Wilson knew why his skin crawled.
It wasn't Gelidra biting at the morning air, nor the wave of frost energy he'd unleashed. It wasn't even the eerie silence of Eyja's empty districts.
His skin crawled because of his mother and the final words she'd left him. They clung to him as parasites, leeching at his heart, burrowing through his bones.
Two syllables. It was a two syllable word. What was it?
He didn't know. He didn't have time to ponder more.
Wilson bolted across town with ragged breaths.
His lungs burned. They dragged shards of ice into his chest with each gasp. The frost energy he'd unleashed had left his body battered, nerves raw, mind fractured. He'd never felt so weak, so feeble before.
The bends around the dark, volcanic cobblestone houses made him nauseous and his vision blur. The streets grew narrower, windier, more labyrinthe than he'd ever remembered. The unpaved paths didn't help his pace.
Every shadow was a figure in pursuit. Every gust of the winds carried the phantom whispers of the Vulcretum agents and his mother's weeps.
He hadn't dared look back. He was lucky to make it thus far. He wouldn't waste her sacrifice.
Northwest. The springs.
He turned a corner and almost tripped.
A molten ingot and some tools near Molcrith's forges lay casually on the ground. Smiths of Molcrith were hard at work in the early mornings before seeking shelter from Gelidra.
Ignamar, Eyja's central trading hub, appeared as desolate. The merchants' stalls, always packed with wares, rumors, customers, now stood eerily sparse, their wares and boards covered in tarps.
Unseen fingers trailed along his spine. The same unsettling like the moment he'd seen his mother praying earlier that day. He couldn't shake it. He gritted his teeth.
Shortcuts. Go.
He vaulted over wheelbarrows, stacks of crates, until the streets cleared into the town square.
Wilson recognized the bridge.
It fed from the vacant square, a marvel of Ejya's craftsmanship, built with weaves of blacked steel and volcanic stone.
Ornate carvings depicting the kingdom's history adorned its stone railings. Runes carved onto its supports helped it arch over streams of magma that hissed and sputtered.
The magma's fiery light reflected the sky with crimson orange hues. Under Gelidra, they casted jagged shadows that flickered against the dull sky.
Steam rose where smoke should have lingered, settling as a scalding film on the surface of the bridge. He barely noticed until his foot lightly splashed atop it. The heat bit into his skin. Only then did he realize he'd somehow lost a shoe during his run. The other clung in tatters.
Shoes be damned.
But he'd made it. He didn't need shoes at a hot spring. How hot could the bridge be?
Wilson inhaled sharply and stepped forwards again.
The moment his foot touched the bridge surface, a searing pain lanced through him, as if the magma itself had reached up to claim him. He jerked back wavering close to the edge. The pain, an undying fire, burned more than only his skin.
I'll be damned. My blisters. They've popped. Blaze my infernos.
He lived in Eyja. He'd endured the sweltering heat and tolerated countless burns before.
But the magma today was different. Hotter.
Cold beverages weren't uncommon in the town square. Yet they would evaporate instantly in these conditions.
It didn't make sense. Eyja was an active volcano. Magma deep within its chambers would be several times hotter.
But there were no signs of eruption or anything that'd shake up the magma. No earthquake warnings from the speaker crystals. Nor did the temperatures of the ground rise. Gelidra, too, certainly couldn't stimulate an eruption.
Unless...
The thought escaped him.
... it's just the temperature shift, cold to hot. That's all.
Whatever his mother had left him in the lockers, it would be worth everything to find out.
She was an astute woman, mysterious, independent. She hid books, photos, and other relics (she called them heirlooms when he'd learn in school they were destroyed and replaced with magic scrolls after the Rescription). She always reminded him to keep an open mind and be wary of tripping on rocks.
These were strange words to hear in Eyja. There must've be a reason why she repeated them.
I will find answers here. So figure out how to cross this blazing bridge, Wilson.
His mind churned. Gelidra. Jokulmarkar. The frost energy in his body. His mother.
He couldn't control the frost energy earlier. If he could harness it now, freeze or at least cool the scalding film of water on the bridge, then he could cross.
But if things went awry…
… I will alert the Vulcretum again.
