Prologue 

1000 years ago. 

The pain of betrayal was pure anguish; the way it tore and ripped with fevered excitement was mortifying, while only the barest dying ember of guilt was left in the perpetrator’s eyes. It left a hollow, like a pit in his very soul. A hollow that was so cold, vast, and consuming that all he wanted to do was to lay still. Lay still as death; eyes looking only at the heavens from which he had fallen from, as their grubby betraying hands stole chunk after chunk of what was left of his being. He had climbed so high. He had crawled inch after inch to build his empire. 

 Now it lay in ruin.  

 Some were given wings so that they may fly on gentle breezes to the stars, but his wings had been broken from birth: bloody, twisted, and mutilated. Ejdair had to climb- claw- his way to the stars. Inch after inch, of pulling himself along, as his brethren soared over his head. Every day Ejdair clawed his way up; everyday he punctured and tore at the sky. His claws were stained with the blood of the night, as ribbons and shreds of sky fluttered to the land far below. He had been scorched by the sun’s wrath, battered by vicious winds and storms, and beaten by his own kind. Yet he had climbed on. Once Ejdair had climbed past the moons, and grasped the light of the stars, he had created an empire- he was a king, an emperor, a god. 

 A god can never die, yet the most pathetic of creatures brought his downfall. Ejdair had given the Rivft-Kain, humans, everything; from palaces of the grandest splendor, land in which they could rule, diamonds, gold, and all the riches of the earth - he gave it to them, so long as they swore to his rule. He had been their god. 

 And that wasn't enough for them. With an insatiable greed, they set their eyes on his empire - on his throne. And before Ejdair knew it, he was falling. 

 He had clawed so high that when the frail threads of cruel fate snapped, he had plummeted from the stars, past the moons, past the wrathing sun, past the vicious winds and storms, and to the horrid earth- shattering every bone against the ungiving soil. 

 And now, he sat watching, unable to do anything, as the final play was set. Set right into the palm of humanity, who had just stolen immortality from a god, and the crown from the King of Dragons- all that was left was for them to finish off what was left of his council and him, Ejdair: a necromancer, a fallen god, the King of Dragons.

 He stood there watching, wishing, screaming, and pleading to join the fight. Yes, he wanted to give into the hands of fate for he had nothing left. But he yearned to rip the new Emperor from the heavens, off his throne, down to earth, and into the cold grasp of death. May they both fight, die, and have a burial befit for two kings. Today was such a perfect day, such a perfect day for the death of sovereign rule. 

 But Ejdair was trapped. Trapped in a pit, in the deepest bowels of a cavern in the Shaez domain. Trapped by his council- his friends. They claimed that they had a plan, but they defied his orders and have yet to give him privy to their scheme. And now, against his will, he was trapped in a deep pit, while an ever-thickening ceiling of ice separated him from both his friends and foes. 

   Ejdair cried out for freedom, as he desperately raked his claws again and again against the ice. With each grueling scrape, the cold shriveled up his talons and into his marrow. Small glittering shards of the enchanted ice fell. And yet he hardly scratched it. 

 A warped image of an ink black dragon appeared before him. It was Regina, the dragon of fear. Her deep, vivid, green eyes bore through the ice and into his soul. Like an infestation, her magic welled up within him, coiling in between his ribs, and snaking around his heart; slowing the panicking muscle to a mere sludge. And like a candle being snuffed out, he lost his will fight. As her unspoken words slithered into his mind, his scaly body trembled, and succumbed. ‘I’m sorry Ejdair. Trust us. This is the only way. We need you.’ Regina placed her clawed hand against the ice. 

 Ejdair stilled. This was it. The end. The humans were going to win. He had already known this. He had known this for a long while now, ever since he had fallen to the earth. But there was such finality, now. This was how his book closed, with his fall, defeat, and death. The death of coward, as he now hid behind the fabric of a spell. This was the cold harsh truth that stilled his soul. 

 Through the crystalline crystals of the ice, their voices rang- muffled and clattering - like gemstones falling to the dusty floor, or like a tarnished silver necklace of great sentimental value hurled, in the thrashing rage of the deepest throe of spite, lost forever in a dusty corner. This was the last Ejdair would hear of their voices, this was their last words. For today they would all meet death. 

 A snarling roar, drenched with the venom of rage and pain, echoed through the thickening sheet of ice. “Hurry up with the spell, Regina!!!” Roared Eira, the dragon of ice. 

 From his place in the cramped earthen pit, Ejdair could not see her. But he knew that she was guarding the tunnel. He knew her pearly scales of silver and blue, were gorged with battle wounds and stained by leaking crimson. He knew that she would fight until her last breath, and perhaps even beyond that as she walked the seam between life and death. 

 Regina materialized before the ice sheet once more; blood dripping from her talons. Between upturned scales a slender gash on her chest oozed. Dark beads of blood welled and ominously ran into the hollows between her glossy black scales. That cut hadn’t been there before. 

