The First Week
Imprisonment was more bizarre than Lioran anticipated.
The south tower chamber was cozy—much more welcoming than some of the spots he'd slept in. A thick-furred bed, a desk made of ice that didn't melt, a window looking out over Glaciheart's crystalline loveliness. Food came three times a day, brought by silent guards who departed before he could talk.
It was still a cage, though, and the ember resented cages.
Every morning, Lioran would wake to the frost coverings on the walls of his room, and they would be patterns he had not made. They shifted with each day—sometimes a simple series of shapes, sometimes elaborate compositions that seemed to have narratives he couldn't quite follow.
On the fourth morning, he figured out they were messages.
The pattern indicated a flame imprisoned in crystal, burning but confined. Below it, another image—the same flame released, burning everything, including itself.
"She's observing," Lioran whispered to the vacant room. "Seeing how I react to confinement."
He spent the rest of the hour taking care to melt the frost designs away, scoured clean off the walls. Not out of anger or rebellion, but as a mere declaration: I comprehend.
The following morning, fresh patterns appeared—but these were almost. satisfying.
...
The Visitor
The seventh day, Evelina herself arrived.".
Lioran was trying to meditate when the door burst open unannounced. The Queen walked in alone, without guards, in less elaborate attire than the throne room—just fur and leather, although frost still topped her brow like eternal winter in flesh form.
"You're quieter than I would have anticipated," she said, examining the room. "Most fire mages entombed in ice would be raking their claws across the walls by now."
"I've discovered that not all prisons are intended to be escaped from," Lioran said. "Some are intended to be figured out."
Evelina went to the window, gazing out over her city. "Tell me about Kyrris."
The name struck Lioran like a body blow. "How do you—"
"I know all that goes on within my kingdom. Including what you shared with Captain Valdis on your way here." She rotated to him. "You bonded with a dragon. Loved it. Saw it die defending you. That sort of loss is a changer. I want to know how it changed you."
Lioran was silent for a moment. "It showed me that power isn't enough. That strength without purpose is just. destruction waiting to happen. Kyrris was power, yes, but also loyalty and trust and something pure that I could never be on my own."
"And without it?"
"Without it, I'm just fire burning to burn." His fists curled. "That's why I headed north. Not merely for supplies. But because I had to get away from people I could hurt. Because the ember in me keeps insisting on more, and I'm finding fewer and fewer ways to say no."
Evelina nodded slowly, as if to agree with what she'd already suspected. "The frost is different. It doesn't need or hunger. It just is. It waits patiently and absolutely for the moment to move."
"I don't know how to wait," Lioran confessed.
"That's when you'll be taught." She stepped towards the door, stopped. "You'll be trained tomorrow. Not on using more power—you have sufficient. On using it differently. If you live, maybe we'll talk about trade."
"And if I don't live?"
"Then Thornhaven will just have to find someone else who's willing to save us." She departed, the door clicking shut with a sound of ice.
.....
The Training Ground
The following morning, guards led Lioran to a courtyard far in the palace.
It was a large circle, maybe fifty paces in diameter, covered with compressed snow. Pillars of ice encircled the edges, each one inscribed with runes that glowed softly with blue light. Standing at the center was Evelina, ready for battle, a frost arrangement of patterns on her armor.
"The rules are straightforward," she told him. "You use your fire to attack me. I use my ice to protect myself. When you grasp why you're failing, the lesson is over."
"And if I don't get it?"
"Then you'll be extremely cold for an extremely long time." She waved her hand. "Start."
Lioran hesitated, then launched a blast of fire at her—controlled, not to kill, but to see how she defended herself.
Evelina held up a hand and the fire just. stopped. It didn't strike a wall or bounce back. It just went out, the warmth sucked away so thoroughly that frost formed where there had been flame.
"Again," she ordered.
He attempted with firmer fire, molding it into lashes and spears. Every time, the outcome was the same. The flames were able to reach a certain length from Evelina and collapse, their power drawn into the surrounding ice.
Lioran was panting after an hour, the ember wrenching with anger. "What are you doing? Fire should burn ice."
"Should it?" Evelina let her hands fall. "What is fire, Dragon Lord? Describe it to me."
"It's. heat. Energy. Change."
"And ice?"
"Chilly. Quiet. Conservation."
"Close," Evelina said. "But not finished. Fire is energy attempting to find expression. Ice is energy finding rest. They're not opposites—different phases of the same." She waved her hand, and frost coalesced in intricate patterns around them. "Your fire struggles to expand, to devour, to change. My ice merely takes that energy and provides it with a resting place. I'm not battling your strength. I'm granting it permission to cease warring against itself."
