Chapter 2 - THE WHITE GUARDIAN
“MOVE!”
Ethan pulled Maya away just as the ice beneath them burst upward.
A black shape punched through the floor.
For half a second, Ethan saw something like a hand.
Too long.
Too thin.
Five hooked fingers scratched at the broken opening.
The dragon slammed one massive claw down.
The hand vanished.
The opening froze instantly beneath a blast of white-blue breath.
Maya stumbled backward.
“Did you see that?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“That is not the answer I wanted.”
The dragon kept staring at the sealed hole.
Ethan slowly reached for the camera hanging from his jacket.
Maya caught his wrist.
“You’re taking pictures?”
“This is the biggest biological discovery in human history.”
“We just saw something try to crawl through a glacier.”
“That would be the second biggest discovery.”
“Ethan.”
He lowered the camera.
“Fine.”
A voice crackled through their radios.
“Cole? Maya? Respond.”
Ethan grabbed his radio.
“Jonas, we’re alive.”
Their expedition leader sounded furious.
“What happened?”
“We found a cavern.”
“I gathered that from the earthquake.”
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
Ethan looked at the dragon.
He had waited his entire life to say the words.
Now they sounded ridiculous.
“A dragon.”
Silence.
Then Jonas laughed.
“Very funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Get back to camp.”
“I can send you footage.”
“Ethan, I said get back—”
A violent metallic sound echoed through the cavern.
One of the black pillars flickered.
The symbols went dark.
The dragon spun toward it.
Ethan moved closer.
“No.”
Maya grabbed him.
“What are you doing?”
“Look.”
A crack ran down the center of the pillar.
Whatever these structures were, they were failing.
The dragon pushed its head against one.
Almost like it was trying to hold it upright.
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
“This isn’t a nest.”
“What?”
He looked around.
Seven eggs.
Eight pillars.
A circular chamber.
Lines carved beneath the ice, connecting every pillar to a massive symbol beneath the dragon.
“This is a containment system.”
Maya stared at him.
“You’re telling me the dragon built this?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Ethan moved his light toward the wall.
He suddenly noticed images buried beneath centuries of frost.
He scraped the surface with his glove.
A mural appeared.
Human figures.
Hundreds of them.
Kneeling before dragons.
Maya stepped closer.
“Oh my God.”
But Ethan wasn’t looking at the people.
He was looking at what they had painted below them.
A dark creature trapped underground.
Tall.
Thin.
Surrounded by dozens of smaller shapes.
The picture showed dragons breathing ice over the earth while humans raised the black pillars.
Maya whispered, “They worked together.”
Ethan kept clearing frost.
At the end of the mural, all the dragons were dead.
Except one.
A giant white dragon curled around seven eggs.
Exactly like the creature standing behind them.
Then Ethan uncovered the final image.
The eggs were not hatching.
They were being used as locks.
And beneath the image were three words written in ancient Norse.
Ethan translated them aloud.
“When the seventh wakes…”
Maya swallowed.
“What?”
Ethan cleared the final line.
May you like
His blood went cold.
“…the prison opens.”
