Thorns Beneath Ice

We ran until the frost beneath our boots thinned into damp moss, and the mountain's narrow passage gave way to a wide, overgrown chamber. The air was thick with the scent of earth and decay, and the dim light barely penetrated the dense foliage.

That's when I saw him.

Herold.

Suspended midair, his body hung limp, tangled in thick, dark ivy. It snaked around his limbs, his chest, even his throat—coiled like it had been waiting for him to stop resisting. His eyes were half-lidded, dulled, but still conscious. Barely. His illusions flickered like dying moths—soft glimmers of light around him, not strong enough to cut through the vines. They were feeding on him. I could feel it.

"Elara—" I lifted a hand, stopping her from moving forward.

"What? Aric, we have to—"

"Don't," I said sharply. My voice echoed off the stone walls. "Not yet."

I dropped into a crouch, letting my fingers hover just above the ground. The ivy sprawled across the floor like veins—winding, pulsing faintly. But I wasn't just looking at the vines.

Near the far wall... I spotted them.

Rats. A dozen, maybe more. Their bodies were curled inward, limbs twisted. Dead. Blackened veins were visible under their fur. Whatever was in those vines—it wasn't just holding Herold.

It was killing anything that got close.

"Poison," I murmured. "And it's alive. It's reacting to movement. Maybe even to magic. It's... hungry."

My stomach twisted. Herold wasn't just trapped. He was being drained—slowly. Probably because his illusions still flickered. It was feeding off them.

I stood, mind racing. Just running in there wasn't an option. Touching that ivy was death.

"Elara," I said, glancing her way. "Can you freeze it?"

She blinked, uncertainty and fear flickering in her eyes. "Aric, I don't have my bow—"

"It doesn't matter," I cut in. "You don't need to aim it. Just let it go. Blanket the whole field. The unpredictability might actually help. Freeze everything."

She hesitated, the weight of the decision heavy on her shoulders.

"I'll shield us," I added, lifting my hands. I could already feel the magic pulsing at my fingertips, light and dark both swirling like opposing tides. "If you cover the area, I can break through. But we only get one shot. Before those vines wake up."

Elara nodded, her resolve hardening. Together, we prepared to face the deadly challenge ahead, knowing that every second counted in our desperate bid to save Herold.

Elara's eyes met mine, and she nodded.

I turned toward Herold again, heart thudding in my chest.

The temperature dropped in a breath.

I heard Elara inhale sharply, and then the cold surged outward from her like a silent storm. Frost exploded across the chamber—raw and untamed. It didn't trickle; it devoured. The walls turned white with spreading sheets of ice. The ground cracked beneath it. And the ivy—

The ivy screamed!

Not aloud, not like a person. But I felt it. In my bones. A shudder in the magic pressed against my skin. The vines writhed violently, snapping back from the cold like snakes recoiling from fire.

That was my cue.

"Now!" I shouted.

I stepped forward, hands up. A radiant burst of light magic expanded from my chest in a sphere, coating Elara and me in a protective veil. Then I twisted my other hand, letting darkness flood outward in the opposite direction—dampening the noise of our footsteps, the heat of our breath. Light to shield, darkness to conceal.

I dashed forward.

The frozen ground cracked beneath my boots as I reached Herold. The ivy around him had gone rigid, brittle in some places—but not dead. No, it was shifting, retreating deeper into the walls, like it was reforming. Regrowing.

I reached up, grabbing one of the vines wrapped around Herold's chest.

It moved.

The tip uncoiled, slashing toward me like a whip.

I barely raised a barrier in time. Light collided with the vine, and it sizzled. But it didn't die.

"Elara!" I called. "Again!"

She raised her arm, and a second wave of freezing wind erupted forward. This time, her magic cracked the ceiling, sending icicles raining down like jagged spears. The vines shrieked again and began thrashing.

One of the vines snapped at my leg.

I twisted just in time—my barrier took the brunt of the hit, but it cracked with the force, a shimmer of golden light fracturing like glass. The impact numbed my calf, and I stumbled back, barely catching my footing as another vine speared into the ground where I'd just been.

Herold was still hanging midair.

His head lolled to one side, lips pale, breath shallow. The ivy wasn't just binding him—it was draining him. Feeding on him. I could see faint threads of green pulsing up the stems, like veins drawing in his life bit by bit.

It was a mere hunch at first, but now, now that the ivy was nearer to me, I could see what it truly was.

