The Frost Dragon's complete demise finally allowed Sylas to exhale in relief.
Even in death, Hrívemir's immense body radiated waves of scorching heat. The furnace full of Balrog Fire Crystals still burned within his belly, and tongues of shimmering air rose from his jaws like smoke from a dying volcano.
For the moment, Sylas ignored the corpse and Apparated to where Thorondor had fallen.
He found the Giant Eagle lying amid a crushed forest glade, his feathers rimed with frost. Sylas's heart clenched. He knelt beside him, quickly uncorking vials from his belt, and poured them carefully into the eagle's beak and over the frostbitten wing.
Thorondor's wounds, thankfully, were not mortal; one wing had been frozen solid, leaving him temporarily unable to fly.
Still, seeing the proud bird grounded filled Sylas with anguish.
Thorondor was not like the others, not bound to him by magic, but by trust. Abandoned by his kin when he was young, the great eagle had been raised by Sylas himself. He was family, not servant.
And when Thorondor had seen the "Sylas" decoy swallowed by the Frost Dragon, he had thrown himself into battle, ignoring the odds, desperate to avenge his fallen master.
Sylas ran his hand over the eagle's beak with quiet affection. "Rest, my friend. You've done enough."
After soothing Thorondor with a few gentle words, Sylas turned back toward the enormous corpse that dominated the valley.
Even after so many battles, Sylas was struck speechless by the Frost Dragon's sheer size.
Hrívemir's body stretched for nearly a thousand meters, a mountain of ice and scale. Without the use of cunning, without the Balrog Fire Crystals burning him from within, Sylas doubted even all his spells combined could have slain such a creature.
Ironically, Saruman had once subdued the same dragon with a similar trick, concealing Ungoliant's venom inside a Fellbeast and letting Hrívemir devour it.
If Sylas had known, he might have laughed at how history repeated itself: once poisoned by venom, now destroyed by fire. The mighty ancient wyrm had fallen for the same ruse twice, a victim of his own greed.
A foodie dragon indeed.
"Now… how am I supposed to move this?" Sylas muttered, frowning up at the titanic corpse.
Even Smaug, powerful as he was, could never drag something ten times his size. And yet, the body was too valuable to leave behind.
His first task was to retrieve the Mithril furnace from the Frost Dragon's belly. For this, he turned to Smaug.
Hrívemir's body was absurdly tough. Cutting charms barely left scratches, and even the Brisingr or Spear Aeglos could pierce only inches of hide, like stabbing a mountain with a needle.
So Smaug set to work with his claws and fangs.
For nearly half an hour the dragon tore at frozen flesh, smoke rising with every wrench of his talons. When the hide finally split, a wave of scorching heat blasted outward, so fierce that even Smaug, who bathed daily in his own fire, winced and hissed.
Sylas quickly raised a Cooling Charm, shielding both of them from the blast.
Inside, Hrívemir's organs looked like something half-boiled and half-charred, still steaming. The stomach itself had been burned clean through, its blood completely vaporized.
There, nestled among the melted flesh, lay the blackened Mithril furnace.
Sylas cast a sealing charm over it, extinguishing the lingering inferno. Gradually, the suffocating heat in the valley began to fade.
Only then did his gaze fall upon the Frost Dragon's heart, an enormous organ the size of a cottage, still exuding a faint glacial chill.
Unlike the rest of the cooked remains, the heart's power had resisted the Fire Crystals' destruction. Its icy aura still prickled against Sylas's skin.
He withdrew a Mithril container from his enchanted satchel and cast an Undetectable Extension Charm upon it. Then, gripping Aeglos, he pierced the dragon's heart.
A flood of sapphire-blue blood burst forth, chilling the air with every drop. The liquid shimmered like liquid crystal, so cold that a single touch could freeze flesh solid. Even Sylas had to work carefully, shielding his hands with protective wards as he siphoned the blood into the container.
