This flash fiction was inspired by Bradley Ramsey ‘s Flash Fiction February (prompt 5).
It’s not too late to join in the fun!
Please mind the CONTENT WARNINGS (visible at the bottom or on hover)1
No Matter the Cost
The blood on the ice was black in the winter dark.
Arn followed the trail through volcanic stone fields where steam vented from cracks in the earth. His magic was too weak to track her—barely enough to light fires or sense water. But blood left trails even untrained eyes could follow.
His breath crystallized. His fingers had gone numb hours ago, but he kept his grip on the spear—iron tipped, rune-carved, the only weapon that could pierce dragon scale.
Behind him, two days’ journey through the ice, his brother was dying.
Seven years old and burning with cold-fever, the kind that turned lips blue and stole warmth from the core. The kind that no healer’s herbs could touch, that required magic Arn barely understood—heat magic, life magic, old workings that demanded blood, sacrifice and something more.
Dragon essence. A fire-core from a dragon’s chest, glowing white-gold with concentrated heat.
Blood trail led toward the geothermal caves where the Icelands met active stone. Smart. This one had been bleeding for half a day now—his first spear throw had struck deep but not fatal, and it had fled rather than fight.
A cave mouth yawned dark ahead, steam curling from its entrance like breath, blood disappearing into shadow.
Arn tightened his grip on the second spear. Thought of his brother’s shallow breathing, their mother making him promise to protect the boy, no matter the cost.
He stepped into the dark.
Inside, the dragon was waiting.
Midnight blue scales shot through with silver, beautiful even wounded. The first spear jutted from its shoulder, black blood crusted around the wound.
It could have fled deeper in the caves. Instead, it turned to face him. Planted itself between him and the tunnel beyond.
Why won’t you run?
It lunged—weakened, swayed. Arn rolled, came up with the spear ready, and threw.
The iron point struck true—buried itself in its chest, driving deep through scale and muscle.
No matter the cost.
It screamed. Stone grinding against stone, ice cracking under pressure, wind tearing through narrow canyons. It collapsed, wings crumpling.
Arn approached carefully. Its eyes found his—huge and dark and aware. No plea. No fear. Watching—waiting for what came next.
As its breath rattled, dying, the dragon’s gaze shifted. Looked past Arn toward the tunnel behind. Its eyes fixed on that darkness. Urgent. Pleading.
Resigned.
Arn’s hands shook as he began the work.
Cutting through scale and bone. Steam rising from the wound. When he finally exposed the core—white-gold light pulsing, the size of a human heart—his breath caught. He had never seen something so beautiful.
He wrapped it in furs, but even through padding he could feel its warmth. The heat that would save his brother.
Blisters rose on his hands, red and painful.
No matter the cost.
He turned to leave. Stopped.
That look. The way the dragon had looked past him in its final moment.
The tunnel behind the body. He stepped over the massive tail, a wing, blood still trickling across slanted stone.
The chamber beyond was smaller. Warmer—heated by the geothermal vents.
A number of eggs lay in the sand.
Glowing blue, each one larger than his torso, the shells faintly translucent in the dim light. He could see shadows moving inside some of them— life almost ready to emerge.
Arn’s knees gave out. He sat hard on frozen stone, the spear clattering from his grip.
She. A mother dragon. She wouldn’t run.
The flame-core felt impossibly heavy in his pack. The eggs would freeze without her.
No matter the cost.
He fled.
-
The ritual circle took an hour to prepare—drawn in the snow in a mixture of his own blood and ashes, following patterns from his mother’s journal.
His brother lay in the center now, skin blue-white, breathing so shallow Arn had to watch carefully to see his chest move.
The flame-core pulsed in Arn’s hands as he un steadily read the words.
“Blood of my blood,” he whispered, cutting his palm deep. Let the red stream onto the snow, onto the ritual marks, onto the core itself. “Heat for your cold flesh. Fire for your failing heart. A life for—”
The core flared.
A flame erupted in his palm. Burning, flesh charring, the smell of it mixing with the winter cold. The pain spread up his wrist in a line of agony that followed every nerve. He could feel himself dying inch by inch.
No matter the cost.
