Spyro and Cynder had been flying for well under an hour when they reached the rift lake. Both dragons had slept well and felt ready for a day of flying. Cynder hadn't expected them to come upon the lake so soon, but there was no question that this was the right lake. It was massive; the far side was the faintest smudge on the watery horizon, to either side of the dragons the lake simply went on forever. Cynder had seen the Legacy Sea which was even larger, but Spyro had never seen a lake that was so big. The water was almost entirely still and remarkably clear, but the lakebed sloped downwards into the gloom where it was impossible to tell how deep the lake really was. The two dragons landed to drink their fill before continuing their flight; the fresh water was very cold, but nice.

Cynder was looking for floating icebergs on the lake so it was Spyro who first noticed the dragon flying towards them.

"Cynder look." Spyro pointed, Cynder looked.

"Is that another dragon?" She asked.

"I think so." Spyro replied.

Soon the unknown dragon was close enough to see. They were yellowish, an electric dragon, and quite large. Spyro and Cynder stopped and hovered as the dragon flew closer.

Thoran measured up the two dragons he'd been told about. Spyro and Cynder, they had to be these two, but he wasn't very impressed. The female was very attractive, slender and almost whiplike, the male was quite lean, he moved with unusual grace for a grown dragon, he reminded Thoran of a wolf or perhaps a predatory bird. They looked almost fully grown, but he could see their youth in their behaviour, both of them were barely more than whelplings, children to his eyes.

The second purple dragon Thoran had met in only a few days called out to him.

"Hello? Are you from Darkmire's tomb?" He asked. Thoran frowned, he hadn't thought about what he should say to the two dragons.

"Yes. I was a guard there." He replied. He set his wings and began to glide downwards; the other two did the same.

"What's your name?" The purple dragon asked. Thoran hesitated; there was a chance that these two dragons would recognise his real name, better not to give it. Thoran landed but he noticed that the black dragoness chose to remain in the air, hovering just above the ground. Wind dragoness, she had to be, no other dragon was capable of floating like that.

"My friends among the other guards call me… Dagger." He said, inventing the name on the spot.

"Dagger." The purple dragon repeated. "My name is Spyro and this is Cynder," He gestured to the dragoness, who inclined her head. "It's good to meet you." Spyro added.

"Yeah. Can we skip the niceties? You're going to Darkmire's tomb, looking for Malefor. Save your effort. He isn't there anymore."

"How do you know?" Cynder asked.

"Because he told me." Thoran said.

"You met him?" Spyro asked. "Why didn't he kill you?"

"I met him, and he wanted me to pass on a message to you. He said he's gone to The Catacombs, somewhere around a waterfall cave. He said you would know what he meant."

"We know where that is." Spyro said. The two dragons had awoken in The Catacombs years ago after being trapped in crystal. Cynder frowned, sensing something unusual.

"He knew we were coming? When did you talk to him?"

"Evening, three days ago. Why does that matter?" Thoran asked.

"Because we didn't know we were coming here until well after that." Cynder said.

It didn't make sense, the day Thoran referred to was the day Cynder and Spyro had had their date, then the day after that Cynder had gone to the Dragon Academy, fought the others and spent the night with Spyro, it hadn't been until the morning that the two had known they were going to Darkmire's tomb at all.

"That's true." Spyro said in surprise. "How did he know?" He asked Thoran.

"I don't know; I can't help you with that. Maybe he knows everything; I wouldn't be surprised if he did. But I'm wondering, you two aren't seriously going looking for Malefor are you? He's like a god, you can't fight him."

"We won't know that until we try." Spyro said confidently.

"I know you by reputation, Purple Dragon. You think you're a hero Spyro, but you're a fool. I already tried to fight him; you can't do better than I did."

"What did you do?" Spyro asked.