The process took time. The heart was vast, and the flow seemed endless. When at last it ran dry, Sylas had collected the equivalent of thirty barrels of Frost Dragon blood.
He sealed the mithril container with stasis charms and whispered a preservation spell.
Every inch of a dragon's body was valuable, and an ancient wyrm like Hrívemir was worth more than gold.
The blood of a dragon was especially precious: an essential component in countless elixirs and enchantments.
Sylas recalled that Nicolas Flamel had used dragon blood in crafting the Elixir of Life. If Flamel's work had been based on the blood of lesser dragons, then the essence of an ancient Frost Dragon might prove even more potent.
After draining the last of the blood, Sylas carefully removed the Frost Dragon's massive heart. The organ was still icy to the touch, crystalline veins pulsing faintly beneath its surface.
Feeling along its structure, Sylas drew a sharp Mithril knife and made a deep incision. From within, he slowly extracted a sinewy, shimmering cord, nearly two meters long.
It radiated a faint, chilling energy.
"The heartstring…" Sylas murmured, his eyes gleaming with recognition.
It was a Dragon heartstring, one of the rarest materials in existence, prized by wandmakers across the ages. This particular one, drawn from an ancient Frost Dragon, pulsed with pure, frozen magic.
If paired with a proper wand wood, something resonant like Elder or White Birch, it could produce a wand of exceptional power. Spells of frost, ice, and preservation would surge in potency, their effects amplified tenfold.
Sylas coiled the heartstring gently, sealing it inside a crystal tube, then stored both it and the enormous heart within his spatial bag.
He worked efficiently after that, removing the remaining organs, the Dragon's liver, lungs, and kidneys, all of which were invaluable ingredients for potioncraft. Even in death, a Dragon was treasure incarnate, and Sylas was not one to waste such bounty.
"Master," Smaug's deep voice rumbled from nearby, his golden eyes gleaming, "I sense something… inside its head."
Sylas's curiosity piqued. He climbed atop Hrívemir's skull, where frost still glimmered across the dead Dragon's horns.
"Show me," he said.
Following Smaug's guidance, Sylas gripped Aeglos, the spear's edge glinting in the pale light, and drove it down with all his strength.
The Frost Dragon's skull was incredibly dense. It took repeated blows, and several strengthening charms, before the spear finally cracked through the bone with a sound like shattering ice.
A blast of cold air burst forth, biting into Sylas's skin.
Inside the skull cavity, embedded between the frontal bones, lay an irregular crystal the size of a man's head. It gleamed with a ghostly blue light, emanating waves of unnatural cold.
As soon as it was exposed to air, the surrounding temperature plummeted. Breath turned instantly to frost. Even Aeglos, which Sylas had used to pry it loose, grew a thin layer of ice the moment it touched the crystal, the chill traveling up through the metal until his hand went numb.
Sylas's eyes widened. "What in the world…?"
Before he could guess, Smaug's tone grew excited. "Master! That's a Dragon Crystal! It's the core of his power, the source of his frost breath!"
"Dragon Crystal?" Sylas echoed, intrigued.
Smaug nodded eagerly. "It's the very heart of a Dragon's magic. The stronger the Dragon, the greater the crystal it forms. Long ago, Dragons fought not only for gold, but to devour one another's Dragon Crystals, to grow stronger."
He paused, lowering his voice. "If another Dragon consumes it, its strength increases dramatically. But the crystal can also be forged into magical artifacts, weapons, staffs, amulets, each capable of channeling a Dragon's might."
Sylas absorbed his words, then turned his gaze toward Smaug, amusement tugging at his lips.
"So, tell me, Smaug, do you also have one of these inside your head?"
The red Dragon immediately stiffened, his pupils narrowing. "Master, not all Dragons grow them!" he said quickly, waving his claws defensively. "Only the truly ancient ones do, those born in the First or Second Age! I'm still young, a mere thousand years old! Hardly old enough for a Dragon Crystal!"
Sylas laughed softly. "Relax. I was only asking."
