Pilgrimage [Western Fantasy] - Chapter 9

Two dragons faced off high above the earth.

The Bone Dragon’s hollow eyes burned with pale fire, and its skeletal body loomed at twice the size of its opponent. Even with the red dragon’s pride and fire-fueled madness, he hesitated in the face of the other’s breath of absolute cold.

“Nidhogg,” he snarled, voice thick with disdain, “you’d really disgrace the honor of our kind for a weak, pathetic human?”

Estelle let out a scoff and ran her hand along the smooth, cold bones beneath her. “So your name’s Nidhogg?” she murmured to the dragon she stood upon. The bone dragon rumbled softly, acknowledging her.

The intimate ease between rider and dragon only added fuel to the red dragon’s fury. He lifted his head and roared out an incantation in ancient draconic tongue. The ground trembled as flames streaked through the sky, and glowing embers rained down like stars.

Estelle glanced up, the sight reflected in her brilliant blue eyes like fire in a still lake.

A moment later, the sky erupted with a storm of flaming meteors.

She raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed. “Draconic magic?”

The inferno came crashing toward her.

“Eighth-tier flame spell… Meteor Flamefall,” she muttered.

She had to give credit where it was due—dragonkind were born with a command of arcane power. Their very language bent the rules of magic, making them natural-born casters of terrifying strength.

But Estelle was no novice. She murmured her own chant, and the meteor shower twisted midair, veering off course and slamming into a distant valley instead.

Faint screams echoed from below.

Enough of this nonsense.

She turned her cold gaze back to the red dragon. “Move. You’re in our way.”

He blinked, seemingly surprised that a mere human would address him like that again. But then his eyes narrowed, focusing on something else.

“Wait a moment… That soul of yours…” he mused, intrigued.

In the burning sky, over cracked red earth and shrieking demons, a standoff unfolded. The red dragon opened his maw again, voice low and laced with curiosity.

“This is rare. A human soul, wandering here? It’s been centuries since your kind ended up in this place.”

Estelle stared at her hand, something dawning in her eyes.

“A soul…”

Could this be it? The soul-state described in her arcane tomes?

Was she… nothing more than a soul now?

She’d pondered this before—what is a soul, truly?

She and Cizer had once talked about this. Both of them outsiders to this world, both skeptics of divine promises and gilded afterlife tales. Did the so-called ‘soul’ carry the weight of one’s sins and hopes? Was it really the bridge to some distant, idyllic homeland after death?

She never found the answer. Cizer certainly didn’t. After his death, she had wondered if she might glimpse his soul—but she never chased that hope. Instead, she chose to believe he had returned home, not become another wandering spirit on this alien continent.

Heaven, hell, redemption—just words carved on noblemen’s gravestones. What of those who were forgotten? Were they granted peace?

She chuckled softly to herself. “Am I dead, then?”

The red dragon grinned. “Being here might as well be.”

This place—Exile Paradise—was once a dimensional extension of the underworld. But millennia ago, a spatial rift severed it, and now only a single one-way tunnel connected it back to the realm of the living. It opened once every hundred years.

Unless—

“Unless someone knows forbidden magic,” Estelle said aloud, “risky enough to rip through space and maybe survive the chaos in between. Or…”

She turned. “Or you have the key to escape.”

“Nidhogg!” she called out.

The Bone Dragon launched forward, biting into the red dragon’s wing. The red one retaliated with poison-tipped fangs, aiming for Nidhogg’s neck. But he was slammed into the ground by a heavy blow.

Both dragons crashed to earth, clawing and tearing. Nidhogg summoned swampland beneath the red dragon, dragging him into the muck. The red dragon countered with fire, drying the swamp and striking back with fury.

Estelle watched this undignified brawl unfold and sighed.

“…Really?” she muttered.

Eventually, her patience snapped.

She raised her hand and summoned a glowing sigil. Chains of ice erupted from the air, binding the red dragon tightly. Her sapphire eyes were as cold as the spell itself.

“You’re able to cast level-eight fire spells without effort. You’re Flame Alex, aren’t you?”

With a flick of her wrist, the chains yanked his head down into the ground.

