The morning greeted me with teeth-chattering cold, the world buried under a fresh blanket of snow. I stepped outside to shovel the walkway and patch the sagging roof, only to find Fleda and Manfred already in the yard. Their laughter rang sharp against the frosty silence—Fleda, now every inch the doting older sister, chasing Manfred through knee-deep drifts.
"Take this!" Manfred crowed, pelting a snowball straight into Fleda's face. Powder clung to her lashes like diamond dust.
"Oh, you're dead," Fleda growled, bending to pack a snowball the size of a melon. Her movements were fluid, practiced—years of wrangling a little brother had honed her aim.
Manfred backpedaled, boots squeaking. "N-no fair! That's cheating—!"
Thump.
He vanished under an avalanche of white.
"Divine punishment delivered!" Fleda declared, hands on hips.
"Enough playing!" I barked, tossing them shovels. "Unless you want to eat snow for supper?"
"Yes, Captain," Fleda mock-saluted, hauling Manfred out by his scarf.
Sixteen winters had passed since Manfred's birth. Sixteen winters since Ercangaud's golden fields withered to dust, cursed by endless frost. They said a northern volcano had erupted, choking the skies with ash. Crops failed. Neighbors fled—first the Albert family, then others, until our village felt like a skeleton picked clean.
We survived on potatoes from our stubborn garden plot. Boiled, mashed, fried in precious drippings of oil—I still dreamt of their earthy stench.
Mom lasted longer than expected. Bedridden those final two years, her mind fraying like old yarn. When she died last Oberon Moon, Manfred sobbed until his throat bled. Fleda and I? We stood dry-eyed by her pyre. Grief, I realized, had starved to death long before her body did.
Anyway, at thirty-nine years, I'd finally outgrown the gangly limbs of adolescence. My reflection showed a woman with calloused hands and shoulders broadened from labor, eyes sharp as thawing icicles. Fleda, four years my junior, had… blossomed more extravagantly. "It's the cold," she'd joke, adjusting her threadbare bodice. "Makes things shrink."
Manfred, now sixteen, ducked her snowball barrage with the agility of a mountain goat. "When do we leave for Aureo?" he panted, red-cheeked.
"Tomorrow, after the Frostmelt Ceremony," I said, chipping ice off the roof. The capital city loomed in every conversation now—a glittering mirage of guild halls and warm bread.
Fleda snorted. "Ceremony? More like a funeral. Old Mayor Harken's been praying to the frost spirits for a decade. What's one more dance?"
She wasn't wrong. Ercangaud's "ceremonies" had dwindled to a handful of elders shuffling around a bonfire. Tradition demanded elves come of age at thirty-four to inherit family trades or seek fortune elsewhere. For us, "elsewhere" meant Aureo's guilds—specifically the Nito Trials.
Rumors painted Nito as a meat grinder. Thousands applied monthly; dozens passed. Basically, they will test the participants not only on their combat power, but also on their rational thinking skills. Most failed on the oral test. They say it's as hard as a university entrance exam.
"We'll ace it," Fleda insisted that night, mending holes in our travel cloaks. Firelight softened her determined scowl. "You're clever. I'm strong. Manfred's… enthusiastic."
"Hey!" Manfred protested through a mouthful of potato stew.
I poked the hearth embers. "And if we fail?"
"Then we'll become bandits!" Fleda grinned, all white teeth and reckless charm. "Steal silks and roast marshroots!"
Manfred's eyes lit up. "Can I have a dagger?"
"No one's becoming bandits," I cut in, though my lips twitched. Hope, I was learning, thrived in absurdity.
The distance to Aureo made walking very difficult—almost three-week trek through wolf-ridden forests even by caravan. Our plan was practical: hitch a ride with traders heading to Tiel, the crossroad city, then board a proper coach to the capital. Safer than buying our own wagon and getting hopelessly lost. Simpler, too.