"I tore his spine open, stabbed him through the heart and fried his blood with lightning. He shook it off like it was nothing! He disappeared from under my claws with his dragon time and healed the wounds with purple light. It's impossible to take a dragon that can stop time by surprise!" Thoran couldn't help but get angry; it was insulting for him to have failed so completely against another dragon.

"Dragon time can't stop time." Spyro said. "I have that ability too, and it only slows time, not stops it. Also it needs to recharge after a certain amount of use."

"You're wrong. Whatever you've got, he's got it better. I know what super speed feels like, I've dealt with wind dragons like your little girlfriend before. This isn't that, he stopped time completely, and if you can't do that then you won't stand any more chance then I did. Can you heal yourself with purple light?"

"She's not my girl-" Spyro paused. "Oh wait, yes she is my girlfriend." He looked at Cynder apologetically. "My bad."

"Are you two planning to defeat Malefor with a comedy routine, or just stare at each other vacantly and hope he dies of his own accord?" Thoran growled.

He was so tempted to kill these ridiculous dragons. His paws were actually tingling at the thought of tearing into them. He wondered if the black dragoness was a screamer, the pretty ones usually were. He allowed himself to fantasize about killing the two pests for a moment, but he knew that there was no point. He still needed something from them after all.

"I can't heal myself with any coloured light; I use red crystals like all other dragons. That doesn't matter, because we beat the Dark Master once before, and we can do it again."

"Malefor, his name is Malefor." Thoran said.

"He goes by both." Spyro said.

"Not anymore he doesn't. He got quite annoyed when I called him that. More annoyed by a name then my attempt at killing him."

"What did he say?" Cynder asked.

"He said… I tried to kill him, and then after that he said… "I never wanted to destroy the world" and something about… his destiny, fighting with his destiny, or something along those lines. Then he told me where to find you two and then he left."

This didn't fit in very well with what they knew of the Dark Master, or Malefor as he apparently wanted to be called, Cynder would have expected him to kill every dragon at Darkmire's tomb and write out his request in their blood. It's what he would have made her do when she had served him.

"How did he escape the prison?" Cynder asked.

"I'm not sure. I think he killed most of the guards." Thoran said, bending the truth to suit him. "He just wanted me to tell you about the waterfall cave."

"That'll probably be a trap. We aren't going to blindly follow Malefor's path, are we?" Cynder said, looking at Spyro, who nodded in confirmation.

"No, we're going sightseeing Malefor or no Malefor." He smiled at the black dragoness and she smiled in return; clearly the couple had some in-joke Thoran didn't know. Thoran didn't particularly care though; he had more important things to worry about.

"Thankyou Dagger, for telling us what you know. We're going to Darkmire's tomb first and the Catacombs second, you can travel with us if you'd like." Spyro said politely.

"I'm not going back there." Thoran said. He smiled apologetically at the two dragons. "Sorry I can't be more help. Actually there's something I want to ask you two, before we part ways."

"Sure." Spyro said.

"There's… An item that's precious to me. A long golden spear called The Dragonslayer. I was going to look for it as it may be powerful enough to kill Malefor. Do you two know where it is?"

This was what Malefor had promised him the two dragons would know. The Dragonslayer meant more to Thoran then anything in the world, he had fought and killed with it for all his life, the spear was part of him, part of his very soul and he wanted it back. He would find the Dragonslayer, reclaim it, and kill the one who carried it.

"The Dragonslayer?" Cynder said thoughtfully. "That's true; the Artisan weapon may be capable of killing Malefor. It's in Warfang, in the possession of Imperia. I doubt she'll want to give it to you, but if you explain why you need it then she should be fair."

"Imperia, I think I know that name. Is she a wind dragoness like you?" Thoran asked.

"Yes." Cynder said. Something struck her as off about this electric dragon. She couldn't pin down what it was, but she didn't really like Dagger and she doubted Imperia would like him either.

"I'll talk to her."

I'll kill her, Thoran decided. Malefor and everything else can wait until I've killed Imperia and gotten my Dragonslayer back. Thoran nodded politely to the two dragons.