"Elara!" I shouted, still holding my barrier with both hands. "It's alive! The ivy—it's not a spell. It's a creature!"

"What?" she called back, already preparing another blast. Her hands trembled from the first one, her breath showing in short bursts of frost.

"It's feeding on him!" I said. "We're not freezing plants—we're freezing a predator."

I didn't wait for her reply. I threw a burst of darkness upward, casting shadows like blades to slice the weaker vines. They flinched—but didn't sever. These weren't mere illusions or mindless traps.

These things had intent.

And worse—they were learning.

The vines that had recoiled now stayed just out of reach, twitching at the edges of the frost line. Waiting. Testing.

I pressed forward again, carefully. My barrier thinned the closer I got, and the light around me began to flicker. Mana draw—too high. My body wasn't used to this level of simultaneous focus.

"Just a little more," I whispered.

One more step.

A vine darted again—this one lower, aimed at my ankle. I leapt up, used the wall, flipped—landed on the ivy itself. Risky. Stupid. I didn't care.

I slashed at the vines near Herold's chest. "Come on, wake up," I muttered. "Say something sarcastic. Yell at me. Call me a mushroom-headed bookworm. Anything."

He didn't respond.

Another vine snapped across my back. My barrier flared and shattered.

Pain seared through me, and I dropped to a knee.

That's when I saw it—above Herold, embedded in the ivy mass on the ceiling. A glowing core. Pulsing green. Sickly. Alive.

"The heart," I muttered. "It has a heart."

"Elara!" I shouted. "The ceiling—hit the ceiling!"

She blinked up, finally spotting it. Her eyes widened—and I could already see her pulling the mana together again, even as her knees buckled from exhaustion.

"I can't aim without—"

"You don't have to!" I yelled. "Just unleash it! I'll guide it!"

I raised my hands, calling what little power I had left. Darkness in one palm. Light in the other.

"Do it!" I roared.

And Elara did.

The blast that erupted from her was wild and unshaped—like a blizzard made of daggers. I reached out with both magics and steered it. My body screamed in protest, veins burning, eyes dimming—but I guided the storm.

Straight into the core.

The explosion wasn't loud, but it was final. A single burst of green, followed by a shriek that wasn't human. The ivy writhed, convulsed, then shattered into thousands of curling, brittle strands.

Herold fell into my arms, his weight almost too much to bear. He was heavy, unconscious, breathing—but only just. I collapsed to my knees, every inch of me trembling with exhaustion and relief.

"We got him," I panted, my voice barely more than a whisper. "We got him..."

But even as the vines died, the mountain itself groaned, a deep, ominous sound that reverberated through the stone. A tremor shook the corridor beneath us, and Elara staggered back, nearly falling. The walls pulsed again, but this time it wasn't the ivy. It was something deeper. Something waking up.

"Elara," I said, my voice hoarse and urgent, "we need to get out of here. Now."

She didn't argue. We ran, Herold in my arms, ice crumbling behind us.

I didn't know what was chasing us—a shadow, a creature, another monster, or perhaps the Serpent itself. Whatever it was, it was coming faster than before. And still—I could feel it. We'd only scratched the surface. Whatever this mountain held... It was just getting started.

The cave trembled again, dust falling from the jagged ceiling like the mountain itself was exhaling. I staggered into the hallway where we'd come from earlier, Herold's limp weight pressing hard against my shoulders. My arms were burning, my legs felt like splinters holding up a collapsing tower.

"Elara," I breathed, glancing behind me.

She was clutching the rock wall, her face pale and drawn, every breath ragged. She was barely standing. Her fingers still shimmered faintly with frost, but without her bow, her magic was like a river with no banks—too wild, too unpredictable.

And I was done. My mana had thinned to wisps. The surge I used to steer her spell—my light and dark in perfect synchronicity—had taken everything. My body wasn't built to sustain it yet. I wasn't trained. Not fully. Not like the others.

But I had to stay up. Because if I fell, Herold would fall too. And Elara might be next.

That's when I heard them.

Crawling, skittering—like thousands of limbs scraping over stone. Not the sharp, thorny tendrils of the ivy. No, this was different. Wet. Clicking. And alien.

I froze.

Elara tensed, her lips parting as she listened. Then her eyes found mine, wide with fear. "What... is that?"

"I don't know," I said quietly. "But it's coming fast."

The corridor narrowed, curving like a throat ahead. The dark swallowed the sound, but I could feel the vibrations now—through my boots, through Herold's weight against my back.

