Alika’s sleep was cold and dreamless. The dragon shivered, hiding her head beneath her wing as she tossed and turned. Where before she’d always had Serka or Tarka, now, she had no one.

It was early in the morning when she awoke from her restless sleep, but this far in the ruins, she didn’t know it. Shadows across the ruins’ walls seemed to flit about like monsters in the night. She hid her head further to hide it from them, keeping the chill out from her ears.

Her heart raced, and her breath quickened. She wasn’t supposed to be alone like this; this was wrong. She was vulnerable to attack all by herself. Dragons were supposed to be in a pack.

“Tarka?” she whispered into the darkness. “Are you there?”

There was no response, and she peeked out from under her shaking wing. None of the shadows seemed to be him. Her claws scrambled over the stone as she jumped awake. A puff of flame from her jaws lit up the room.

Tarka wasn’t there.

“Tarka!” Alika roared, frantically twisting her tail around. As the room fell back into darkness, she ran to the fallen pile of rotten wood, scattering pieces in hopes that he was hiding under there. But there was not a hint of fur or wings. “Tarka! This isn’t funny, come back now!”

No response came, and Alika let out another puff of flame. No sign. Was this some sort of prank? Or had something happened to him?

She had to calm down and think. Alika took in a deep breath. There were smarter ways to go about this than just roaring. He would have left a scent trail. She placed her nose down to it until she smelled it. It was fresh — he hadn’t been gone long — and there were no other smells near it. He’d left of his own volition.

It wasn’t hard for her to guess where he’d gone, and his scent confirmed her suspicions: Tarka had gone further into the mountains to look for that stupid map. She began to regret Serka telling them about it at all; it had only led to trouble.

“Tarka?” she called out again as she walked down the tunnel leading away from the basement. It was dark, damp, and cold. Colder than it had any right to be at this time of year. Perhaps it was just how deep underground she was, but something felt off about this place.

Her hackles raised, and she felt her stomach turn. Was it just her, or was it getting brighter as she walked further along the trail? A faint green light had been cast on the walls of the tunnel.

“Alika, help!”

Tarka’s squeal was faint, but the echo was easily audible in the silent ruins. Immediately, it sent Alika into overdrive. She sprinted one paw after another, talons out and ready to maul whatever had hurt him, whether it was a wolf or a bear.

“I’m coming!” Alika roared.

The light grew brighter until Alika reached its source. The tunnel entered into a great circular room filled with a pond of glowing green ice, just large enough that even Serka could fly a circle around in it. In the center of the ice rose a crafted stone pedestal, wood placed atop it to form a pyre. On top of the pedestal, Tarka squirmed and writhed, held down by pairs of furred hands.

Tarka’s captors were smaller than him but had the advantage of numbers. Cream-furred animals with bright red faces surrounded him, screaming and clawing at his wings.

“Light the flame! Light the flame!” the snow monkeys howled, beating down on Tarka with their nimble hands. “Light the flame!”

“I can’t!” Tarka cried, twisting to hide his head as the monkeys pulled his ears. “Alika! Alika!”

Alika’s nervousness faded away, and she leaped from the ledge. Her wings opened instinctively, and she glided down to the ice, roaring at the monkeys as she landed. They screeched back, and one of them tossed a stone at her.

Alika jumped back, and the stone fell short, falling onto the ice with a clunk. It didn’t break through: it seemed like the pond had been frozen solid.

“Get off my brother!” Alika snarled. She scrambled up the side of the pedestal, clawing at monkeys as they tried to push her off. Her claws met one in the face, drawing red lines with her talons. It screeched louder, and more of the monkeys joined as got on top of the pedestal.

With the monkeys distracted, Tarka kicked his hindlegs out, bludgeoning the face of the one on top of him. He quickly rolled over, whacking another with a wing and leaping over the side of the pedestal. Alika watched from the corner of her eyes as he ran across the icy pond, trying to position herself in front of any monkeys planning to chase after him.

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“Light the flame! Light the flame!” the monkeys chanted. Another rock pummeled Alika in her ribcage, knocking the breath out of her. She snapped her jaws at an attacking monkey and used her tail to whack another one into the woodpile, but whenever she got rid of one, another seemed to take its place.

“Oh, I’ll light your flame alright!” Alika roared. She let out an exhale of smoke before taking in a great breath. The muscles in her throat and chest squeezed tight, and the monkeys screamed and scattered as they saw the fire in the back of her throat.

Stray tufts of fur on Alika’s jaws singed as she let out a gust of flame, extending her wings and throwing fire in an arc across the pedestal. Monkeys howled as it signed their fur, some immolated as others threw themselves toward the ice below to escape. A twist of flame reached out to the pyre, and with a sudden woosh, it came alight.

