The silver crystals of the glacier village hummed with a frequency that vibrated in Lyra’s teeth. It was the sound of a thousand years of suppressed power, a low, constant thrum that made the silver veins on her skin itch with a strange, phantom heat.
For three days, Lyra had been separated from Valerius. She was kept in the "Hall of Echoes," a chamber of pure, translucent ice where the Elder, whose name was Sorcha, taught her the litanies of the First Era. Valerius, meanwhile, was confined to the lower pits of the glacier—a "guest" in name only, guarded by twenty of the tribe's fiercest warriors.
"The Dragon Princes are not just rulers, Lyra," Sorcha said, her voice echoing off the frozen walls. She was guiding Lyra’s hands over an ancient tapestry woven from dragon-silk and silver th