Behind us—the ivy had returned!

It slithered like it remembered us. Like it wasn't done. Like we'd hurt it, and it wanted payback. The emerald glint of its withered remains lit the opposite path, reclaiming the walls it had once lost.

We were cornered.

Forward: something unknown. Something monstrous.

Behind: the ivy, now angrier than ever.

"Do we fight?" Elara whispered, breathless.

"I can't," I admitted. "Not like before."

"I don't have my bow," she said. "If I try to cast, I might hit you."

Then the skittering grew louder.

No time.

I turned to the unknown path.

"We go forward," I said.

"What? Aric—"

"Listen to me," I cut in. "We know the ivy. It drains. It binds. But it reacts to everything. Which means—if we move toward the new threat, it might go after them instead of us."

"You want to lead it into a fight?" Elara's voice was brittle. "With... whatever that is?"

"Yes."

She looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

Maybe I had.

But it was the only play we had left.

"Cover your face," I told her. "Don't breathe too close to the ivy. I'll push through first—if anything moves, stay behind my light. Keep Herold steady if I fall."

"I should be saying that to you," she muttered—but she followed.

I turned toward the deeper darkness.

And ran.

The tunnel curved down, swallowing us in damp, heavy air. My magic flared weakly—barely a candlelight now—but it was enough to see the shadows ahead twisting, forming—

Legs. Many. Joints are bending in the wrong direction.

Eyes. No, not eyes. Mouths. Dozens.

Creatures that should not exist.

And the ivy behind us surged forward—faster than before.

I grit my teeth. "Come on, then," I growled.

If monsters were waiting, they'd have to go through me.

The air thickened like soup left too long to rot.

I pressed forward, each step a war against exhaustion. Herold's body weighed more with every heartbeat. My grip around him slipped more than once, but I tightened it again—because if I dropped him, I wouldn't have the strength to lift him a second time.

Elara stayed close, her breaths shallow and rapid. She was trembling—not from fear, but cold. Her magic still hadn't settled. She needed her bow, her anchor. I understood that now more than ever.

But I couldn't help her. Not yet.

The skittering grew louder. I heard claws scraping against the stone, the whisper of movement crawling across the ceiling, the walls, the floor.

They were everywhere.

And I finally saw one.

A creature half the size of a grown man, its body gleaming with a wet sheen like moss-covered stone, limbs too many, too long. Its face was a gaping spiral of teeth, its mouth opening not vertically or horizontally—but outward, like a flower blooming into a nightmare.

It saw us.

And shrieked.

I dropped Herold the moment I realized I'd have no time to react if I didn't.

My hands flared—just enough light and darkness fused to push outward, a pulse meant not to destroy but to warn. To shield.

The creature reeled back with a hiss.

But more came behind it.

Then a hiss—louder, deeper, not from the creatures.

Behind us.

I turned, bracing Herold with my shoulder again just as the ivy slithered in, sweeping across the floor, faster than I remembered. Its vines reared, sensing the tension in the air, responding to our fear like a predator tasting blood.

Two horrors. One path forward. One behind.

And then—then I saw it.

The ivy changed direction.

It lunged at the monsters.

Twisting. Strangling. Wrapping around one of the creatures before it could leap, impaling its squirming body with thorns so sharp they split straight through its torso.

I blinked, stunned.

The ivy wasn't protecting us. It just hated them more.

"Elara!" I shouted. "Run now! While they're distracted!"

She didn't argue. For once, she didn't question me.

We sprinted through the chaos—me with Herold over my back again, Elara covering my side with what little frost she could summon through her shaking hands.

The walls twisted, the air turned acrid with the scent of burning sap and blood. The sound of battle between unnatural things clanged behind us. Screeches. Shrieks. The wet sound of something tearing apart.

The ivy wouldn't win forever.

But it bought us seconds.

And seconds were all I needed.

We reached a tunnel split—two branching paths. I paused, panting hard.

Elara gasped, "Which way?"

I didn't know.

Then I felt it. Not heard. Felt—like a distant thrum in the air. Like a call.

Valtor.

I didn't know why or how—but I felt him.

And he was in danger too.

I pointed to the left path. "This way."

She didn't question it.

We ran—deeper into the mountain, chasing after the only thing that mattered now: surviving long enough to save the rest.

Behind us, the hallway was choked with war.

Ahead of us, darkness.

But at least we were no longer cornered.

We were moving.