"Thanks for telling me. I'll travel straight to Warfang."

"Fly safely Dagger." Spyro said. He stepped away and took wing; Thoran did the same and turned in the opposite direction.

"Good luck Spyro and Cynder." Thoran called to the two dragons. He wasn't sure why he said it; perhaps he felt that they deserved luck. They would certainly need some.

"Was it just me, or was there something strange about Dagger?" Spyro asked.

Cynder had found icebergs, now the two dragons were flying over deep dark water, getting closer to Dante's Freezer.

"No, I thought so too. He seemed restless, a bit twitchy." Cynder said.

"Imperia's a good judge of character, if there's something wrong with him she'll see it." Spyro said.

"I guess so." Cynder said.

"There's something else that I was thinking about. How are we going to defeat Malefor? It's a miracle that we did the first time. If it's true that he has a stronger dragon time then I do then there's no guarantee we can even get close to him, let alone hurt him. You don't have dragon time at all Cynder, you could be completely helpless against Malefor stuck as still as a statue, and I wouldn't be much better."

"I do have dragon time." Cynder said.

"Huh? Since when?" Spyro asked. He had always thought dragon time was the ability of the purple dragons only.

"Since always. Malefor taught me so that I could fight you, not that it helped."

"Why have you never mentioned that?" Spyro asked.

"It never seemed like the right time." Cynder replied. "And besides I can't stop time very well at all, I don't know how to control it."

"I think I can show you how." Spyro said. "You just breathe deeply and focus and then you sort of…" Spyro did a thing; Cynder felt a buzz in her belly. The world turned purple and the air turned strange. Cynder suddenly found that the wind didn't respond to her will, or part for her body properly, as if it was all slowed down, she had to flap a few times before she worked out how to fly easily again.

"This is weird." She said. Spyro looked at her, he opened his mouth and made words, it took them a moment to reach her.

"You can use dragon time!"

"I still don't know how to use it." Cynder replied. Spyro frowned, watching her mouth move before the sound reached him. He replied and she heard him just after.

"I guess this demonstrates that sound has a speed."

The world returned to its normal non purple shade, Cynder was able to fly normally again.

"I don't know how to activate dragon time myself, but my powers activate when you use yours." Cynder said.

"We'll need to practice that. If Malefor can stop time completely we'll need to do that too."

"Is that even possible?"

"I used to be able to use one minute of dragon time, but now I can maintain it for nearly three. With practice I think that we can make time itself stop entirely."

"Let's hope so." Cynder said.

There was silence for a minute. Then Spyro spoke.

"I don't have a problem with you not telling me you had dragon time until now. I'm glad you told me. Can I just ask though, is there anything else you haven't told me Cynder?"

"There is one thing." Cynder admitted.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Spyro said. "But I'd prefer that you did. Is it important?"

"Maybe not. But maybe it is. Sometimes, just sometimes, you look a bit like Malefor. Imperia says she's noticed it too, it looks like a cloud passes over the sun and you are shrouded in its shade. It makes your scales look dark purple."

"I haven't noticed. But I believe you. What should we do about it?"

"I don't know. It's probably nothing, but you did ask if there was anything else I hadn't mentioned."

"Malefor and I share other qualities besides our colour." Spyro said in his best Malefor impersonation. "Gwah! I am ETERNAL!" He yelled, and then laughed.

"Never. Do that again." Cynder said sternly.

"Oh. Sorry. Was it in bad taste?" Spyro said, chastened.

"No." Cynder started laughing. "It was terrible. I cringed, if you ever did that around anyone else then I'd probably die of embarrassment."

"This will be my secret weapon. The power to kill you by Malefor impersonation. You dare not oppose me!" Spyro joked.

"Maybe we really can defeat Malefor with a comedy routine. He'll laugh himself to death."

"We'll add it to the list."

"We have a list?"

"Yep. It reads… Explosions. Malefor Impersonation. Romantic comedy routine. Explosions."

