The darkness before dawn is always the thickest.
Lion awoke drenched in cold sweat for the seventh consecutive night, his fingers clawing at his chest where the fifth chain burned beneath his skin—a white-hot agony like barbed wire constricting his ribs. Outside, the crash of waves against the hull merged with the howling winds from his dreamscape.
"Seven nights," he rasped, barely recognizing his own voice.
The tarnished copper mirror showed a stranger: bloodshot eyes with pupils edged in swirling darkness. Since breaking the fourth seal last month, the Shadowheart's pulse had grown heavier, each beat threatening to shatter his sternum.
He grabbed the waterskin hanging from his bunk, the brine doing nothing to wash away the dream's remnants—that figure sheathed in black ice on the northern glaciers, raking bone claws across its own chest as if digging for buried treasure.
Frostscar.
The name had etched itself into his memory. Every time the shadowkin in his dreams self-mutilated, chain fragments would erupt from its wounds... and another link in Lion's own seals would loosen.
"That dream again?"
Selene leaned against the cabin door, her new drakescale prosthetic glinting like cold steel in the dawn light. Three months at sea had honed her features to knife-edges, making the scar across her nose appear even sharper.
Lion tossed her the waterskin in silence. Her mechanical fingers caught it with a soft click.
"Calvin found something on deck," she said, shaking the pouch without drinking. "You'll want to see this."
The fog clung to the ship like a shroud. At the bow stood Calvin, his greatsword planted firmly on the deck, the lantern hanging from his iron hook casting eerie light on the railing's unnatural frost—not ordinary ice, but black crystalline webs.
"Came with last night's tide," he grunted, scraping some onto his hook where it instantly vaporized into acrid smoke. "Fishing village thirty miles north reports 'walking blizzards' attacked them."
The moment Lion's fingers touched the black ice, the Shadowheart convulsed. Visions flooded his mind: frozen huts, villagers petrified mid-flight, blackened blood snaking across snow...
"It's him," Lion gasped, retracting his now-slategray fingertips. "Frostscar is moving south."
Sparks erupted from Selene's prosthetic—the Phoenix Ember's instinctive response. "Your eyes—" She pointed at the expanding darkness in his pupils.
Calvin spat overboard, his lone eye narrowing. "You sure about chasing this lunatic? Could be a trap—"
"The fifth chain is tied to him." Lion crushed the black ice in his fist. "I can feel his call."
A heavy silence fell, broken only by waves and a sound like distant glaciers calving.
Selene suddenly turned toward the gangplank. "We leave at dawn. On one condition—" Golden fire licked up her prosthetic as she looked back. "The moment your Shadowheart acts up, I burn it out."
The frozen fishing village at noon was worse than the visions.
Each hut lay encased in transparent black ice, like candy sucked on by some colossal beast. The villagers' terror was preserved in perfect clarity—some with mouths still shaped around silent screams.
"Not normal freezing." Selene swept her flaming fingers across the ground. "Life energy was drained... like..."
"Like Heartchain victims," Lion finished, his own chest tightening. The central square's ice formed a raised platform, unnaturally thick.
Calvin's sword hilt echoed hollowly against it. "Something's underneath."
With a crack, Selene's flames revealed a dark pit. The arctic blast that erupted carried a familiar presence—Lion's chains nearly tore free—
Below, seven children held hands in a circle around a bloody sun sigil. Each bore a chest wound edged in black ice, bloodless.
"Dragonkin warning rune," Calvin's hook trembled. "They sacrificed themselves... to warn others away."
Selene gripped Lion's arm. "Temperature's dropping."
True—snowflakes began falling from clear skies. To the north, the sea iced over in visible waves as a shadow streaked across the newborn glacier.
"He's coming." Lion's breath fogged black. "Fall back."
"Like hell!" Selene's flames guttered against the magic-absorbing snow.
The figure halted at the village edge—a seven-foot titan of jagged black ice, its faceplate slit with twin crimson gleams. Every step spread frost across earth and air alike.
"Royal blood..." Frostscar's voice grated like grinding glaciers. "Traitor's lineage..."
An ice spear grazed Lion's cheek. The second pierced his shoulder, freezing the wound instantly. His shadows moved sluggishly—the snow was devouring magic!
Through the blizzard, he saw Selene's flames flicker, Calvin's sword glancing harmlessly off the ice armor.
The fifth chain screamed in protest as the Shadowheart pounded like a war drum. With sudden clarity, Lion tore his shirt open. "You want this? Take it!"
Frostscar froze. His clawed hands reached out—
Lion stepped into the embrace.
Memories detonated between them:
Twelve shadowkin volunteers chained on a frozen battlefield three centuries past... White-robed Conclave priests implanting Heartchain fragments into living flesh... The youngest warrior twisting at the final moment, his chain missing trueheart by inches...
"You're... the escaped one..." Lion mind-shouted.
Frostscar's psychic roar carried eons of hate: "We were sacrifices! Your royal line... our executioners!"
Selene's flames broke through just as Frostscar's armor shattered, revealing the horror beneath—a patchwork monstrosity of ice and shadow, its chest housing half a Heartchain fragment entangled with five broken seals.
"See..." Frostscar forced Lion's hand against the wreckage of his heart. "This... is loyalty's reward..."
The fifth chain snapped.
Raw power flooded Lion's veins alongside fractured memories: dragonkin sigils... betrayal in snow... a smirking figure watching from high—
As Frostscar dissolved into vapor, only one thing remained: a palm-sized black ice chunk preserving a dragon scale insignia.
Lion collapsed, his new power running wild. Selene's shouts reached him as if through water. Before darkness took him, he glimpsed the emblem clearly—
A dragon impaled by chains.
Identical to the crest on Calvin's hook.