The training courtyard of the Jormungandr estate lay beneath a veil of frost and moonlight.
Ice glistened on the obsidian tiles, catching the torchlight from the surrounding walls in sharp, crystalline flares.
Steam rose in ghostly plumes from the nostrils of the beast at its center; a Frostfang Drake, its scales the pale blue of glacier ice, every movement rippling with lethal grace.
Its rider urged it forward in a sweeping arc, spear lancing toward a series of armored dummies. The drake's breath coated the targets in rime in the heartbeat before the spear shattered them to shards.
Snow and frost glittered in the air like shrapnel.
The rider dismounted in one fluid motion. Tall, broad-shouldered, hair the same silver-black streaks as their father's, his armor engraved with the coiled sigil of House Jormungandr.
His name was Kaelith Jormungandr, firstborn heir of the Dominion's ruling serpent clan, and for as long as he could remember, the center of Halveth's unblinking attention.
Until three days ago.
The balcony above the courtyard was empty tonight. No emerald cloak fluttering in the wind, no watchful gaze from his father. Not since the news.
Kaelith drove his spear into the snowbank with a sharp twist. Frost puffed from the Frostfang's jaws as it lowered its head toward him, sensing the tight coil of his rage.
He remembered the moment vividly; the cold echo in the Ancestral Soul Hall as his father ignored him mid-report to interrogate the messenger about Ryujin. Ryujin, the failed ceremony outcast.
The bastard that had been meant to disappear into the wilds.
That night, he'd overheard the hushed whispers in the war council chamber. The rumors had been too absurd to entertain, until the official bounty updated.
The glowing text had burned itself into his memory.
~----~
[TARGET UPDATE]
Name: Ryujin Jormungandr
Status: Exile, Heretic of the Bloodline
Bounty: 500 gold sovereigns
Rank: E-Rank Beast Tamer (Unverified official)
Confirmed Bonds: 2 (C-Rank Abyssal Glider Drake – Rare Mutation; C-Rank Crimson Flame Drake – Variant)
Last Seen: Drakenshire Wilds, northbound toward Frostveil Mountains.
Threat Status: Escalating. Subject displays accelerated growth beyond expected mortal limits.
Orders: Capture alive if possible. Terminate if resistance exceeds containment. Destroy bonded beasts.
~----~
Two dragons. Two.
In less than a month since exile.
Kaelith had been training for years to bond with a single Frostfang, to earn the strength and prestige of a true Dominion heir. Yes, the Jormungandr House worshiped serpents, but every beast tamer knew the sovereignty of Dragons.
That was why he spent so long just to bond with a single Frostfang. With it, his position as the heir was solidified.
He had bled in the marshes hunting scaled horrors for training. And yet the shadow of the family's exile was now a rising storm, blotting out his father's pride in him.
Something he bled for… now seemed ordinary.
The Frostfang growled low, sensing its master's killing intent.
Kaelith's jaw tightened. "He was supposed to die out there. Frozen, gutted, forgotten. Instead, he crawls back into our world wearing dragons like trophies".
He stalked to the war map mounted in the strategy hall beyond the courtyard, its parchment sprawling across the table like a captured beast's hide.
His gloved finger traced the Frostveil range. He had hunted in its lower passes before, he knew the jagged ravines and treacherous cliff lines.
His eyes narrowed.
If Halveth wanted Ryujin alive, so be it. But if the Emerald Fangs failed…
"I will not," Kaelith murmured to the empty hall.
The Frostfang outside snorted frost into the night air, as if answering the oath. In its icy glare, Kaelith saw a reflection of his own intent… cold, patient, and ruthlessly merciless.
…
Far from the warmth of Veydrall's walls, the wilds beyond Drakenshire were locked in the iron grip of winter. The Frostveil Mountains towered in the distance, their peaks slicing the clouds like ancient blades.
Twelve riders moved through the snow in a silent formation, their beasts leaving a trial of clawed prints half-swallowed by the wind.
At their head rode Captain Draeven Kaul, armor lacquered black and green, the serpent emblem of the Emerald Fangs embossed over his breastplate.
His mount, a sleek basilisk with scale patterns like wet obsidian glided over snow and rock with equal ease, its yellow eyes unblinking.
The Emerald Fangs were the Dominion's elite hunters. Their orders came directly from Halveth himself, and their prey tonight was the most dangerous quarry they had been tasked with in years; an exile armed with two dragons.
Draeven's gloved hand rested on the rune-compass fixed to his saddle. The crystal at its center pulsed faintly, tuned to the echo of Ryujin's soul signature drawn from the Jormungandr ancestral archives.
Each pulse was a heartbeat in the hunt, growing sharper as they closed the distance.
"Veer left," Draeven said, his voice carrying over the wind. "He's hugging the cliffs to mask his trail".
A serpent-mounted scout slithered ahead, its beast weaving between the snow-laden pines. The team fanned out with mechanical precision, their formation honed by years of tracking quarry across every terrain the Dominion claimed.
They found signs quickly; the charred carcass of a frost wolf half-buried in snow, its fur blackened and curled from unnatural flame. Nox's work.
Deeper in, a stone face had been gouged by claws, the marks too wide for any local predator. Crimson's trail.
A younger hunter dismounted to inspect. "He's not even trying to hide," she said.
Draeven's reply was flat. "He doesn't think he needs to".
They pressed on, their pace relentless. Along the way, lesser threats crossed their path; a rogue ice vulture diving from the peaks, dispatched with a single bolt to the eye. There was also a frost wyrmling bursting beneath the snow.
It was skewered mid-lunge. None of these slowed the hunt for more than moments, the team moving with brisk professionalism of veteran hunters.
The basilisk hissed, its tongue tasting the air. Draeven raised a hand, signaling a halt.
The snow here was different; disturbed in strange, circular depressions, and dotted with faint splinters of something pale. One of the hunters bent, brushing away frost until their fingers closed around the find.
A feather.
But not from any bird.
The edges were sharp, almost blade-like, the color a translucent blue. A wyvern's pinion.
Draeven's lips curled in the barest hint of a smile. "Frostgrave Hollow," he said quietly. "We're close".
Around him, the Emerald Fangs adjusted grips on their weapons. Every one of them knew what a wyvern lair meant; confined spaces, domain advantage, and the possibility that their target might emerge with a third dragon.
It was ridiculous to even think of such a possibility, but their target already had a track record of making the impossible possible.
Draeven's gaze swept the ridge ahead. "Fan out. No open engagement until I give the word. We box him in before he knows we're here".
The hunters melted into the snow-shadowed forest, silent as wraiths.
Far ahead, within the dark mouth of Frostgrave Hollow, Ryujin was already moving deeper, the icy wind whispering over his shoulders. The faint pulse of the lair's presence beat like a second heart in his mind.
Neither he nor his hunters knew just how soon their paths would collide.