 Before Ejdair could ask what, she was doing, he decided not to. Regina was not a warrior, she was not like Eira or like her twin brother Regin, who after being shot from the sky had drowned in Elsh sea. Regina was an enchantress. She was powerful and wise. She was someone he could trust. So, he kept quiet. 

 Ejdair watched in silence as her slender nuzzle twisted grimly with concentration: her eyes narrowed, and like a silk fan, her leathery, dark, but tattered wings folded delicately about her. In the flickering light of the torches left on the floor by fallen men, her scales glimmered like moonlight slipping across a serene pond. Her triangular head was adorned with a headdress of spiraling horns. Her bloodied talons scratched against the ice with steady precision, as her tail nervously swished. Blood welled within the engraved symbols. 

 Ejdair pressed his forehead against the ice. Regina is lovely, even as she faces her inevitable end. Against his scales, the ice was cold and tingling with power, it almost made him recoil. As the ice gripped his scales, distraught seeped through Ejdair like honey pouring over paper where it then would sit, soften, and tear through. The sheet was only thickening. Ejdair could cower and press himself against the dirt or simply succumb and become part of the ice. 

 Ejdair stilled, and closed his eyes, even as he recognized the magic Regina was performing- Blood Runes. 

 Ejdair’s heart sank, like stone thrown into a pond - greatly disturbing the surface but was just another ordinary rock in the peaceful watery world below. Blood Runes, the dark magic - the magic of the dead gods. Understanding flooded into him. They're trying to use Blood Runes to place me into the ‘abyssal slumber’.

 The Abyssal Slumber was an ancient spell that would place a being into a near endless slumber, one where they would never dream or age. Unless they were awakened they would remain in that slumber for hundreds upon hundreds of years. But such a spell required a sacrifice, one beyond the blood of weak humans. 

 A deep threatening growl rippled behind Regina.

  Shouts and cries of the Rivft-Kain rang out, as the shuffling of dozens of feet filled the air. Humans were swarming the tunnel entrance. 

 Eira’s roar rattled in the chamber once more. 

 Like rice bags, humans frayed apart beneath Eira’s claws. As gentle as a spring rain their blood drizzled. Flesh ripped like paper, and like glass their bones broke. A severed arm softly thudded, as it landed on the ceiling of ice. Where it had been cleanly severed, crimson gushed from its elbow. The frail cries of the Rivft-Kain warbled in the air. The pitching sound was gorgeous. They were hurting, they were mourning, they were dying- at least those marauders, backstabbing traitors, knew that they were dying with victory. 

 Another slash, another spray of blood, another beautiful scream, and the last human fell. With a single swallow and slurp of blood, his head easily slipped down Eira’s esophagus. Only the moans of the dying echoed. 

 In a vicious circle Eira turned on Regina. Her tail swished like a scythe to wheat, as it whipped through the air. Flesh clung between Eira’s teeth. Blood and saliva ran down her maw, while her forked tongue hungrily flickered in and out of her mouth. With a cold fire cunning blue eyes were ablaze. 

 In a cold snarl, Eira’s voice rasped out, “Finish the spell Regina.” 

 Regina flinched, as she had been struck. She tightened her wings protectively about herself, “I will.”

 Ejdair screamed. He pounded and clawed against Eira’s ice. He ignored Eira’s glare, and the coursing pain that shakily traveled up his spine from the deep gorge-like impaling in his shoulder - an arrow fashioned with a dragonbone arrowhead had torn through his bone white scales, missed his heart, and instead had dug deep into the muscle of his shoulder.

  With the echo of nervous marching, the humans were back. Though this time they didn’t come charging in. Instead they huddled at the edge of the carnage ridden entrance, as Eira stared them down. The air was still shimmering with the frost from her last spell. She crouched, then they parted to let a tall forbidding figure of a warrior enter. 

  A human warrior stood before his dead and frozen comrades. He waved some signal, and the other humans left. 

 Mounted on the warrior’s back were a giant pair of dragonfly wings, which glittered like shattered jade- Fae wings. He… wore the wings of a massacred Fae. Ejdair’s soul collapsed in on itself with the bombardment of sudden dreadful sickness. His soul felt plagued. The warrior proudly bore the wings as though they were a trophy. His plate armor was pearly and iridescent- forged to look like dragonscales. A polished jewel studded helm sat upon his head, and was adorned with a headdress of vicious horns. 

 Eira snarled and shot a whirlwind of ice at him. In a glow of dull blue his armor absorbed the magic. Ejdair’s sick soul became iller. The armor… the warrior was wearing the skin and scales of a dragon. Ejdair dared not focus on the armor, he prayed to dead gods that he wouldn't know whose skin that was. The warrior was one of the Doryu - a human who had stolen a dragon’s magic.