1 Prolog

Snow swept across the land in a hurricane of motion which would soon bury everything below in feet of frozen silence. The clouds above were as dark as the new year was set to be, tumultuous and dangerous they spit their ice below angrily as if to drive away the woman steadily climbing the frigid slopes of her ancient mountainous home. She bent her head to the unyielding wind, spiraling horns cutting upwards.

Her white hair blended perfectly into the blank landscape surrounding her to the point that any distant onlooker might have lost her hulking shape in the blizzard. She grit her teeth with each step, the stubbornness she had been raised with akin to a well sharpened blade. Even the heavens themselves could not turn her from her mission.

How much time had passed since she was dispatched from the belly of her dark god's grace? How many steps had she taken upon the gods forsaken earth, each one cursing her spawn? The days had blended together so much that even she could not tell between a few weeks to a few centuries. What was time to a mountain anyway? Even the ice could not shed the rock from the mountain's core in even a thousand years. The place she had grown up in had not changed at all despite her prolonged absence.

Thusly it was no surprise to her when she crested the last jagged mountain and found herself standing over a deep bowl. Within that bowl a large village sat, glowing torches barely able to stave off the white-out of the storm. Large structures dotted the flat landscape, each one housing a small handful of giants. She wondered if any others had birthed since her absence. Was her father still sitting upon the throne? Her lips pulled into a savage smile. If he was her job would be so much easier after all... Commanding an army of her kin would be all the easier.

Her daughter and the dragon may have easily withstood her alone but they'd stand no match to a small army. Talia would have no experience facing her own kind and that underestimation would spell doom. Of course there was more to her desires than subduing the girl, she wanted to utterly break her. She wanted to destroy the girls body, to destroy her spirit, to punish her for her very existence. And now the answers to her prayers sat just below in peaceful silence. She stepped forward and breeched the peaceful bubble of the land below. It wouldn't be too much longer before she could face her daughter. The image of her broken body fueled her forward with hastened urgency.