Seraphina Frostscale's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

The light in Seraphina's chest still burned like a second heartbeat when Valxara landed on the snow outside the ice queen's den. The dark dragon folded her purple wings and shifted to her human shape. Valxara had once guarded the poison beneath Seraphina's yard, mate to the corrupted dragon who nearly killed her. Now she stood as a wary ally. She had watched every step of the training with grim eyes. "You hold the beast now," Valxara said. "But you still cannot make the north safe alone." "Tell me what you know," Seraphina said. "You saw something. You've been holding it back." Valxara turned inward for a moment. Then she landed on her answer. "I watched him bind his own dragon form. Years ago. Before the rot took him." She meant the elder dragon, Vexmorth. "He locked the beast inside a human shell with a spell. I can teach it. But not until I know the north will not bleed poison south again. I will not hand you power to waste on ruined ground." "The crater is sealed," Draven said. He stood behind Seraphina, sword on his back. "I closed it myself." "The soil still holds the sickness," Valxara said. "Prove it is dying. Not spreading." Seraphina walked to the edge of the ridge. Below, the northern soil lay gray and cracked. Thin green vapor still curled from the frozen dirt. It was faint now, but alive. She knelt and pressed her palm flat to the ground. The rot pushed up against her skin, cold and wrong. She reached for the light in her chest. She had feared it since it woke. Now she stopped fighting it. She let it pour down her arm and into the poisoned earth. The light was cleansing magic, sealed in her blood since birth, made to burn darkness. It spread through the soil in a white wave. The green vapor hissed and thinned. The cracked ground drank the light and went still. Seraphina held it until her arm shook. When she lifted her hand, the dirt beneath it was dark and clean. No vapor rose. The rot had died in a circle around her palm. Glaciana stepped from the den mouth, her pale eyes bright. "Cleansing fire," the ice queen said. "That is what will heal the north. Not just seal it." Valxara stared at the clean patch of soil. She said nothing for a long moment. Then she nodded once. "That is proof enough. The land is dying the right way now." She looked at Seraphina. "I will teach you the binding spell. But know this. The spell that locks the beast in is the same spell that lets it out at will. It is a door. It swings both ways." Seraphina rose. Her chest still burned, but the fear was gone. "Then teach me the door," she said. "I want to open it."