"Explosions is on the list twice."

"I like explosions. Your thoughts?"

"Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?"

"Isn't that the set theory paradox?"

"It's an unanswerable question, he'll go crazy trying to figure it out."

"The worst he can do is work out a satisfactory answer." Spyro said. "I wouldn't have thought you would know about the set theory paradox."

"Volteer taught it to me. This is the first time it's ever come up in useful conversation."

"I didn't realise this was useful conversation." Spyro said. Cynder laughed.

"Spyro?"

"Yes?"

"I've been thinking about something."

"That's a dangerous habit."

"Imperia already got me with that one." Cynder said.

"And she's gotten me too. She uses it all the time." Spyro said with a smile. "But what were you thinking about?"

"Have you ever considered taking multiple mates?"

Spyro reacted as if he'd just flown into an invisible wall. He sort of jolted to a stop in mid-air with a shocked expression on his face. He flapped his wings to return to his flight path and looked at Cynder, startled.

"Is this about Imperia trying to kiss me?"

"She succeeded in kissing you." Cynder pointed out.

"Yeah…" Spyro said with embarrassment.

Cynder hadn't asked only for Imperia, she was actually thinking of Miasma when she'd started wondering. Suddenly Ember showed up in her mind as well, Cyria and Flora joined the group. Spyro had a whole harem of eligible females hanging around him, Cynder suddenly realised. That wasn't a bad thing for her though, after all Spyro had made it abundantly clear he chose her over all competition.

"Never mind, forget I asked." Cynder said.

Spyro almost let it go, but Cynder had told him something when he'd asked, so it was fair to answer honestly.

"I have thought about it a bit, I mean there are a few other dragonesses who I might... I don't know, but you're the one I love Cynder, don't you even think that you aren't special."

"I think that's a double negative." Cynder said. Spyro thought it over.

"I'm pretty sure it's not. Besides you know what I mean." Spyro said. "There's nobody who's like you Cynder, nobody I'd rather be with. And for the record I think you're a better kisser then Imperia."

Cynder flew silently for a few seconds before making her reply.

"Imperia was the one who taught me how to kiss."

Spyro promptly flew into another invisible wall.

"Are you okay?" Cynder asked. The way that Spyro had stopped and gawked at her made her worry that she was causing him some sort of mental damage.

Spyro nodded, looking immensely embarrassed. Kissing practice was an extremely awkward subject anyway; bring Imperia into the equation and it just became that much worse.

"I'm fine." He mumbled. He wasn't able to look directly at her.

Cynder frowned, but didn't question him any further. The icebergs were getting more frequent; they had to be nearly there. The water around the floating ice was almost black and totally calm, it looked very deep indeed.

Cynder found herself staring at it, trying to spot something, anything, down there. She saw nothing; it was like a deep cold void.

"Do you believe in sea monsters?" Cynder asked.

"Sea monsters? Why are you wondering?"

"Well, look down. Doesn't the water seem… spooky? Maybe it's just me. I went to the sea and I saw a storm there. The waves were taller than I was, waves taller than the walls of Warfang even that smashed and roared on the beach. It made me think. There could be some huge creature the size of the Destroyer down there in the dark and the cold, just lying there watching us fly high above. We would never know."

Spyro looked down at the water. He had never liked deep water, and he didn't trust boats. He was happy enough flying over water and if he could swim down and touch the bottom he was fine with it, but deeper than that and he preferred to avoid it. Interestingly his opinion aligned exactly with Cynder's on this matter.

"Most of what I know about sea monsters actually comes from Nero, the same electric dragon who you fought in the colosseum. He's completely fascinated by boats, but I can't understand what's so good about them. He loves sailing and the water; he's always talking to sailors and looking for stories about the sea."

Spyro shook his head in amusement. He had never thought the broody electric dragon could be enthusiastic about anything, let alone be capable of chattering for several minutes on one subject.

