II. The Knight in Winter

Winter in the Ashen Teeth was a brutal mistress, sending winds that could strip the meat from a traveler's bones. Yet, through the swirling white blindness of a February gale, a lone figure approached the Maw—the singular, jagged entrance to the deep.

She did not come with the thunder of an army or the polished arrogance of a hero seeking a trophy. She wore armor of hammered silver, dull and pitted by salt and travel, and a cloak of heavy wolfskin that trailed in the snow. Her name was Elara, and her eyes held the weary clarity of someone who had already seen the end of the world.

As she descended into the warmth of the first cavern, Vaelor’s eyelid—a vast shutter of leathery skin—slid open. A single eye, the color of a dying sun, focused on the tiny speck of silver before him. The dragon’s breath came as a low, vibrating rumble that made Elara's breastplate hum against her ribs.

“I have not come for your hoard, Elder One,” she said, her voice small but steady in the vastness. “And I have not come to die for a bard’s song.”

Vaelor shifted, the sound of his scales against the stone like grinding tectonic plates. “Then you are either a saint or a fool, Little Spark. Both are rare, and both usually taste the same.”

Elara drew a heavy, rusted scroll from her belt. “The Great Seal in the North has fractured. The shadows are no longer content to scavenge the edges of the map. They are moving toward the center. They are moving toward him.”

The dragon’s pupils narrowed to vertical slits. The air grew suddenly, impossibly hot. “The King in the Dark is stirring?”

“He is already awake,” she whispered. “And I am the only one left who knows where the key is kept.”