We spent our final nights rationing supplies. My rucksack held stale rye bread and walnuts in its twin compartments, alongside patched woolens, a flint knife, and fifty feet of hemp rope. Fleda's pack mirrored mine, while Manfred's carried his meager belongings—plus half my share, because "Your scrawny arms'll snap like twigs," I'd teased.
Money posed the real risk. Two hundred Gulden split between us—my pouch tucked under my tunic, Fleda's sewn into her bodice, Manfred's… well, I'd triple-knotted his coin purse to his belt.
"I'm not a baby," he'd grumbled as I adjusted the water skins on his hips—each no larger than his fist.
"Act like one, get treated like one," Fleda quipped, testing the edge of her skinning blade.
My only indulgence was the map.
Old Aldwin had gifted me charcoal pencils last Midwinter—"For that restless mind of yours," he'd wheezed. Nights hunched over scrap parchment birthed a crude sketch of Ercangaud: crooked cottages, the skeletal elder tree, our potato plot. I pressed it between the pages of my new journal, its leather cover still stiff.
Fleda peered over my shoulder. "Looks like a child's doodle."
"Says the woman who draws stick figures," I shot back, but my throat tightened. Those smudged lines held sixteen years of frostbitten dawns, of Mom's vacant eyes, of Manfred's first steps in the snow.
"It's perfect," Manfred said quietly.
***
By dawn, we were battle-ready. Our sacks bulged with provisions, the cottage scrubbed raw—every floorboard gleaming, every windowsill dusted. We'd worked through the night, Fleda humming old lullabies as she polished Mom's long-cold hearthstone. Now, in the brittle morning light, the house felt like a stranger's.
"Like we were never here," Fleda murmured, running a hand over the empty spice rack.
Manfred kicked a loose floorboard. "Good riddance."
The Krause caravan arrived midmorning, a serpent of wagons creaking into Ercangaud's skeletal square. Their leader, Henry Maas, had a face like weathered oak and eyes that crinkled when I offered payment.
"Keep your coin, lass," he said, waving off my thirty Gulden. "Road's kinder to those who share its burdens."
I pressed the silver into his palm. "Consider it a toast to kindness."
He chuckled, pocketing it. "Stubborn as frostweed, ain'tcha?"
We claimed a spot on a grain wagon, its planks still dusty from Halberio's port. The driver—a grizzled woman named Marta—nodded as we climbed aboard. "Don't puke on my barley," was her only greeting.
The sun climbed, bleaching the sky. Ercangaud shrank behind us: a dollhouse of iced roofs and blackened pines, the mountains beyond sheathed in eternal white. I memorized it—the way frost clung to dead birches like lace, the lone cedar on the hill, its boughs bowed under snow.
Then Manfred gasped.
Shadow rippled across the wagons. A gale tore at my braid as something massive blotted the sun.
"By the Gods—" Fleda grabbed Manfred's collar, yanking him flat as the world roared.
Above us, wings wider than the village well beat the air. Illustris. The Celestial Mandate. Her scales gleamed like compacted snow, each one a mirror to the sun. Curved horns spiraled skyward, framing a serpentine head crowned with icy filaments. As she banked, her tail—a whip of living frost—scraped the treetops, sending crystal shards showering onto the road.
"She's… she's real," Manfred whispered, trembling not from fear but awe.
The dragon circled once, her opal eyes lingering on our caravan. For a heartbeat, I swore she saw me—past the calluses and bundled wool, down to the girl who'd once traced dragons in Mom's ash pile. Then she arched her spine, wings thundering, and vanished behind the peaks.
Marta spat over the wagon's edge. "Bad omen, that."
I elbowed Fleda. "Think she'd give us a ride to Aureo?"
Fleda flicked snow from her sleeve. "You'd freeze solid before mounting her, Sis."
"Worth it," Manfred breathed, still staring at the empty sky.
