Prologue

I was nine. And I remember sneaking out of bed on one very special night. I remember my hair trailing behind me as I snuck down the stairs after bed-time. I paused by Mother's room to make sure she was asleep before I tip-toed past and continued on through the kitchen and into the living room. As I walked across the room towards the large double door window on the other side, excitement hummed in my chest, accompanied by a flutter of fear.

Not that I'd never snuck out of bed before, I had been doing it for as long as I can remember. No, it wasn't first time jitters, it was the ever present fear of being caught. Mother didn't like me disobeying her, and she had said that I was not allowed out of bed after dark. Mother got scary when she was mad. Once, she caught me trying to sneak outside to play, even though I knew I wasn't allowed. She locked me in a cupboard for two days with no food. I'd hate to think what she would've done if she found I crept out of bed that night. But it was worth risking it. A birthday only comes once a year, right?

When I reached the big window, I managed to push open the two heavy doors keeping out the night air, revealing the night sky scattered with stars. I rested my arms on the windowsill to cradle my head as a waited for what I knew was coming. I sat there all night, waiting. Staring out at the night illuminated by the moon. It wasn't until the moon had disappeared and the sky started to lighten, that I realized. Crushing disappointment filled my heart as I ran back to my room before Mother woke up. I threw myself onto my bed and cried silently until she came to get me for breakfast. She never even knew that I had been crying. She never knew that I had gotten out of bed. She never knew what had happened that night.

She never knew that that was the year the lights stopped filling the night sky on my birthday.


It had been a year since I had met Toothless and completely changed the way of living on my island. After I showed everyone that dragons were not what we thought, the people of my tribe began to accept them and take them on as pets and friends, like me and Toothless. It was after everyone had finally accepted the idea that dragons were our friends that the trouble started.

We first noticed it when the dragons of the village began to get irritable. They would snap at people and other dragons and started to, once again, eat the livestock off the farmers' land. The rumor is that serious trouble started with an argument. Then argument was between a farmer and a dragon owner, the farmer claiming the dragon had eaten his sheep. The discussion became heated and turned into a shouting match. It's said the commotion irritated an near by Monstrous Nightmare. The dragon snapped, burning the farmer and biting the dragon owner.

After that, people were scared, but most were willing to believe it was just one rogue dragon. That is, until a Gronckle killed its owner's neighbor. People were even more scared at this point. Some even called to have the dragons banished from the island. But dragons were our friends by that point. They had merged with the island as pets, helpers, family members. Our viking blood wouldn't allow us abandon our dragons that easily.

But the attacks increased in frequency and brutality until people became truly terrified and started killing their dragons for fear that they'd kill them first. Dragons were turning on owners and owners on dragons. It was as if something had infected the village, affecting the dragons and the people. Eventually, the weekly night raids of dragons returned and all hopes of trusting our scaly friends again had vanished. Then the people started turning on each other, blaming one another for whatever had happened to the dragons. Hate and fear stirred throughout my tribe as we fought our age old enemy again, as well as a new foe, ourselves.

We were in chaos, my tribe was falling apart, and guess who was caught in the middle of it all?


All I remember was war. There was fighting everywhere. Soon after my mum and I had mended our bond, a larger one was broken. The ever fragile alliance between the clans had finally dissolved. No one's quite sure how it happened. Some say it was a struggle for power amongst the clan leaders to overthrow my dah'd as king. Others say it was the escalation in property disputes and trade disagreements that fanned the flame of long lasting rivalries. There is one rumor, the one I believe, that it was fear. Fear from the still present threat of northern invaders. Fear spurred on by the increase of bear attacks. Fear that the king was going to snuff out the other clans with his power. The fear that accumulates until it's unreasonable. Until it turns into confusion and panic. The fear that causes you to lash out at your allies and friends. The kind of fear that starts a war.

After the first clans attacked each other, it spread to the others and soon, everyone was fighting. No one was quite sure what they were fighting for, but their fear and hate towards each other was enough to spur them on.

I remember one specific night, soon after I had turned fourteen. I awoke in the middle of the night to the castle on fire. I remember the shouts of men and the clanging of steel that was sword on sword. I remember being confused and frightened when my mum came rushing into my room, telling me to gather my things. We then crept our way through the castle, avoiding fire and sword.

The fire was everywhere, illuminating the invaders and allies as they attacked each other with the savagery of bears, yelling and cursing. The thing that really frightened me, though, wasn't the men or the flames. It was the shadows. Not the normal shadows that danced from the light of the fires, but the ones that seamed to sweep through the castle without a source or cause. Shadows that moved on their own. They looked alive. Large horse-like shadows that seamed to rise up from the walls and leap at you from the darkness. And I could've sworn some had glowing yellow eyes.

We managed to flee the castle, leaving my dah'd and my brothers behind. My mum said it was safer leaving them there than having them come with us. She said the people who attacked the castle weren't after the king. She said the invaders would leave as soon as we did. That I shouldn't worry about my dah'd and brothers because they'd be fine. As we rode away, I looked back at the castle. The sight of the mighty DunBroch castle, overtaken by an inferno, struck fear into my heart. It was a fear I never want to feel again. A fear of what would happen next, of what would become of me and my clan.

Because the reason my home was attacked, the person the intruders were after, was me.


Darkness...That's the first thing I remember. It was dark and it was cold and I was scared. But then, when I rose through a thick layer of ice into the night air, then I saw the moon. It was so big and it was so bright. It seamed to chase the darkness away. And when it did, I wasn't scared anymore. Why I was there and what I was meant to do, that I'd never know. And a part of me wonders if I ever will.

I remember landing on the ice again, bracing for the cold sting on my bare feet, only to feel nothing. As if I was standing on summer grass instead of a frozen over pond. I looked to the moon, as the whisper of a name came on a winter breeze. As I looked up to the moon, I felt something deep in my chest. A sense of belonging or purpose, as if the moon was looking back at me, into my mind and soul, telling me that everything was alright. The feeling soon faded, and I was left on my own.

I remember looking at my hands to find them pale as death. My clothes were coarse and crude with brown pants torn off and bound with cords above the ankle. My shirt was loose and cream colored with an opened leather vest layered over it. My brown short cloak was lined with a layer of frost. I looked around at my surroundings to find I was on a lake, in the middle of a forest, bare with winter. As I moved to explore the area, my foot hit something. A staff with a crooked curve at the end was laying on the ice next to me. I picked it up, curiously, wondering what it was doing there. When it slipped from my hands, it sent a crystal lattice of frost across the ice in a beautiful pattern.

I picked it up again and tentatively brought it over to a tree near by. I tapped its trunk with the staff, to have the same thing happen again. I looked in wonder as the lace-work of frost spread across the bark. Laughter escaped from my chest as I realized what the staff could do. I ran back out to the lake, spinning the staff around me. The joy bubbling up in my chest and escaping in laughter as I spread the frost across the ice, enjoying the fun of it.

Then, I was suddenly carried into the air by a gust of wind. I had just enough time to look down at the frost I had created on the lake and trees before I fell. I crashed through a few tree branches before managed to land on a branch thick enough to hold me and gripped it tight with my arms and legs. Shock gave way to exhilaration as I let out a chuckle. I noticed a collection of lights in the distance. Other people! Maybe they could tell me where I was and help me figure out what was going on. I let the wind carry me towards the lights to investigate.

What I don't remember, though, as I flew away from the pond, was a pair of dark yellow eyes, watching me from the shadows of the forest.