Whispersteel and Ice

The Frostmarch greeted them with silence.

Gone were the riverbanks and ruined cities. In their place, a land of jagged peaks and endless snow, where the wind howled like wolves and the sun hid behind a veil of ice-blind clouds.

Eloryn wrapped herself tighter in the wolfskin cloak Maren had bartered from a caravan days ago. Her breath steamed with each word. "The Hollow Spire is near. I can feel it."

Maren trudged behind her, clutching his staff. "I still don't understand how something this old can't be found in the Book."

"Because Kaelren refused to speak his fate," she said. "And any fate not spoken can't be bound."

They crested a ridge, and there it was: a tower of black stone rising from a frozen lake, surrounded by jagged cliffs. No windows. No door. A single spire reaching toward the sky like a finger raised in defiance.

"The Hollow Spire," Eloryn breathed.

As they approached, the ice under their feet began to hum—a low vibration, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat. Symbols flickered beneath the surface: old runes, shifting like living ink.

"They're wards," she murmured, kneeling beside the lake. "Not to keep people out—but to keep something in."

Maren watched her carefully. "Are you certain we should open it?"

"No," she admitted. "But we must."

She raised her hand over the ice. Her palm glowed faintly with light drawn from the Mirror shard Theron hadn't shattered. The air thickened, turning heavy with memory.

The runes responded—spinning, aligning.

With a low crack, the ice split down the center.

A circular staircase rose from the depths, rimmed with frost-covered iron.

They descended in silence.

The Hollow Spire's interior was warm—not from fire, but from presence. The walls were inscribed with names Eloryn could not read, but recognized. Echoes of lifetimes, places, and thoughts not her own.

In the center of the chamber stood a statue.

Maren stopped short. "That's him."

Kaelren.

Younger than he had seemed in her memories. Dressed in simple robes. His hands held open a broken chain—and his mouth was sewn shut with silver thread.

But his eyes…

His eyes were made of star-glass, and they watched her.

Suddenly, Eloryn heard it—not in her ears, but inside her mind.

You have returned. Too soon, or far too late.

She fell to her knees. "Kaelren."

The Book still binds the world. But here, truth remains unwritten. You carry a shard of me. It will awaken the Spire.

She touched the statue's chest with the Mirror shard.

The chamber bloomed with starlight.

Scrolls unfurled from the walls, floating midair, wrapped in songs and voices long forgotten. Visions poured into her—snatches of prophecy that had never been recorded. Wild, contradictory, beautiful.

Unchained.

She wept. "This is what prophecy was meant to be. Not command. Not prison."

Kaelren's voice echoed once more.

If you want to unmake the Book, you must first unmake yourself. Only the Unwritten can rewrite fate.

The starlight dimmed.

The statue's hands fell open. And in them lay a quill made from silver bone—and a page of the Book, torn from its spine.

Maren stared, breathless. "What… is that?"

Eloryn stood, eyes alight. "A page not yet written. A fate I can forge. But it must be earned. And once I write it, I may never return."

"What will you write?" he asked.

She looked up toward the hollow ceiling, where faint stars shimmered through ancient ice.

"My name," she said.

And the world held its breath.

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