"Do you know who's really scared of sea monsters? It's the moles. They are the most scared of sea monsters of any race. You can sort of understand why can't you? Imagine being a mole on a boat in the water, you can't run, or fly, or hide. There's nothing you can do and then… chomp."

"I don't like that image." Cynder said.

"Neither do the moles."

"I agree with them. So, do you believe in sea monsters?" Cynder asked.

Spyro looked down at the water before answering.

"Yes. I do believe in sea monsters."

"Me too." Cynder said. She looked down, but the ice had grown too close together to see the water below.

She looked ahead, a miserable fortress huddled against a huge shelf of ice. She didn't like the look of it very much; it may have been the spiked walls, or all the ice. It was getting chilly, she didn't like that either. Most of all it was the feeling of familiarity, she felt like she should know this place she also knew that she didn't, and it wasn't a nice feeling.

"Dante's freezer." Spyro said.

"Let's not stop." Cynder said.

"Sure, we get our bearings and we're gone." Spyro agreed. "Flare suggested using the dragon constellation. So we need to wait for that."

"No we don't; Imperia taught me astronavigation, it's an invaluable skill for long flights. We can just use the sun."

Cynder looked up and considered the sun thoughtfully.

"Do you know about how far north of Warfang we are?"

"We travelled nearly exactly north first, and then east, now we've come slightly south again. Probably no more than four hours flight directly north." Spyro guessed.

"I thought three, but it's close enough. We're going that way." Cynder pointed.

"Are you sure?" Spyro asked doubtfully. This didn't seem like enough to go on.

"Almost completely, let's go."

"I feel so much better now." Spyro grumbled sarcastically. Cynder looked at him; he smiled to show he was teasing.

The two dragons flew onwards in the direction that Cynder had chosen. It really was getting a bit cold, Cynder thought as she flew; she flapped her wings a few times to warm them up. At least the sun was still nice and warm.

The mountains appeared quite unexpectedly on the horizon. What had seemed like a featureless white cloud suddenly evolved into a jagged patchwork of white snow and black stone. Cynder thought it looked a lot like Seizo's chessboard, but without the even squares.

The two dragons flew closer to the mountains, and they grew taller and taller rapidly. Spyro was thinking about what Cynder had said about how mountains made her feel small, looking up at the massive shapes before them he could understand exactly what she meant.

"These seem like nice mountains." He said to her.

"They are quite nice." Cynder agreed. "I'm glad we came."

Once they reached the base of the mountains they found they were unable to continue. The mountains were very tall indeed, their jagged peaks were shrouded in the cloud and looked too high to fly over. Cynder might have managed, but Spyro definitely didn't want to try that way.

"There's supposed to be an ice valley around here." Cynder said.

"Like that one?" Spyro pointed.

"I guess so."

What Spyro had spotted was a deep narrow chasm between two of the nearest mountains, it was difficult to tell how far it went, because it twisted almost immediately to one side and what lay beyond that was hidden from the entrance.

The two dragons flew into the chasm; it wasn't even wide enough for the two of them to fly side by side. The moment they turned the corner they were surrounded by black stone, snowdrifts hid the ground below them, and white cloud hid the sky above. Cynder had rarely felt so trapped, she'd also rarely felt so cold, the sun was gone now.

The two dragons turned another corner and the ice valley unfolded before them. There was no question that they had found it, the valley must have once been a frozen river or perhaps a lake, but it must have frozen a very long time ago, because what was left was like nothing Cynder had ever seen.

The Ice Valley was a haunting sculpted landscape that gave Cynder chills that had nothing to do with the frigid cold that cut through the air. It was beautiful.

The valley itself was quite plain, perhaps a hundred meters deep. It was almost but not quite straight with walls of scarred black stone, and was almost perfectly V shaped. The ice part of the name, however, was what made the sight so mesmerising.

"Volteer certainly recommended an amazing place." Spyro murmured.