“I don’t like the way you talk. Or the way you look at me.”

The mighty red dragon, trapped and wounded, finally looked at her differently.

Estelle’s gaze didn’t waver. “You know things. That means you’re coming with us.”

The dragon scoffed. “Why would I ever—?”

His words cut off as ice spikes drove into his scales.

“I’m not asking,” she said softly. “I’m telling you.”

“Unless you’d prefer I snap your neck and let the Balrogs feast on your corpse.”

A primal fear overtook his pride. The red dragon lowered his head in submission, wings folded tight against his body.

And so, under a twilight sky, two dragons flew in tandem—one proud, now shackled.

Chains of ice still bound the red dragon’s body as they flew, despite the flames curling around his snout. He grumbled smoke and embers.

He didn’t like it, but Estelle’s power had forced his hand. He was hers to command—for now.

They left the scorched lands behind and entered the realm of ice.

Here, bitter winds howled across a land frozen white. Bl00d from slain beasts turned to crystals before it hit the ground. Estelle watched wolves battle on the plains, their bl00d freezing mid-air into crimson shards that scattered across the canyon.

She recognized the landscape.

Bl00d Diamond Canyon.

Cizer had told her of this place. The frozen north was even more perilous than the blazing south. The monsters here were cunning and ancient, the kind who ruled not with brute force, but strategy and fear.

Nidhogg’s domain lay at the heart of this frozen kingdom. Deep in the snowcapped mountains, his palace awaited.

As they approached, the red dragon grumbled, heat pulsing from his body to warm Estelle.

“You trust him that much, little human?” he muttered. “Even as we fly deeper into danger?”

Estelle gave him a bored glance, then smiled without warmth. “Looks like I didn’t beat you up hard enough.”

The chain around Alex’s body tightened, cutting into his wounds. He hissed but didn’t complain.

“You’re still too soft,” he growled. “If I were you, I’d kill anything that dares insult me.”

“Mm.” Estelle’s smile sharpened. “Maybe I’ll just cut your head off when we land.”

Alex, for once, shut up.

But Estelle didn’t look triumphant. Her expression dimmed. She curled into herself slightly, hugging her knees.

She’d become someone who could speak of death and killing so lightly. What did that say about her?

The moment passed. She said nothing more.

Alex shifted uncomfortably. The silence unsettled him.

“Hey,” he muttered, inching closer to her through the air. “Aren’t you cold?”

When she didn’t answer, he tried again.

“What’s your name? I can’t just keep calling you ‘human.’”

“Why are you here? How’d you fall into this place?”

He peppered her with questions until she finally lifted her eyes.

“You talk too much.”

Alex: “…?”

He should’ve been offended, but something in him—dragon instinct, maybe—kept him quiet. His kind respected strength, and Estelle’s command over him stirred a reluctant fascination.

“…Estelle,” she said at last. “That’s my name, Flame Alex.”

Alex’s ears twitched at the sound. Something about the name was familiar, but he couldn’t place why.

He drifted closer, but Nidhogg’s bony wing smacked him aside like a pesky insect.

Nidhogg didn’t bother hiding his contempt. If Alex weren’t providing warmth for Estelle, he’d have been shattered and scattered like ice long ago.

The palace appeared ahead—huge, luminous, carved from eternal ice. It radiated both majesty and stillness, a castle frozen in time.

It was Alex’s first time seeing Nidhogg’s lair.

This bone dragon, silent and alone, had arrived in Exile one day and wiped out all who opposed him. Since then, he’d ruled from his palace in solitude.

Nidhogg descended, letting Estelle hop lightly from his back.

The halls inside were quiet, the wind muffled behind enchanted walls. The air was surprisingly warm.

Alex was confined to the outer hall.

As Estelle stepped inside, the pale flames surrounding the Bone Dragon flared—and his body began to shift.

The skeletal form shrank, changing.

Moments later, standing before her was a man with long silver hair and a strange body—half flesh, half bone. His face was strikingly gentle, and he extended a hand toward her with a hesitant smile.

Estelle looked at the hand.

She didn’t take it.

“You’re planning to keep me here,” she said simply.