Lioran glared at her. "That's. not the way magic is supposed to go."
"In the south, maybe. Here, we know power isn't domination. It's harmony. Balance." She took a step closer. "Your ember burns bright because you're always fighting it. It wants to burn, you want to hold onto it. Both of you tugging in opposite directions and causing friction that only makes things worse."
"So what do I do?"
"Stop fighting. Start listening." She flung up her hand, and ice condensed between them—not as shield or sword, but as art. Crystalline forms that reflected light and sent it flashing back changed. "Watch. I don't control the ice. I invite it. Show it what's possible. And it responds not because I'm more powerful, but because we're co-operating."
She dropped the ice, which shattered into powder that sparkled in the freezing air.
"Your turn," she said. "Not fire to attack. Fire to create. Show me something beautiful."
.....
The Attempt
Lioran attempted.
He'd never considered fire as something one uses to create, but to destroy. But he lifted his hands and tried to form flame the way Evelina formed ice—softly, inviting instead of commanding.
The fire arrived, but wild and uncontrolled. Burned too fiercely, moved too rapidly, would not maintain any shape for longer than seconds. Lioran's face dripped with sweat from exertion to control.
"Stop," Evelina said at last. "You're still resisting. Still attempting to master."
"I don't know how else."
"Then learn." She stepped behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. Her fingers were cold, but not to the point of pain. "Close your eyes. Touch the ember. Don't try to push against it. Just. feel."
Lioran closed his eyes and went inside. The ember burned there, angry and hungry as ever. But beneath that burning surface anger, he sensed something else. Loneliness. Fear. The need to be proven worthy by burning brighter and brighter.
"It's afraid," he breathed. "The ember. It's afraid to be useless. To not be necessary."
"Most power is," Evelina said softly. "That's why it turns destructive. It would rather destroy than be forgotten." Her hands tightened softly. "Make it know that it's necessary. Not to destroy. Just to be. Just to exist."
Lioran delved deeper into the ember, and for the first time since his resurrection, he didn't attempt to suppress or direct or control it. He just. accepted it.
"I see you," he thought. "I need you. Not as weapon. Just as part of who I am."
The ember trembled, perplexed. Then gradually, hesitantly, it subsided.
When Lioran opened his eyes and lifted his arms, fire came—but not. It flowed like water, taking on shapes that contained, that danced and didn't devour. Less fiery, perhaps, but warmer in a way. More. alive.
He formed it into a bird, memory of crows that had wheeled around Ashvale. The fire-bird flew in a circle around them, beating wings, leaving warmth trails that didn't sear.
Then it evaporated softly, returning to his fingers.
Evelina moved back, and for the first time, she smiled. Not the ice-break smile in the throne room, but something real.
"That," she said, "was the first step."
.....
Evening Conversation
That evening, Evelina came back to his bedchamber with two mugs of warm wine.
"You did well today," she said, handing him one. "Most southerners can't absorb that lesson in years. You learned in hours."
"Perhaps because I was so desperate to learn," Lioran replied. "The ember was burning me out. I had to find something else."
They sat silently for a moment, seeing snow fall outside the window.
"Why are you doing this?" Lioran asked at last. "You could have told me no, sent me south. Why waste time teaching someone you don't know?"
Evelina remained silent for a long time. "Because eight years ago, when I first ascended to the throne, I came close to annihilating my own city. The magic of ice is as much a devourer as fire if you don't comprehend it. I turned an entire district to ice, killed forty people who couldn't move quickly enough." She gazed into her wine. "An old wizard taught me what I'm teaching you. How to harness power, not fight it. And he swore me to promise, that if I ever found someone going through what I went through, I would take them in hand."
"I'm sorry," Lioran said. "For your losses."
"Don't be. They showed me what kind of queen I was going to be." She glared at him. "And now you'll learn what kind of Dragon Lord you're going to be. One who burns everything, or one who learns when not to burn."
"Is there a third option?"
"Always," she replied. "But you'll have to survive long enough to discover it."
She rose, taking her cup. "Rest. Tomorrow we train once more. And the next day. Until you grasp not only control, but coexistence."
She departed, and Lioran moved to the window, sensing the ember within his chest—quieter now, less frantic. Beyond the glass, Glaciheart sparkled under starlight, a city constructed by beings who'd learned to share power rather than be overwhelmed by it.
Perhaps, he considered, there was hope for him still.