It must have been a lake that had once filled the valley; it was too big and too deep to be a river. The frozen surface of the lake had been utterly rent and shattered by the ice below it, creating hundreds if not thousands of cracks and fault lines in the ice. The surface was whorled and alien, worn smooth by the rain and wind. Over time, Cynder couldn't guess how long, huge pieces of the ice had worn away or broken and fallen. What was left was an implausible twisted maze of hanging ice, alternatively smoothly flowing or sheets of razors.

"That's… incredible." Cynder said.

"Remind me never to doubt your navigation skills again." Spyro said.

"Let's go." Cynder said.

The two dragons soon discovered that the seemingly still ice was less stable then it had appeared. The massive weight of the smooth ice above was barely supported by the ice below, it groaned threateningly above them, elsewhere the two dragons heard splitting cracks, but fortunately no ice fell.

"Could you create something like this?" Cynder asked. Spyro was an ice dragon after all.

"Perhaps, but it would take months, years even. The scale of this effect is massive. It should be a must for all ice dragons to come here. I could barely have imagined something like this."

As they flew deeper into the mountains the dragons found that the delicate balance of the ice became weaker and weaker, eventually they found the end of the hanging ice, beyond that point the entire structure had fallen to the valley floor at last and the two dragons had relatively open sky above them again. The sky was getting darker now, and cold wind was funnelled into the valley and towards the two dragons. Cynder deflected the force of the wind, but the cold wasn't so easy to stop. She was beginning to shiver.

"We'll need to stop soon." Spyro said.

"No, we can arrive tonight if we fly after dark for a while." Cynder replied.

The valley turned again, and it was getting even colder. Cynder was constantly flapping her wings to keep warm now, even more than Spyro. He looked at her with concern. He wasn't effected by the temperature, but he knew that to most dragons it was a serious threat.

"You look cold Cynder."

"I am cold. But we can still get there." Cynder said, she had to focus to keep her voice steady.

They flew for five more minutes, Spyro watched her the whole time.

"We aren't going any further." He suddenly insisted. "There's an outcropping down there we can rest under."

"We can't be any more than half an hour from Darkmire's tomb!" Cynder argued.

"You aren't an ice dragon Cynder, you could get hypothermia."

"Then I'll fly it off. I'm not going to slow us down; I won't be a burden to you Spyro."

"We're ahead of time thanks to you Cynder. You've done enough, we're stopping."

Spyro set his wings and glided down towards the outcropping he'd spotted. Cynder reluctantly followed; by the time she landed she was trembling all over. Spyro came over to her immediately and put his wing over her, the moment he touched her scales he flinched.

"You're as cold as ice!" He exclaimed. "Come here!" He wrapped his wing tightly around her slim body.

"You're hot." Cynder said in a trembling voice.

"You're hot too, but we need to get you warm." Spyro replied. Cynder smiled weakly.

He half carried her to the outcropping. The cold was sapping her strength; she could only lean on Spyro for heat and support.

"I hate snow." She muttered.

"Most dragons do." Spyro said. He rested Cynder down on a layer of the stuff while he changed his grip, then he lay beside her and slipped one of his wings under her. "Come close." He said.

Cynder crawled over his wing and pressed herself gratefully against Spyro's warm belly; she tucked her wings and curled up tightly. Spyro put his legs around her and then looped his tail over her back; finally he put his other wing over her body to shield her completely from the cold.

Cynder wiggled slightly to find the most comfortable position in the little space Spyro had made for her. Spyro allowed her to wiggle, after she had found her spot he shifted slightly and then tucked his head under his wing. He found his nose pressed against Cynder's, both dragons snorted slightly in amusement.

"Fancy seeing you here." Cynder smiled. Spyro nuzzled her.

"Do you feel any better? Are you warming up?" he asked.

"You've very warm. I'll manage, but I'm all tired out."

"Just rest Cynder."

"I was planning to." She mumbled.

"Good plan." Spyro said. He rested his head against hers, Cynder closed her eyes.

