The noise of celebration still lingered around the arena when the stranger approached Eira. The man looked ordinary at first glance—thin, polite, dressed like a traveling scholar—but something about him didn't sit right. His steps were too quiet, his smile too measured, as if every expression had been rehearsed in advance. Eira noticed him only when he stopped beside him and bowed slightly, asking in a soft voice if he was the swordsman who had fought in the contest.
Eira tilted his head, studying him. He didn't answer immediately. The air around the stranger felt wrong, like a room where a candle had just gone out. The man continued calmly, saying that his master wished to thank Eira personally for the performance. That alone was suspicious. Eira didn't remember performing for anyone, let alone someone important enough to send a messenger.
Before he could press further, a small white blur darted between them. The Snow Dragon had slipped out from behind Eira's cloak and waddled forward curiously, sniffing the stranger's robe. The man's smile deepened ever so slightly. In the next instant, his eyes darkened—not metaphorically, but literally, as though the light inside them had been swallowed.
Shadows burst from the ground.
They snapped upward like living chains and wrapped around the dragon before Eira could even draw breath. The creature squeaked in shock as the darkness tightened, swallowing its small body whole. Eira moved instantly, frost surging across his skin, but the shadows vanished just as suddenly as they had appeared. The dragon was gone.
The stranger stepped back calmly, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. In a voice as polite as before, he said that his master thanked Eira for caring for something that had never truly belonged to him. Then he flicked a folded black note against Eira's chest and added that some blessings were wasted on the unworthy. Before anyone could react, his body dissolved into mist and faded into nothing, leaving only silence and the stunned murmurs of onlookers.
Eira unfolded the note slowly. The ink looked like spilled night.
You are unworthy of the dragon. A borrowed blessing does not make you chosen.
The paper froze in his grip and crumbled into frost.
That night, sleep did not come gently. It dragged him under.
He found himself standing in an endless field of snow where the sky and ground blurred into one pale horizon. Two figures stood in the distance. One shone like moonlight on ice, her presence calm yet immeasurable. The other was only a silhouette formed from absence itself, a shape that devoured the light around it. The luminous figure stepped forward, and though her lips barely moved, her voice filled the world inside his mind. She told him to beware the one who blessed shadows, warning that the dark would follow wherever divine power awakened. When his soul grew strong enough to bear truth, she said, he must draw the sword left behind by the ancient hero. Only then could she walk the mortal world again.
The shadow beside her stirred and whispered with a voice like smoke sliding across stone, promising that when she appeared, it would appear as well.
Eira woke sharply, breath steady but eyes cold. He muttered to himself that gods had a habit of speaking in riddles, yet the seriousness in his gaze betrayed how deeply the dream had settled into him.
He didn't hesitate. Activating the teleport mark Iris had given him, he stepped into light and emerged moments later in the silent brilliance of the snow realm. The air there always felt cleaner, sharper, like truth could not lie beneath its sky. Iris was already waiting, dressed not in ceremony but in readiness, as though she had known he would come. When he told her what had happened, she listened without interruption, her expression tightening only slightly at the mention of shadows taking the dragon.
The elders gathered soon after. Their ancient eyes held neither surprise nor panic—only recognition. One of them murmured that the Dark-Blessed had begun moving at last. Iris turned to them and said simply that it was time to give Eira the sword.
Though they insisted he was still unready, they raised the ancient pedestal anyway. Snow parted, the ground opened, and the weapon rose into view. The blade was white steel streaked with frozen light, magnificent and heavy with age. When Eira grasped the hilt and lifted, the weight slammed through his arms like a mountain pressing down, not physical but spiritual, as though the sword itself were measuring the truth of his existence. His knees trembled for a moment, yet he didn't release it. After a breath, he steadied himself and admitted quietly that it was still too much for him—but he held on anyway.
Iris told him their spies had traced shadow disturbances near the eastern border ruins. Whoever had taken the dragon was preparing something and waiting for an opponent worth killing. Eira understood immediately. That opponent was meant to be him.
After thanking the elders, he secured the sword across his back, feeling its presence pulse like a sleeping storm. He promised Iris he would return alive and bring the dragon with him. She nodded once, accepting the vow without doubt. When he activated the teleport mark again, light swallowed him and carried him away.
Far beyond the snow realm, deep inside a fortress where light struggled to exist, a man watched a chained white creature curled in shadow. His lips curved faintly as he murmured that the bait had been set.