The tunnel swallowed them whole.

Silver runes pulsed along the walls in rhythm, each one flaring as Serena passed and dimming after the last person cleared it. The passage was too narrow for two people to walk side by side comfortably, so they moved in single file, the silver glow their only light source.

Then it ended.

They stepped out of the tunnel, and the world changed.

Gone was the blizzard and frigid air. A warm breeze swept past them instead, carrying the scent of earth and green life so vivid it felt impossible.

They were standing on a cliff. Before them stretched a vast hidden valley, impossibly lush. Towering trees draped in emerald vines. Ancient stone pathways half-swallowed by moss. Waterfalls cascaded down cliffs of shimmering ice-crystal and granite, their mist catching sunlight that had no business existing inside a frozen continent.

Dragons soared in lazy circles across the distant sky, dozens of them, wings glinting like jewels. Green. Sapphire. Red. Each one massive.

An oasis carved into the heart of a dead continent. High above, jagged peaks encircled the valley. One mountain rose taller than the rest, a monolith so immense it cast the illusion of twilight across half the jungle below.

Fin, Dex, and Gav stopped dead.

Hale stood still, Avalon curled against his chest, and the baby dragon lifted its head for the first time since hatching. Its silver eyes widened. A tiny chirp escaped it, then another, then a rapid string of sounds that were unmistakably excitement. Avalon’s wings fluttered against Hale’s torso and its tail tightened.

"I know, buddy," Hale murmured. "I see them too."

Maelor stopped breathing. His lips parted, closed, parted again. For the first time in what might have been his entire adult life, he had nothing to say. He stood at the mouth of the tunnel staring at a place that every text he had ever written declared uninhabitable, watching wild dragons circle a jungle that shouldn’t exist, and his brain was doing something it had never done before.

Recalibrating.

"This changes everything I have ever published." He looked at Dexmon. "I thought Drakenfell was the only dragon civilization."

"There were others," Dexmon answered. "All thought to have died out thousands of years ago."

His eyes flared gold, studying the dragons in the sky. When he spoke again, his voice was older. "Ice dragons."

Aeron bounced on the balls of his feet. "Gods. This is a lost draken refuge. A cradle realm. Hidden ecosystems. There must be hundreds of species in here."

Hyran elbowed him. "Focus. We are stopping to catalogue nothing."

"I will be cataloguing everything," Aeron muttered.

Gav exhaled slowly, taking it all in. "I would like to formally retract every complaint I made about the portal, the blizzard, the tunnel, and the last forty minutes of my life."

Serena walked forward as if following a path she had known since birth, her white hair catching the warm jungle light, eyes still burning pink. Elara moved beside her, silver-eyed, matching her stride.

Serena’s boot tapped something at the edge of the cliff.

A tiny protrusion. So small none of them had seen it. No wider than half her palm. Practically invisible unless touched.

A peg.

She placed her foot on it without hesitation. The stone beneath her glowed pink.

Dex stiffened immediately, recognizing this. She’d done this in the library once. "Serena." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Without turning, without acknowledging any of them, Serena dropped into an alpha-speed descent, weightless, as if gravity held no authority over her. Her white hair streamed behind her as she sprinted down the vertical cliff, feet landing on pegs barely wider than two fingers. Each one ignited pink under her steps.

Fin swore under his breath. Dex nearly launched himself over the edge after her.

It was at least five hundred feet to the jungle floor.

Serena reached it in seconds. A soft glow pulsed beneath her boots as she landed, gentle, controlled, unhurt. Still in trance.

"I am going to have a conversation with her about this," Fin said, his voice the particular brand of calm that meant he was furious.

Dex looked over the edge, then back at the group. "Hyran."

Hyran was already lifting his hand. He snapped open a portal with far more urgency than usual. "Nobody is climbing that."

Dex went through first. Fin was half a step behind. Hale shifted Avalon higher against his chest and followed, the hatchling chirping once in protest at the sudden movement.

Gav stepped through next, then Aeron and Maelor.

Hyran went last, pausing just long enough to look down at the pegs spiraling into the canopy below. His mouth twitched once, the reluctant respect of a man watching his protege defy physics, before he followed.

They emerged at the bottom just as Serena turned towards the ancient path ahead, completely unaware of the panic she had left behind. Elara stood beside her, silver-eyed and equally unbothered.

Both trances broke at the same time.

Serena blinked. The pink drained from her eyes, green flooding back. She steadied herself, looking around the jungle as if seeing it for the first time. Her gaze traveled up to the cliff she had just descended, then down to the glowing pegs still fading along the rock face.

Her brows drew together.

Elara’s silver bled out in the same moment, her own awareness returning with a sharp inhale. She looked at Serena. Serena looked at her. A full conversation happened in silence.

Dex was staring at Serena with an expression caught between awe and the desire to physically prevent her from moving ever again.

"You ran down a cliff," Fin said, voice even.

Serena looked at him. Then at the cliff. Then back at Fin. "Did I?"

"Five hundred feet. Vertical. At alpha speed. On pegs the size of my thumb."

She processed that for a moment. "Huh. Interesting."

Fin’s jaw worked. Dex closed his eyes briefly, which was his version of screaming.

Then Serena’s gaze dropped to Hale’s chest, and everything about her shifted.

"Hale, who is this?"

"His name is Avalon," Hale replied.

"Avalon," Serena repeated, and the dragon preened. Actually preened. Tilted his head back, fanned both wings, and chirped again.

Elara was already beside her, both hands clasped together. "Serena. His wings."

"I see them."

Avalon, who had been dozing, cracked one eye open. Assessed the situation. Recognized worship. He unfolded himself slowly from Hale’s chest, stretched both wings to their full miniature span, and let out a chirp so pleased it bordered on theatrical.

"They’re so small."

"I know."

"Look at his cute little face."

"Look at his scales, Elara. The silver on the blue."

The baby dragon was, without question, showing off. He had rearranged himself on Hale’s chest to present his best angle and was chirping in a steady rhythm that sounded dangerously close to purring.

Hale looked at Gav. Gav looked at Fin. Fin looked at Dex. Dex looked at Hyran. Every single one of them had the same expression: a mixture of helplessness and the quiet understanding that no one was going to rescue them from this moment.

Twenty feet away, Maelor was on his hands and knees examining a root system. Aeron was pressing his palm against a moss-covered stone and whispering, "Fascinating," to himself.

Hale looked at Elara, Avalon still wrapped around his torso. "Is this Frostborne?"