The wagons lurched forward. I unwrapped Aldwin's map, adding a jagged line along the northern ridge. Here be dragons, I scribbled, then tucked the journal away.
***
The first day's journey passed without incident. Seven hours rattling through snow-laden forests, the world reduced to skeletal trees and the creak of wagon wheels. By dusk, we reached the resting grounds near the Zea Mountains' foothills, where a glacial stream cut through the frost. I stumbled toward the water, legs stiff as kindling—after hours of sitting, my backside had gone numb. The stream's bite shocked my skin awake, scrubbing away the road's grit.
Fleda found our campsite: a crescent of earth sheltered by a lightning-scarred oak. "Windbreak's solid," she declared, kicking aside snow with her boots. We scavenged twigs snapped clean by the cold, piling them into a pyramid.
No fire Law user here. Just flint stones and stubbornness.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Sparks fizzled. Died. My palms burned.
"Let me try," Manfred offered.
"Focus," I hissed, striking again. A wisp of smoke. Then—there—a lick of flame devoured the tinder.
Fleda whooped. "You did it!"
We huddled close as the fire grew. Manfred, predictably, begged for stories.
"Tell me about Aart Wulfheim again!"
Fleda rolled her eyes but obliged, recounting the warrior-king who'd carved Ingvaeon from ice and rebellion. Her version was all clashing swords and elf alliances, Manfred's favorite part.
"And then," Fleda leaned in, shadows dancing on her face, "Aart thrust his sword into the Frost Titan's heart, and its blood became the Great Lake Karl that feeds all living being."
Manfred's eyes gleamed. "I'll be Grand Chancellor someday. Make roads from here to the capital!"
"Grand Chancellor?" I snorted. "You can't even lace your boots straight."
"Can too!"
"Prove it tomorrow."
He stuck out his tongue.
While they bickered, I slipped away to practice. My training sword—whittled from oak—felt right in my calloused grip. Lunge. Parry. Pivot. Muscle memory overrode doubt. Guild trials would demand perfection; a rusty blade meant failure.
"Show-off," Fleda called as I finished, tossing me a rock-hard rye loaf. Dinner.
We gnawed in silence. Manfred broke it first. "When we join the guild, let's feast! Roast marshroots, honey cakes—"
"If we join," I corrected.
"When," Fleda said, flicking crumbs at him. "And no fancy taverns. We'll splurge on… apple tarts."
"Apple tarts?" Manfred groaned. "That's boring."
"Tarts don't stab you in your sleep," I muttered, stretching sore limbs.
The moon hung fat and white above the peaks. Manfred's snores soon mingled with the stream's murmur. Fleda stared into the embers.
"He really believes it," she said softly. "Becoming the Grand Chancellor."
"Let him." I tucked my sword under the bedroll. "Dreams keep you warm."
She smirked. "Since when are you a poet?"
"Since always. Now sleep."
But long after she drifted off, I lay awake, tracing constellations. Somewhere beyond these woods, Aureo waited—and with it, answers.
***
One week into the wilderness, and the snow clung to our caravan like a curse. Wheels groaned. Horses faltered. Too often, we leapt down to shove wagons free, our boots sinking into slush that stole warmth and patience alike. By the seventh dusk, our rations had dwindled to moldy crusts. But hope flickered—tomorrow, Gaudulf Village. A traveler's haven, famed for spiced pies and honeyed mead. Manfred had been vibrating at the mention of roasted chestnuts.
We'd reached Hungoz by midday—a barren stretch where summer once painted the earth emerald with wild rye and clover. Now, it was a graveyard of snowdrifts and skeletal oaks. No cattle. No wolves. Just wind sharp enough to flay skin.
Until the howls began.
"Wolves! To the east!"
Chaos erupted. Gray shapes swarmed the caravan—ribs jutting, eyes blazing with famine's madness. Henry's mercenaries, outnumbered five to one, buckled instantly. A wagon overturned, spilling turnips. A merchant screamed as teeth sank into his calf.