The fine sensation in his fingers around the stone going silent, the strength in his forearm failing, then everything above his elbow turning to a dead weight.
He screamed unable to release the core. The ritual had him now, as much as he had it.
Heat flooded from the stone in waves, melting the snow inside the circle into steam. His brother gasped, back arching, color returning to his face in a rush.
Arn’s arm kept burning.
When the light finally faded, his brother was breathing normally. Pink cheeks, red lips. His eyes fluttered open, confused but alive.
Arn’s right arm hung useless at his side, the hand blackened and twisted, destroyed beyond any healing power.
“Arn?” his brother whispered. “What happened?”
“You’re going to be fine.” The words came out rough. Arn gathered the boy close with his left arm, held him tight. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
It was hours before he could bring himself to think about anything that was not his brother, or his own pain.
-
The wind changed in the next days—carrying ice that stung like thrown sand.
Overhead, the aurora writhed and died.
The ground shook. Stone grinding somewhere deep. The nearest steam vents froze solid all of a sudden. The one beyond them exploded.
The dragon’s scream echoed in Arn’s memory. Stone grinding against stone, ice cracking under pressure, wind tearing through narrow canyons.
The old stories. Dragons didn’t just live here—they were here. The landscape itself, given breath and wings. And when they died, the land died with them.
How many were left? He didn’t know. But if the stories were true—
His brother tugged at his coat. “I’m cold,” he whimpered.
“I know.” Arn pulled the boy closer, but his mind was racing toward the cave, toward the eggs.
The flame-core. Still glowing faintly in the house, not fully extinguished by the ritual.
“Come on,” he told his brother. “We need to go.”
They made the journey slowly, Arn’s ruined arm making everything harder.
The egg chamber was colder than he remembered. Some of the eggs already petrified, the others dimming.
Please, Arn thought. Please.
He set the flame-core in the center of the chamber, positioned it carefully in the sand. Heat radiated from it, faint but steady. Would it be enough? He had no idea. But it was all he had to offer.
It was hours before one of the eggs closest to the flame-core shifted. Cracked.
Arn held his breath.
A piece of shell fell away. Then another. A small claw emerged, then a snout, then a head covered in scales that caught the dim light and threw it back transformed.
Silver.
The hatchling tumbled from its egg, wings folded tight, eyes huge and dark. Its scales seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, edges sharp as fresh-broken ice. It shivered, lifted its head. Scenting.
It waddled toward the passage on unsteady legs. Toward where its mother’s scent would lead. Toward the outer cave where her body lay cooling.
Arn’s chest tightened.
It stopped at the passage entrance. Stood there a while, then turned back. Looked directly at Arn.
Their eyes met.
It stumbled toward him. Pressed against his leg, tiny body shaking with need.
Arn knelt. Wrapped his good arm around it and pulled it close.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the hatchling’s scales. “I’m so, so sorry.”
His brother crept closer, pressed against his other side, reached out one small hand to touch the hatchling’s scales without fear.
“Will it survive?” his brother asked quietly. “Will they?”
“I don’t know.” Arn looked at the other eggs. At the flame-core still glowing faintly. “But I swear it—If they do, I’m going to keep them alive.”
It made a sound, something between a chirp and a rumble. Burrowed deeper against Arn’s chest.
No matter the cost.
-
On Lore and Canon:
This story takes place more than eight centuries before the events of “Mountain Bond: The Ancient Choice.” in a time when humans still possess magical abilities.
The hatchling will in fact survive to become the dragon who bonded with Aelra in the desperate years following the Separation—creating the first dragon-human bond.
Discover more about the Dragon-Human Bond and the lore of Dimidium
Read Mountain Bond Part One - The Severance or Download it as an ebook |
Start from the beginning of Part II or Read the previous chapter |
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© 2025 E.M.V writing as Morgan A. Drake. All rights reserved.Content warnings: Graphic violence, dragon hunting/killing, death of sentient creature, detailed organ harvesting, magical ritual causing severe permanent injury (explicit nerve death and tissue damage), blood and gore, child illness/endangerment, grief and loss, themes of extinction and environmental collapse, body horror.
I HAVE MIXED FEELINGS T-T