The sounds of dragons woke me.

  Footsteps padded against stone. Claws clicked in distant corridors. I could hear soft voices echoing from deeper tunnels—some murmured in conversation, others light with laughter. The ice creaked overhead in slow shifts, and somewhere far above, wings beat the air as dragons took to the skies beyond the peaks.

  I sat up, the warmth of the thick bedding still clinging to my skin.

  It was still early—at least by dragon standards—but the Skyfang Horde was already awake and moving. I could feel it in the cadence of the air around me. A living place. Awake. Breathing.

  Curiosity tugged at me.

  Aria had said I could explore, and she’d find me later. I wanted to understand this place—this intricate maze of stone and frost. How deep did it run? How many dragons lived here?

  I crossed to the wardrobe again, hoping for something new to wear, but everything was too loose in the shoulders or too short at the hem. None of it was made for someone like me.

  So I returned to what I had worn the night before.

  The purple gown shimmered in the soft light like dusk laced with starlight. I slid it back over my skin and fastened the silver pendant at my throat. I didn’t mind the attention it drew. It was familiar. Comfortable. A part of the power I’d earned.

  And if anyone questioned it, well… they could ask.

  I stepped out into the corridor, ears open, heart steady, ready to trace the heartbeat of this horde one echo at a time.

  Maybe this really could be home.

  That thought had settled into me like a stone in water, quiet but rippling outward with every breath I took. There was still hesitation—still fear. But there was also something gentle here. Something welcoming. Aria’s words the night before had stayed with me, curled close beneath my skin.

  I wanted to understand this place. Not just its people, but the mountain itself. How the sound bounced against the walls layered in frost. How the weight of the ice changed every echo. Already I could tell this place was different than any cave or horde I had known—denser, deeper, carved with purpose. It was a song I hadn’t yet learned to sing.

  And I wanted to see the ice in daylight. The glimpse I’d caught the night before—the spires and domes glowing under stormlight—had stayed in my mind. I wondered how they would look now, touched by the full light of morning. Would they shimmer like glass? Refract light like a thousand mirrors? I wanted to see it with my own eyes.

  To know if the beauty I’d heard in this place was real.

  I wandered.

  Down winding passages and across frozen bridges, through warm tunnels carved by claw and magic, the sound of my footsteps changed with every chamber. Sometimes I clicked my tongue softly or tapped my heel against the stone—measuring the size, the shape, the breath of the mountain around me.

  The deeper I went, the more I understood the soul of this place.

  Then I found it—a wide-open cave unlike any other I’d passed. The ceiling arched high overhead, studded with glowing crystals, and the floor was smooth and clean, carved like a bowl. When I stepped into the center and clicked my tongue, the sound bounced back in waves—layered, rich, full.

  The acoustics were stunning.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  The first note left my lips before I realized I’d started. Just a hum. Then a run of notes. Then words—soft, low, something half-remembered from my childhood.

  The echo caught and carried it, turned my voice into something more than sound. A chorus. A memory. A power all its own.

  Without thinking, I shifted into a song my mother had taught me—a song of ancient mountain winds and star-lit skies. I hadn’t sung it since the night I lost her, but in this chamber, it came pouring out of me as if no time had passed at all. The lyrics rose like breath from the stone, curling through the space with aching clarity. My voice layered with itself in the perfect acoustics, every note wrapped in magic and mourning.

  I sang until my throat trembled and my chest ached.

  I sang because I needed to.

  Because here, in this place, it felt like maybe she could hear me.

  I was so lost in the music that I didn’t sense the presence at the entrance to the chamber. Didn’t feel the shift in the air. Didn’t realize I was being watched.

  As the final note faded, I let it hang in the stillness. I closed my eyes and breathed in the cool air that filled the chamber—sharp, clean, and full of memory. A single tear slid down my cheek.

  Then, a slow clapping echoed off the walls.

