World of Trheom, Year 11327 E.M.
The wind howled through the cracks in the old house, carrying with it the frost of yet another winter. Aron Riger sat by the fire, sharpening his axe. The rhythm of the blade against the whetstone echoed in the silence, broken only by the occasional groan of the walls as the cold seeped in.
This house, built by his grandfather Bratson, had seen two generations of Rigers. It had withstood storms and hardship, but the warmth it once held was gone.
Aron had been only thirteen winters old when his father, Tyron, died during a hunt. Fresh snow had hidden the jagged rocks, and when Tyron fell, the exposed bone of his broken arm severed an artery. Alone in the storm, he bled out before he could return home.
Not long after, Aron’s mother, Melissa, began to fade. Her gray eyes, once as bright as the moon, grew dull and glassy, like dirty ice. Her silence hung over the house like a second winter.
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His sister Lisa, barely three winters old, had died long before that, taken by a cruel lung disease that was all too common in the north.
Now, the only other living soul in Aron’s world was Betsy, the family’s mule. Tyron had bought her to help with the work, and her cheerful demeanor had once been a bright spot in their lives. But even her warmth could not fend off the wild, unforgiving cold that seeped into every corner of the house—and every corner of Aron’s heart.
Yet the winds within the Riger house were not the only ones stirring. Aron felt it in his bones, the same way he felt the biting wind through the cracks in the walls. Change was coming, and it would not be kind.
To the north, a storm was building, vast and ancient in its nature. Across the Greenwing Forest and beyond the towering Dragonspine mountains, in the frozen lands of the northern tribes, the breath of the Dragon Fimbulwinter was ready to blow once more. It would sweep across the land, vast and relentless, leaving nothing unchanged.
