Seraphina Frostscale's Arc

Chapter 2 of 11

The stone stairs dropped into the dark below Seraphina's yard. She went down with Draven behind her, his frostfire blade lit in his fist. The air grew thick. Green vapor still leaked from the walls, black at its edges and bright at its core. Deep below, something breathed. Each breath shook loose dust from the ceiling. The mate was waking, and Seraphina knew she had to reach the poison's source before the dragon rose. The stairs opened into a wide cavern. On the far side lay the source of it all, a dragon curled around a cracked hole in the floor. Purple scales, red eyes, one wing draped over the poison like a shield. It was smaller than Vexmorth had been. It lifted its head and looked at them. Seraphina pulled the heat from the air. It went white and still, ready to hold. "Wait," the dragon said. The voice was flat and tired. "I'm not here to fight you." Seraphina held her frost in place. "You're his mate." "Valxara." The dragon's eyes moved to the crack. "His blood does this. Not mine. I've been trying to close it for months." She turned inward for a moment, then landed hard. "I can't. Frost won't hold it. I've tried everything I have." Seraphina remembered her own ice failing on the surface. The corruption ate cold. But it had not eaten the frostfire blade. She looked at Draven. He understood without a word. "You couldn't seal it," Seraphina said. "His blade can." Valxara's head drew back. She looked at the sword, then at Seraphina. Her eyes said she did not trust two strangers armed at the mouth of her home. "If you're lying, I'll burn you where you stand." "We want the same thing," Seraphina said. "The bleeding stopped." The dragon studied her a long moment. Then she lifted her wing off the crack and moved aside. It cost her. Her whole body was tense. Draven stepped to the hole. He drove the blade down into the crack. Frost and fire poured together into the earth. The cavern screamed steam. The green vapor thinned, curled, and died. The breathing below went quiet. The crack sealed to smooth stone. Seraphina let her frost fall. The air went warm again. She looked at Valxara, who stared at the sealed floor. "It's gone," the dragon said. Flat. Sure. "I've wanted that for a year." But the source was deeper than one crack. Valxara turned her red eyes on Seraphina. "The corruption spread past this cave. Into the northern soil. It won't grow back here. It's already growing there." Seraphina's yard was clean now. She could try the elder spell at last. But she saw it in Valxara's face. If the poison bloomed in the north, it would return, and her ground would rot again before she ever mastered the shift.