  I gasped and turned sharply toward the sound.

  A man stood just inside the entrance to the chamber, his hands slowly falling to his sides as he watched me with unreadable eyes.

  Startled, but not afraid, I straightened my shoulders and walked toward him. My pulse still beat with the rhythm of the song, but my steps were steady.

  If he had heard that… then he had heard my soul.

  He was stunning.

  His hair, silver-white and windswept, looked like it had never obeyed a comb in his life—tousled and unruly, with bits of frost still clinging to the edges. Not from the cold outside, but from him. As if the temperature bent around his skin, turning breath to vapor and air to crystal.

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  His eyes were the color of deep water—the kind you only saw in the heart of winter lakes. Not soft. Not sharp. Just still. And in that stillness, I felt the weight of oceans. The kind of gaze that didn’t ask questions, because it already saw too much.

  His skin was pale as snow left untouched, but not fragile. The kind of pale that came from being born of ice, not made to survive it.

  And his body—

  Not bulky, not imposing. But cut from precision. Like his muscles had been shaped by glacier edges and chiseled by wind. Stillness sculpted into strength. Everything about him was control—tension wrapped in quiet command.

  I didn’t need scent to know what he was.

  Ice Dragon.

  From the white of his hair, the blue of his eyes, the frost that clung to him like a second skin—there was no mistaking it. He didn’t hide what he was.

  He didn’t need to.

  Because somehow, even without saying a word, the entire cavern already knew.

  He was cold.

  And he was watching me.

  He opened his mouth to speak, to ask something—what I had sung, maybe—but as I stepped closer, the words caught in his throat. He just stared at me.

  I heard it as I approached. His heartbeat, strong and steady, skipped—then quickened, his heartbeat was increasing the closer I got.

  Who was he, and why was he acting like this?

  I stopped in front of him, curious and cautious, and offered a nod. “I’m Sovarielle Narethin,” I said.

  He blinked, as if snapping out of a daze, and composed himself with effort. His posture straightened, voice clearing. “Veskairan Aelthros,” he replied.

  But even as he said it, his eyes didn’t quite meet mine. And his expression—curious, thoughtful, confused—never left.

  I listened harder. His voice was steady, but his heartbeat wasn’t. I was getting a lot of conflicting information from him.

  Something about me had unsettled him. I just didn’t know why.

  His name caught up with me a beat later.

  Veskairan.

  Aria had told me about him—one of the three brothers who led the Skyfang Horde. An ice dragon, which made perfect sense. The coolness in his tone, the pale shimmer of his skin, the way he carried himself like a glacier—silent, powerful, unknowable.

  I turned away for a moment, looking back toward the heart of the chamber. The acoustics still shimmered around me like lingering magic.

  “I’m sorry for the song,” I said, brushing my hands over the folds of my gown. “I don’t usually just… burst into song, but I couldn’t help it. This room—it’s like it was carved for a sound dragon. I couldn’t resist.”

  There was a long pause.

  Then, finally, his voice reached me again, softer now.

  “There’s no need to apologize,” he said. “That performance was… stunning. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  His tone was careful, reverent. But I could still hear the echo of his earlier tension—like his heart hadn’t quite caught up to his composure.

  I studied him a little more closely. “Veskairan,” I repeated slowly, letting the name settle between us. “Aria told me you’re one of the leaders of this horde.”

  He gave a modest incline of his head, though that same flicker of confusion never left his expression. “I am.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Your presence matches everything she said.”

  He seemed like he might say something else, then stopped. Instead, he offered a faint smile. “Please… call me Vesk.”

  I tilted my head. “Only if you call me Elle.”

  The smile deepened just slightly, and this time it felt more real.

  After a moment, he glanced around the chamber, then back to me. “Would you like a tour? I imagine you’re curious about the rest of our halls.”

  I nodded, something warm stirring in my chest. “I’d like that.”