With a flick of his wand, he lifted the Frost Dragon's crystal into the air. The gem hovered, gleaming with inner frostfire, before drifting gently toward Smaug.
"If it's useful to you," Sylas said, "then it's yours."
Smaug's eyes went wide, his jaw slack. "M–Master… truly? You're giving it to me?"
"Of course," Sylas replied, smiling. "Though I admit, I'm curious, this crystal carries ice energy, while your element is fire. Are you sure it won't, say… give you indigestion?"
The memory of Hrívemir's explosive demise flickered through his mind, and he arched a brow. "After all, the last Dragon who swallowed the wrong thing didn't end well."
Smaug let out a booming laugh, his tail thumping the ground. "Master, you are too kind! Don't worry, I, Smaug the Magnificent, will never betray you! Not for gold, not for gems, not even for all the hoards of Arda!"
For Smaug, a creature whose veins seemed to pulse with molten gold, treasure was more than wealth, it was life itself.
So when he swore an oath to Sylas that not even all the gold in Arda could make him betray his master, it carried far more weight than any solemn vow or sacred contract.
Without another word, Smaug eagerly tilted back his head and swallowed the Dragon Crystal whole.
"Don't worry, Master," he said between gulps, his deep voice vibrating like thunder. "All Dragons share a common origin. Even if our elements differ, I can absorb this Frost Dragon's crystal. However," he gave a rumbling cough that sent a puff of frost from his nostrils, "until I've fully digested it, I won't be able to breathe fire for a while."
As he spoke, his massive body began to tremble. Frost bloomed across his scales in delicate white patterns, and his fiery breath turned to a thin, smoky haze tinged with chill. Even his usually molten eyes dimmed to a deep crimson-amber, flickering uncertainly between flame and frost.
Sylas could only stare, utterly speechless.
"No one was fighting you for it," he said dryly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Was there really a need to swallow it whole? Can you even fly right now?"
Smaug gave a weak huff of cold air, not exactly reassuring.
With Thorondor still grounded from frostbite despite Sylas's potions, and the Frost Dragon's titanic corpse lying immovable across the mountainside, the situation was beginning to look bleak. If Smaug also lost his ability to fly, it would be a logistical nightmare.
To Sylas's relief, after a few moments of shuddering and flapping his wings stiffly, Smaug managed to lift himself a few feet off the ground, wobbly, but airborne.
"See?" Smaug rasped proudly, though icicles hung from his chin. "Still magnificent… just a little cold-blooded for the moment."
Sylas sighed, half amused, half exasperated.
Just as Sylas began considering how to move the Frost Dragon's remains, a group of Dwarves approached from the distance, their boots crunching through frost-covered stones, beards glinting with rime.
At their head strode Balin, clad in gleaming Mithril armor and carrying Durin's Axe, its edge still sharp enough to cleave stone.
"Balin!" Sylas exclaimed, surprised. "What brings you here?"
The old Dwarf's face split into a wide grin as he embraced Sylas, his laughter echoing across the frozen valley.
"The lookouts from Durin's Tower spotted Smaug and Thorondor flying above the peaks," Balin said, stepping back with a gleam in his eye. "Naturally, I thought to myself, where there's a Dragon, there's you, my friend!"
But as his gaze swept past Sylas to the colossal corpse sprawled across the snow, his laughter caught in his throat.
"I thought Smaug was enormous," Balin breathed, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. "But that… that's a mountain with wings! You mean to tell me you killed that thing?"
Sylas chuckled modestly, brushing some ash from his coat. "Let's just say it wasn't a one-man effort. Smaug, Thorondor, Herpo, everyone did their part. And, truth be told, luck lent a hand."
"Luck?" Balin let out a low whistle, still staring in awe. "If this is your idea of luck, lad, I'd hate to see your misfortune."
Sylas smiled faintly, then his expression shifted, turning half-sheepish. "Speaking of fortune… or rather misfortune, I do need a favor."