Fleda and I locked eyes.
"Hinterhalt!" I barked.
"Affirmativ!" she snapped back—our old battle cry, forged during childhood skirmishes over stolen sweets.
"Manfred, you stay here! Don't come out until I say so!"
"Okay, Sis!"
I vaulted from the wagon, steel sword singing free. Fleda scrambled atop the grain sacks, her longbow already drawn.
"Ego præcipio tibi: Ut errare!"
Water erupted from my palms—not the gentle stream of a village well, but a pressurized lance that punched through the first wolf's skull. The beast crumpled. Two more lunged. My blade met fur and bone.
Fleda's arrows hissed. Each shot precise, each shaft twisted midair by her wind Law to pierce throats and eyes. A wolf leapt for her—
Thwack.
An arrow bloomed between its ribs before its paws left the ground.
"Show-off!" I shouted, cleaving through another attacker.
"Says the elf geyser!"
We'd fought like this since we were elflings—me close-range, raw and relentless; her lethal from afar. Twenty years of drills in frozen fields had honed us into a single weapon.
But the pack kept coming. A merchant fell, throat torn. Wolves dragged a screaming man into the snow. Henry's voice boomed over the chaos: "Hold the line! Gaudulf's close!"
Then—a shriek. Not wolf. Man.
Fleda's head jerked toward the caravan's front. "Sis—!"
"Keep firing!" I snarled, gutting a wolf mid-leap. "We can't—"
Another scream. Closer.
The world narrowed to blood, frost, and the certainty that whatever awaited up front was worse than teeth.
***
The wolves retreated after an hour, dragging stolen grain sacks between their jagged teeth. We counted our losses: one merchant dead, eight mercenaries bleeding heavily from mauled limbs, the snow stained crimson in patches. My hands trembled—not from fear, but the aftershock of battle. Fleda hovered close, her bowstring still taut.
Henry found us by the splintered wagon. "You two fight like winter wraiths," he said, eyeing the blood crusted on my sword. "Guild'll snatch you up quick in Aureo."
Pride warmed my chest briefly. "Just protecting our skins."
"Modest," Fleda muttered, but her fingers brushed my elbow—a quick, grounding touch.
I noticed that her obsessions manifested in these small gestures: adjusting my scarf thrice daily, memorizing my sleep patterns, shadowing my every step. Once, when a mercenary had clapped me on the shoulder, she'd nearly nocked an arrow.
We camped off-road to tend wounds and regroup. While others sorted scattered cargo, I examined the sword I'd looted from Dad's dusty storeroom. Audiganus—the name etched into its crossguard in angular runes. The blade remained unmarred despite cleaving wolf bone.
"Old craftsmanship," I mused, tracing the inscription. "Not long after Ingvaeon was founded, maybe?"
Henry squinted at it. "Never seen its like. Keep it close—odd weapons attract odd attention."
Fleda materialized at my side, her shoulder pressing mine. "Doesn't matter. She makes anything lethal."
Her breath fogged the steel as she leaned in, too close, always too close. I sheathed the sword gently. "Let's help reload."
Two hour later, we trudged onward after a quick funeral for the fallen merchant was over. The sun glared mockingly—no warmth reached us. Fleda walked backward in our wagon, eyes scanning for threats.
"Sit," I ordered. "You'll strain your neck."
"What if they return?"
"Then we kill them again."
She finally sat, knees bumping mine. Manfred dozed against her, oblivious.
"Sis?" Fleda whispered.
"Hmm?"
"Your hands… they're shaking."
I curled them into fists. "Adrenaline."
She peeled off her mittens—hand-knitted, frayed at the seams—and clasped my frozen fingers. "Better?"
Her palms were knife-calloused yet impossibly warm. "Better," I lied.
The cold had teeth now. It gnawed through wool and resolve alike.
***