedly impressive, isn't it?" Valdis said with evident pride. "Your warm castles in the south may be cozier, but they are lacking in. grandeur."
"It's stunning," Lioran conceded. "And frightening."
"Most valuable things are." She began down the slope. "Come. The Queen awaits us."
...
The City of Ice
Stepping into Glaciheart was like entering another world.
The inhabitants were taller than southerners, wider in the shoulder, with white skin and hair in whites, silvers, and ice-blues. They wore leather and fur, but their armor was ice itself—molded and worn as a metal, melting when not required, reforming at will.
Kids splashed in streets that froze mid-splash, the sculptures that resulted not melting till spring. Merchants hawked their wares in markets whose stalls themselves were ice, kept fresh by the endless cold. Smiths hammered forges that burned impossibly hot, the combination of fire and ice so extreme it seemed reality itself was haggling.
And all around, people observed Lioran openly with curiosity, not hostility—at least not yet—but the cautious regard of people meeting something new.
A youth, about ten years old, came forward bravely. "Is it true that you incinerated a thousand men at a time?"
"Kieran!" His mother caught his arm and yanked him backward. "Apologize to the lord!"
"It's all right," Lioran replied. He knelt to level his gaze with the boy's. "No, I never destroyed a thousand men at one time. Possibly a hundred. And each time I did, it damaged something within me that never healed."
The boy's eyes widened. "Why did you do it then?"
"Because I felt I had to," Lioran admitted. "Because I was frightened. Because the power cried out for use and I did not know how to refuse." He rose to his feet. "Don't be like me, boy. Master control before you master power."
The mother curtsied deeply and took her son away, but Lioran overheard her murmured words: "Perhaps the tales were untrue about him."
Valdis observed the exchange with an impassive face. "You're not what I anticipated."
"What did you anticipate?"
"A tyrant. A monster. Someone who used power as a suit of armor and never revealed what lay beneath." She continued down the hallway. "And instead, you're just. frayed in interesting patterns."
"Is that meant as a compliment?"
"Honesty is always a compliment in the north."
.
The Ice Throne
The interior of the palace was even more stunning than its exterior.
Halls were cut from a single block of glacial ice, their surfaces inscribed with histories Lioran was unable to decipher. Light passed through walls, casting the illusion of traveling through ice sunlight. The temperature should have been lethal, but for some reason the palace provided a climate cold enough to keep the ice, yet still hospitable to human residence.
Guards stood at intervals—each of them exuding power that caused Lioran's ember to shift restlessly. These weren't ordinary soldiers. These were ice mages, trained and lethal.
At last, they arrived in the throne room.
It was enormous, with a ceiling that appeared to stretch out to infinity, ice pillars standing like frozen trees. And at the far end, sitting upon a throne hewn from a single gargantuan glacier, was Queen Evelina.
She was younger than Lioran had anticipated—perhaps thirty, though with the pale, ageless cast that seemed typical to the folk of the north. Her hair was white as newly fallen snow, her skin radiant, her eyes so pale they appeared nearly colorless. She wore robes of white fur and ice that shifted like fabric, and a crown of frost that appeared to erupt from her brow naturally.
But what Lioran was most hit by was her presence. She didn't exude power the way that he did, heat and perceivable flame. Rather, she was like the mountain itself—unyielding, unshakeable, ancient even though she was young.
"The Dragon Lord," she stated, her voice riding despite not being lifted. "Captain Valdis's report was. interesting."
Lioran bowed, not out of subservience but in respect for power acknowledging power. "Your Majesty. Thank you for an audience."
"I wonder," Evelina said, standing up from her throne and walking down steps with a fluid ease. "The south sends crusades and missionaries, attempts to convert or conquer us. And when they can't do that, they ignore us altogether. But you appear alone, seeking audience. Why?"
"Because the south has made me their enemy," Lioran replied matter-of-factly. "And I thought maybe that provided us with common ground."
