Chapter 3 - THE EIGHTH PILLAR
They reached base camp twenty minutes later.
Jonas Reed met them outside the command tent.
He was forty-eight, broad-shouldered, gray at the temples, and looked permanently annoyed.
“You two disappear during a seismic event, return talking about dragons, and expect me to believe you?”
Maya tossed her camera onto the table.
“Watch.”
Jonas pressed play.
The color drained from his face.
Nobody spoke for the next thirty seconds.
The video showed the creature clearly.
Wing.
Claws.
Eyes.
Breath freezing the broken ice.
Jonas sat down.
“That’s impossible.”
Ethan leaned toward him.
“Apparently not.”
Jonas replayed the footage.
Then again.
“Who else knows?”
“Only us.”
“Good.”
Ethan frowned.
“Why is that good?”
Jonas turned off the monitor.
“Because our sponsor needs to control this.”
Maya laughed without humor.
“You think anyone controls that thing?”
“I’m talking about information.”
Their expedition had been funded by Helix Dynamics, a private technology company supposedly interested in ancient climate records.
Ethan had never trusted them.
Now Jonas’s reaction confirmed why.
“What exactly did Helix expect us to find?” Ethan asked.
Jonas didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Ethan stepped closer.
“You knew.”
“I knew there were unusual thermal readings.”
“Under a glacier.”
“Yes.”
“And eight artificial structures.”
Jonas’s jaw tightened.
Maya raised her rifle slightly.
“Start talking.”
Jonas looked between them.
“Helix found satellite anomalies eleven years ago. Heat where no heat should exist. Electromagnetic pulses. Patterns repeating every seventy-three hours.”
“The pillars,” Ethan said.
Jonas nodded.
“We believe they’re producing some kind of field.”
“A prison.”
“That’s speculation.”
“We saw what’s inside.”
“You saw a hand.”
“A hand that made a twenty-ton dragon panic.”
Jonas stood.
“Which is exactly why nobody touches anything until Helix arrives.”
Ethan stared at him.
“Arrives?”
A helicopter sounded outside.
Too late.
Jonas looked toward the tent entrance.
“They’re already here.”
Six armed men stepped from a black helicopter.
Then came Dr. Evelyn Voss.
Ethan recognized her immediately.
Former military biologist.
CEO of Helix Dynamics.
A woman who had built her fortune developing technology from extreme-environment organisms.
She entered the tent like she owned the glacier.
“Dr. Cole.”
“You knew my father.”
Her expression changed for half a second.
“Yes.”
Ethan froze.
“My father died here.”
“He disappeared here.”
“You told authorities he fell into a crevasse.”
“That was the official conclusion.”
“What was the real one?”
Voss removed her gloves.
“Your father found the cavern seventeen years ago.”
The room went silent.
Ethan felt as if someone had punched him.
“He found the dragon?”
“Yes.”
“And you left him here?”
“No.”
She looked him straight in the eye.
“Your father chose to stay.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“My father would never abandon his family.”
“He wasn’t abandoning you.”
Voss walked toward him.
“He was trying to keep you alive.”
She opened a metal case.
Inside was an old leather journal.
Ethan recognized it immediately.
His father’s initials were burned into the cover.
R.C.
His hands trembled.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the cavern entrance.”
Ethan opened the journal.
Most pages were filled with drawings of pillars and dragons.
Then he found the last entry.
The handwriting was rushed.
The seventh egg is changing.
The seal is weakening.
If Helix returns, do not let them take the heart.
Ethan looked up.
“What heart?”
May you like
Voss smiled.
“The reason we came back.”