  Vesk gestured for me to follow, and I did, our footsteps echoing softly through the halls as we left the chamber behind. He walked with a quiet confidence, but I noticed his eyes kept returning to me—watching, studying, as if trying to solve a puzzle he couldn’t quite put together.

  He asked me questions as we walked. Where I was from. What brought me to Skyfang. I answered carefully, truthfully, sharing pieces of my life without giving away everything.

  And I asked my own questions, too. I was curious about him—this ice dragon who looked like a storm and moved like still water. He answered in that voice of his: low, steady, and far too enchanting. I could have listened to him all day. Every word rolled like velvet through the chilled air.

  Still, something about the way he looked at me—intensely, constantly—confused me. Like he was trying to place me. Or like he recognized something in me that I didn’t understand.

  He led me through winding tunnels carved in layered stone and ice, some sparkling with veins of crystal that reflected our passing like mirrors. Above us, icy domes arched with delicate spires, letting in shafts of morning light that danced across the walls. It was breathtaking.

  “We hollowed most of this ourselves,” Vesk said quietly, running his fingers along a frost-slicked wall. “My brothers and I wanted it to feel like home—solid, but open. Strong, but beautiful.”

  “You succeeded,” I said honestly. “It feels alive. Like it listens.”

  That made him smile, just slightly. “Some of the stone does. If you know how to listen back.”

  “Is it true you were born here?” I asked.

  He nodded. “All three of us were. Our parents built the original roost before dragons came from the lowlands. My brothers and I expanded it.”

  I let my fingers trail across a rippling wall of carved ice, cold and smooth beneath my skin. “It’s incredible. You’ve created something lasting.”

  “And you?” he asked, eyes catching mine again. “Where were you born?”

  “By the ocean,” I said, after a pause. “The western coastal cliffs.”

  “I’ve only been out to the western storm cliffs once,” he said softly.

  I nodded. “My home is gone now.”

  His expression shifted—compassion flickered there, but he didn’t push. Instead, he guided me through a narrow archway into another chamber, this one filled with cascading ice structures like frozen waterfalls.

  “And your voice,” he said after a quiet moment. “Did someone teach you to sing like that?”

  “My mother taught me to sing.” My voice caught, and I had to swallow before continuing. “She had the most beautiful voice before she died.”

  I took a breath, steadying myself.

  “Song is everything to sound dragons,” I said, quieter now, the words laced with something raw. “It’s how we express ourselves, how we connect. You can learn more about a dragon from their song than from their words. Emotion, intent, even pieces of their history… it’s all there if you know how to listen.”

  There was pain in the telling—old and familiar. But there was pride, too.

  He looked at me as if weighing a thousand things he wanted to say, then offered only, “She would be proud.”

  I smiled faintly, then turned my attention back to the wonder around us. The tour continued, our conversation flowing between silences, questions, and shared glances. And all the while, I still felt him watching me—softly, but intently. Like something about me didn’t make sense. Or mattered more than I knew.

  I kept listening to him, too. To the subtle shifts in his voice, the rhythm of his steps, the weight behind every word. Trying to puzzle out what was going through his head. He was composed on the surface, but there were moments—small hesitations, shifts in cadence—that made me think he was unraveling something in real time. And whatever it was, it had everything to do with me.

  Eventually, he led me into a wide, familiar space—the same grand chamber from the night before, where the fire had glowed and warmth had seeped into my bones.

  Aria stood there now, speaking softly with Thor.

  As soon as she saw me, her face lit up. She dashed across the room and wrapped me in a tight hug, warmth and wind and comfort all at once.

  I blinked, surprised by the strength of the emotion it stirred in me.

  I was starting to like it here.

  The feeling was unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. There was something about this place, about these people. I looked around the icy expanse, at the shifting light and the soft hum of conversation in the distance. It didn’t feel like a cage. It didn’t feel like exile.

  Maybe… just maybe… this was the change the unicorn had meant.