Evelina halted three steps away from him, regarding his face with eyes that looked past skin to the coal glimmering in his heart. "You're truthful, at least. Or you at least seem so. But truth can be a form of lying."
"I require trade," Lioran replied. "Provisions, goods, materials. I'm establishing settlements in the north—refuge for refugees, where Church and lay power cooperate rather than vying. The Church has shut off all trade from the south as punishment. Unless we discover alternative supplies, people will die of hunger come spring."
"And why should I care if southerners die of hunger?" Evelina's voice was not cruel, merely factual.
"Because they're not southerners," Lioran said. "They're individuals attempting to create something new. Attempting to show that collaboration can work. And if we collapse—if we fail—it justifies all cynics and oppressors who claim peace is weakness and power always rules."
Evelina walked around him gradually, ice collecting in her footsteps. "You sound like an idealist. But you smell of fire and death. Which are you, Dragon Lord?"
"Both," Lioran confessed. "I'm attempting to be the first. But I keep being the second."
"At least you're aware of it." She finished her circle, standing before him again. "I've been ruling the Frost Kingdoms for eight years. During that time, I've declined three trade treaties with southern kingdoms because they always had strings attached—missionaries, military pacts, submission to Church rule. If you agree to trade with me, what strings are attached?"
"None," Lioran replied. "I'm not in a place to make demands. I'm hardly in a place to make requests."
"Everyone has an agenda."
"Mine is survival," Lioran said. "Not conquest. Not conversion. Just keeping people alive through winter and showing that a different way is possible."
Evelina fell silent for a long time. Then she lifted her hand, and ice formed in her palm—not wildly like his flames, but exactly, creating delicate crystalline structures that floated before her like icy lace.
"Display your strength," she ordered. "Not to intimidate. Just to demonstrate what you are."
Lioran paused, then lifted his own hand. Fire coalesced, but he molded it with care, not into swords but into light—whirling flames that sang warm shadows, that testified of hearthfires and protection, not ruin.
Fire and ice hovered before them, suspended in the air, neither touching, nor yielding. Light and crystal, heat and cold, southern passion and northern restraint.
"Interesting," Evelina whispered. She clenched her fist, and the ice vaporized. Lioran allowed his flame to dwindle in reaction. "You have control. Not flawless, but there. That's not common in southern mages. They tend to allow power dominate them."
"I'm making an effort to be different."
"So you said." She went back to her throne, sitting down in it with the air of a person born to power. "I'll think about your request. But first, you'll remain here as my guest. I wish to know you better before allocating my kingdom's resources."
"How long?"
"Until I'm sure you're not a danger to me, or until I determine you are and have you executed." She smiled, and it was as if seeing ice shatter. "Don't concern yourself. I'm normally a good judge of people. Normally."
Valdis took a step forward. "I'll escort him to the guest chambers, Your Majesty."
"No," Evelina replied. "He'll be kept in the south tower. With the other. special guests."
Valdis's face flashed with something—concern? Humor? "Your Majesty, the south tower is—"
"Appropriate," Evelina completed. "Dismissed."
.....
The South Tower
The south tower proved to be a part of the palace for prisoners too valuable to be killed but too risky to quarter in regular accommodations.
"You're not officially a prisoner," Valdis said as they ascended the curving staircase. "But you're not quite free, either. The Queen does this with everyone she's not sure of. Tests them. Finds out how they take confinement."
"And what if I don't pass the test?"
"And your settlements have no chance to survive winter, and you're cut off for the head." She pushed open a door to a surprisingly well-appointed room—spare but clean, with a window that looked out on the city. "Try to pass."
She departed, and Lioran heard the lock turn home.
He stood at the window, looking out on Glaciheart stretching below him, and felt the ember smolder with impatience. Trapped. Caged. Prodded like some foreign animal.
But also. safe. No one present needed guarding from him. No one present would perish if he lost control.
It was nearly serene.
Snow fell outside, every flake crystallizing light like Evelina's ice-craft.
And Lioran settled in to wait, never sure whether he was captive, visitor, or somewhere in between.
The game had just started.