Wilson shut his eyes and focused on his heart.
The frost energy had originated there earlier. He found it without issue. He awoke it, as natural as controlling his breath, as familiar as his pulse.
The power surged into his extremities. Icy currents coursed through his body and spiraled around his blood vessels like threads of silk, a chill both cold and… alive.
Wilson stirred it deeper.
He gasped as the energy hummed, thrummed, pulsated with an almost alien sentience. It was ancient. Primal. Alive. Ravenous.
It wasn't a power he felt was his own. Not entirely. It was as though it had chosen him as its vessel.
The air around him dimmed. The surroundings wrapped in a haze of frost. Shimmers of ice danced in his peripheral vision. His every breath crackled. The vapor blossomed into crystalline shards that hung in the air before dissolving into nothingness.
But they lingered longer with each breath. More persistent. More alive. Another storm was building inside him, ready to break free.
No. I am in control.
Wilson gasped. His chest tightened as the energy pushed against his will.
Somehow, he'd contained the storm. The frost energy wouldn't pulse outwards like the waves before.
But then something shifted. He felt it before he saw it. A cold, dark presence behind his neck.
Something was wrong.
The energy was corrupting him.
Beneath his skin, the frost power churned—bulging, twisting, warping in an almost living flow. Then ice erupted from his shoulders. Grotesque, tumorous crystals jutted out, as if the cold itself had decided to claw its way free.
He went pale. They throbbed. They pulsed with a rhythm that wasn't his own.
The ice was predatory. Invasive. Callous. Sharp spirals coiled around his flesh, sinking in, intent on devouring him from the inside out. They bound his whole right arm immobile from his shoulders, his left in mere seconds, and then the rest of his body.
He fought the urge to scream. Each new growth was a literal noose tightening around his neck.
I will not be consumed.
He couldn't let it win. He had to focus.
The frost had chosen him. He couldn't let it destroy him.
Think, Wilson. Think!
The contents of his mother's books rushed to the forefront of his mind.
Energy conversion. An Introduction to Classical Mechanics.
Wilson focused. A molten ingot to a sword... no, that wasn't right.
It's passive, he realized. A sword doesn't hold energy on its own.
The bow. The bow is a better example.
His mind latched onto the idea: pulling a bow transferred energy into the string. The bowstring stored potential energy that'd be converted to kinetic energy in the arrow when released.
Yes. Yes! That was it.
The frost energy needed to be stored.
It was freezing him and had frozen his surroundings because there was no place for it to go. He needed to store it as potential energy—a drawn bowstring—ready to release on command.
But to do this, he needed something deeper. Something he hadn't realized he possessed until now.
I need another source of energy to do work. To do the conversion.
He had felt it earlier. Something buried deep beneath the frost energy in his heart. Subtle. Quiet. Yet undeniably there. It hummed like the first crackle of lightning before a storm.
A name surfaced in his mind.
Mana.
His breaths quickened. This wasn't the chemical energy of muscles or mind. It was something innate. A dormant current coursing through veins he hadn't known existed.
He traced the invisible vessels with his mind. This was what the silk-like threads of frost energy had spiraled around.
Threads around a spinning wheel. The frost energy was waiting to be woven into something greater.
Wilson drew on it, carefully, pulling the mana into the ice that coiled around him. The ice was alive. It wasn't invasive. It only needed direction.
He weaved commands into the mana and guided its flow. The mana responded, feeding the ice, anchoring it.
The ice obeyed. All the jagged crystals receded into a glowing blue sheath that clung to himself.
I don't know how that will act like a bent string of a bow, Wilson thought. Not complaining if the frost energy is stored.
He looked down at the bridge surface, then onwards.
That scalding layer of water really traumatized me.
Wilson craned his stiff neck backwards and scanned the square.
No disturbances. No townsfolk. No evidence of the icy chaos that should've followed. Those Vulcretum agents—if they were indeed pursuing him—had yet to make an appearance.
Answers.
That was all that remained.
His mother's voice, sharp, unyielding, echoed in his mind.
Supplies. Leave town.
Mother. You must've expected everything. Tell me if this is plan A… or plan C.