Orange ribbons of fire spiraled around the pyre as the monkeys howled, crackling and spitting out embers and sparks. Alika’s head tilted up as a column of flame rose far over her head, spreading out and grasping the ceiling of the room, setting the ancient wood alight with it. The small room suddenly heated into a temperature befitting a dragon den, and the ice began to melt. Tarka jumped as green wisps of light rose from the slick pond, circling the pyre. Alika’s orange flames turned into a vivid green.

“Alika?” Tarka asked, his paws soaked with water as the glowing ice melted. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Alika replied. She stared into the spiraling column of green fire, watching as it twined around itself. It felt almost beckoning, as if it were begging her to stare into it. She squinted, trying to understand.

Then, a flaming beaming of wood fell a paw-length from her snout.

Alika yelped and leaped back. Her hindpaws landed off the edge of the pedestal. Her claws dug into the stone, but she didn’t manage to hold on, and she slipped from it. Her wings twisted as she tried to right herself, but landed on her side. Though it stung, the landing hadn’t hurt as much as she’d expected it to — her fall had been broken by a quickly deepening pool of water. An odd but strangely comfortable sensation spread up her fur: the water was hot, almost relaxing.

Alika blinked, rolling over in it as her paws landed on the melting ice beneath its surface. It was hot. That was weird — she’d never felt hot water before, nothing warmer than melted snow.

The snow monkeys screeched joyfully as they swam around the melting springs, their attention no longer on the dragons. More chunks of flaming wood fell into the pond as the ceiling burned, the fire rapidly spreading. Alika began to sink as the water rose, coming up to her chest. They needed to get out of here, fast.

Alika spotted Tarka climbing up to the ledge they’d come in at, twisting and shaking the water free of his body. She began walking through the hot water, trying to run. Each step was slow and methodical, her paws unable to grasp the ice and propel her forward. The water inched up to the base of her head.

She took in a deep breath as it flowed over her snout, shutting her eyes. The feeling of hot water clogging up her ears was odd and uncomfortable, and she struggled to paddle as she heard splashes in the surface above, flaming beams doused in the pond.

Finally, she forced her eyes open. For a second, the water stung. She’d sunk as the water deepened, and the surface was a paws-width above the top of her ears now. Green spirals of light rose from the ice, creating an ethereal glow in the pond. Alika could barely make out Tarka’s figure through the surface’s distortion.

Her claws barely touched the ice beneath her, and as she tried walking as she normally would, she bobbed up and down. It felt like she was weightless. Was this what flying was like?

Alika glanced at the surface. It seemed so far away now, and the thought of being trapped down here forever made her heart begin to race. She held her jaws shut even tighter. The last thing she needed right now was to panic. She had plenty of breath left, and dragons were natural-born swimmers. She could do this.

She twisted her body and began paddling, stroke by stroke. It worked, sort of. She was moving in the direction she wanted to. She just had to keep going like this, and everything would be fine. It was just like digging through snow.

Another beam splashed into the water, and she let out a small air bubble from her jaws as she rapidly swam out of its way. It landed with a clunk on the ice. Tarka was closer. She was almost there.

Alika extended her wings, flapping them within the water. They were so hard to move, but each push shot her further toward the surface. The ice beneath her seemed far beneath her paws now. The weightlessness of it all and the ground far below made her claws tremble.

Finally, she broke through the surface, gasping for air. She coughed it out when she got a breath of it — it was filled with smoke. Alika wheezed as a paw reached down to grab her forelegs, digging into them as Tarka struggled to pull her up.

She helped him along, getting one forepaw on the ledge and clinging to it, slowly throwing her underbelly against the side and hoisting herself up to the top. She coughed again. Taking that breath had been a mistake. She pointed her wing at the exit to the tunnels and began to stagger toward it, water dripping from her fur.

Cold air wrapped around them as they left the green flame behind. Alika shivered and shook her body from side to side, trying to get as much water off her fur as she could. Tarka shielded himself with a wing. They ran through the tunnels of the ruins, smoke and fire coming up from behind them. Used to the rising of smoke in their den, Alika kept her head so low her jaws touched the ground, taking in another breath. It wasn’t quite so smoky as the last one, and she felt relief upon regaining the much-needed oxygen.

Upon reaching the basement they’d slept in, Alika sprung up to the rotting floor with ease. Fortunately, it hadn’t yet caught flame. She let her tail down, and Tarka grabbed it as he climbed back up. She winced but held it in place. The wood she stood on top of creaked, but didn’t break.

Green fire crawled after the dragon cubs as they ran from the ruins. Upon reaching the entrance, Alika's paw came to rest on Serka’s claw marks. She stood still for a moment, staring and touching them one last time before following Tarka out into the chilled winds of the mountain pass.

As they climbed back down the stairs, the two watched as green flames consumed the ruins. The howling and screeching of the snow monkeys joined the wind, and for a moment, it seemed like even the mountaintop had been lit up. The sun’s morning rays reached down over the horizon, and wisps of green rose to join the aurora in the sky.