Chapter 76 Tower of Ice
Damien
By the time the fire burns low, the camp is settled. The guards finish the last sweep, tents pitched in a neat half-circle inside the ring of glowing stones.
Ashlyn spends the entire process complaining. “If I’d known camping meant actual camping,” she mutters, struggling with a tent pole, “I’d have brought at least one of my men. Preferably one with muscles.”
“You’re surrounded by soldiers,” I point out.
“Yes, but they’re your soldiers. They don’t listen to me.” She gives the canvas an unimpressed glare. “I give it two hours before this thing collapses and kills me in my sleep.”
I sigh, crossing to her and taking the pole. “Stand back.” In less than a minute, the tent is upright, the canvas stretched smooth. I tie off the ropes and step away.
She eyes me warily. “Show-off.”
“Efficient,” I correct. “You’re welcome.”
Bella snorts behind me, trying—and failing—to hide her smile. Her amusement hums through the bond, a soft flicker of warmth that settles under my ribs. “You do realise she’s going to make you her official tent-builder from now on?”
“I’ll add it to the royal duties,” I murmur.
The dragon purrs. You’d do worse things for your mate.
Apparently, I reply.
By the time the camp quiets, I’ve checked the perimeter three times. Wards are stable, guards rotating in pairs. Nothing stirs beyond the clearing except the occasional crack of a branch. It’s enough to ease my instincts—enough to rest. Bella crawls into the tent first, already half-asleep. Ashlyn mutters something about “beauty sleep” before disappearing into her own. I sit outside for a while, watching the stars filter through the trees until the cold bites at my skin. Only then do I duck inside. She’s curled up in the bedroll, a pale tangle of hair and blanket. I stretch out beside her, and she shifts instinctively toward my heat, tucking herself against my chest. The dragon exhales, content. She fits.
“She does,” I whisper, and sleep finally drags me under.
I don’t know what wakes me first—the silence, or the song. It’s faint, threading through the air like a silver string, so soft I might have dreamed it. I sit up slowly, hand going automatically to the blade beside me.
Then Bella stirs beside me, her voice hushed. “Do you hear that?”
I nod. “You were dreaming again?”
She shakes her head. “No. This is real.”
The melody winds around us again, higher this time, like glass chiming in the dark. It’s beautiful. My dragon stiffens inside me, every muscle in my body following suit.
Old magic, he growls. Wrong magic.
I push to my feet and grab my cloak. “Stay close.”
We step outside. The night has changed—the faint glow of the runes has dimmed, replaced by a thin mist that snakes across the ground. Ashlyn is already emerging from her tent, hair mussed and eyes sharp.
“Tell me I’m not the only one hearing that,” she mutters.
“You’re not,” Bella says quietly.
The sound drifts from deeper within the woods. I motion for two guards to follow. Their faces are pale in the moonlight, hands tight on their weapons. We move carefully through the trees, every step muffled by moss and half-melted snow. The melody grows clearer. There are words hidden in it now in a language I don’t recognise, carried on the wind like a whisper of grief and promise all at once. Then the forest changes. One moment, we’re walking through thawed ground and dripping leaves; the next, the air sharpens. Frost glitters across the grass in a perfect circle ahead of us. On one side, spring. On the other, winter.
Bella stops short. “It’s like a line,” she whispers.
“It’s a boundary,” I say. “Someone drew it.”
Ashlyn peers past me. “With what, a curse?”
The dragon rumbles uneasily. This does not feel right.
I take Bella’s hand. Her pulse flutters against mine, quick and unsteady, but she doesn’t pull away. “We’re crossing,” I tell the guards. “Stay close.”
The temperature drops instantly, and our breath fogs in the air. The forest ahead gleams white—every branch coated in rime, every leaf frozen mid-motion. And there, rising from the heart of the frost, stands a tower. It’s carved entirely from ice.
Spirals of translucent blue climb toward the canopy, catching the moonlight and splitting it into shards of colour. It’s beautiful and wrong in equal measure. Bella stares up at it, face pale. The bond thrums sharply between us, flashes of memory bleeding through—her tower, her cage, the years of isolation.
She’s remembering, the dragon murmurs, a growl beneath his words. Comfort her.
I squeeze her hand. “You’re safe. This isn’t your prison.”
She nods stiffly, though her eyes stay locked on the structure. “It feels like it’s alive.”
And then the song stops and a woman’s voice drifts down from above, clear as crystal. “Visitors… at last.”
We look up. She stands at the single window near the top—tall, pale, and impossibly graceful. Her hair spills from the opening like liquid silver, pooling against the snow below. When her gaze finds us, she smiles, and the temperature drops another degree.
“Oh, thank the stars,” she cries dramatically. “You’ve come for me! My rescuers! I knew a king would come someday.” Her eyes linger on me. “My king.”
Bella blinks. “Excuse me?”
The woman leans farther out the window, her voice syrup-sweet. “Please, climb to me, my king. My hair will bear your weight—just take hold, and I’ll pull you up.”
Ashlyn snorts. “Is she serious?”
But before I can respond, Bella steps directly in front of me, hands on her hips. “Lady, you’re going to have to get your own damn king. This one’s taken.”
For a heartbeat, there’s silence. Then the woman’s smile cracks. Her eyes darken, the icy blue bleeding into black. The air around us tightens like a fist.
“Oh,” she hisses, voice no longer sweet. “So that’s how it is.”
Her hand lifts and frost whips through the air, forming a shard of ice sharp enough to split stone. She flicks her wrist, sending it hurtling straight toward Bella. I don’t think. I just move. Fire roars out of me, dragon-hot and blinding, colliding with the shard mid-flight. Steam bursts outward, hissing as molten droplets spatter the snow. I step in front of Bella, my body braced and ready to defend. The woman shrieks from above, the sound shattering glass-clear across the forest.
“Not. My. Woman,” I snarl, voice rough with the dragon’s growl beneath it.
The tower trembles, cracks webbing across its surface. For a heartbeat, everything holds its breath—the snow, the wind, even the moonlight. Then the thing above us smiles again, slow and poisonous. “You should not have come here, Dragon King. She will make you weak.”
The tower begins to pulse with light, the frost creeping outward from its base, racing toward us like living fire.
I tighten my grip on Bella’s hand. “Run.”
The dragon’s voice rumbles through me, equal parts fury and hunger. Burn it all.