"My hero…" She said sleepily, Spyro replied, but Cynder was asleep before he'd finished his first word.

The only way Cynder could judge time passing was the sensation of Spyro's steady breathing and heartbeat against her side. She started imagining his breathing was minutes and his heartbeat was seconds, but in this case there were only eight seconds to each minute. Counting the minutes sent her off to sleep again.

When Cynder next woke she felt well rested, more importantly she felt warm. She smiled to herself and gently wrapped herself around the still sleeping Spyro, she wasn't quite as protected in that position, but she was more in contact with Spyro, so it was worth it to her. She poked her head out from under his wing and groaned quietly when the cold hit her. She really did hate snow.

It was probably morning, the valley was still dark because the sun hadn't raised high enough to peek over the mountains, but the sky was clearer and it was light, so come midday when the sunlight reached them Cynder might even be able to pretend this miserable rift was almost warm. They'd reach Darkmire's tomb before midday anyway, she was absolutely certain that they were very close. She tucked her head back under Spyro's warm wing and rested between his foreleg and chest.

Spyro felt the movement, it was soft enough to not immediately wake him, but it roused him from his sleep. He had slept really well; Cynder must cause good dreams, he decided. How ironic that Sparx still insisted on calling her Nightmare Girl. She had started cuddling him, she felt lovely, he smiled and opened his eyes. Cynder had moved around him, his head was now resting against her magenta underbelly, actually was it magenta? He'd been calling it magenta in his mind, but perhaps it was more crimson? Or maroon, maroon was a colour name, right? There had to be a name for the colour, but he didn't know it.

His head was resting against Cynder's underbelly. He kissed her and Cynder twitched, startled.

"You could start with a Good Morning." She said.

"Huh?" Spyro expanded his focus and rapidly determined exactly which bit of Cynder's underside he had just kissed. "Oh! Cynder I'm sorry!"

"I don't… mind… It was just a bit unexpected." Cynder admitted.

"I…" Spyro was staring, his mind was stuck. If he'd tried to continue his sentence probably the only word he'd have been able to manage would have been "Magenta"

Cynder shifted around so she was face to face with Spyro and then she kissed him firmly.

"I'll, uh, warn you next time…" Spyro mumbled.

"I'll be expecting it next time." Cynder said with a flirtatious smile. Spyro was briefly lost for words.

"I love you." He managed, which seemed to please Cynder.

Darkmire's tomb, true to Cynder's prediction, was barely fifteen minutes away. Despite that the black dragoness knew that stopping for the night had been a wise move. It wouldn't have been any fun getting into that intimidating fortress after dark, particularly not with her suffering hypothermia.

Volteer had describes the fortress as "Precariously perched above icy oblivion" and that was quite a good description. This trip had certainly been a good one for marvelling at the scenery.

The fortress was located halfway up the slope of the largest mountain the dragons had encountered yet; Spyro thought it might be the largest mountain ever. There was a narrow path that wound back over itself leading up the slope, it didn't look very stable. At the top of the path was a small triangular plateau against which the fortress stood. Darkmire's tomb had two walls, one with a huge sealed gate faced the plateau, and the other was a sheer wall built into the cliff like side of the mountain. It made Dante's freezer look as beautiful as the dragon temple… and it was still too damn cold.

"Let's go." Spyro said.

"Wait!" Cynder hissed.

"What is it?" Spyro asked.

"I think there's a dragon up there."

I want to draw a pretty picture of Spyro. If you're an artist at all then please get in touch as I will almost certainly need help from someone with actual drawing ability. A picture paints a thousand words, they say. I want to use Photoshop and pencils, not paint, but the saying still works.

I have to say I'm rather proud of this chapter, things are starting to happen now. I thank you all for reading this story so far, and I fondly hope you continue to believe. There is much awesomeness still to come.

I'm intending to rock your world, and that's a promise.

"Never give up thinking"

-4Dragons