Ash and ice

The pages stopped fluttering.

Before them stood a door — old, massive, and already open, as if expecting them. Zelaine hesitated, glancing back over her shoulder one last time. But the ritual chamber was gone. Swallowed by ash and silence.

The moment both stepped through, the door slammed shut behind them.

And the cold hit.

Not just weather — presence.

---

They were standing on the edge of a world sculpted from ice and sky.

Endless white stretched to every horizon. Not snow, but something older. Thicker. Glacial. The air was thin and crackling, dry enough to burn in the lungs. Above them, pale auroras shimmered faintly against a cobalt sky, casting the ice below in sheets of green and violet.

Zelaine exhaled, and her breath turned instantly to frost.

> Vast ice cliffs towered in the distance like gods made of frozen bone.

Valleys twisted with ancient, slow-moving rivers of blue-white crystal — glaciers that whispered as they shifted, groaning under the weight of centuries.

Here, the world wasn't dead. It was just quiet. Watching.

They saw structures — domes of thick glass half-buried in frost, glowing faintly with internal heat. Black-stone pathways curved between them like veins beneath the skin of a frozen beast. Tall turbines turned slowly in the wind, and in the distance, pale lights flickered — human habitation, clinging to warmth like a memory.

> This was Ellejort. A world untouched by fire. Ruled by silence. Alive in the way glaciers breathe.

---

Zelaine squinted. Her breath fogged instantly. "Where the hell are we now?"

Then they saw him.

The old man stood a few paces ahead, where two ridges of ice met like the jaws of a great beast. His cloak billowed gently in the wind, lined with frost, fur, and silence. His face was carved by decades — not aged by time, but by consequence. Deep lines. A scar just beneath one eye. His beard, thick and silver, curled like snowdrift against stone.

He looked at them, not startled, not stern — just seen. As if he had known they'd come.

Another figure stood behind him — younger, darker, eyes sharp and motionless. But he said nothing, did nothing. Just watched.

The old man stepped forward.

His gait was steady. Deliberate. Not proud, but purposeful — like one who had once marched in parades, now walking only for necessity.

> "You crossed a door not meant for the waking," he said. His voice was quiet, rough as wind over stone, and full of something deeper.

"That alone marks you."

Zelaine's mouth curled into a defensive smirk. "Didn't mean to. Door was open. Thought it was just a room."

> "Ellejort doesn't open for no reason," he replied, gaze steady.

"Few cross it and remain unchanged. Fewer still survive the truth it shows."

Atiya said nothing. He was shivering. Slumped slightly. His skin pale under the frostlight.

The old man's eyes flicked to him — and for a moment, the edge of his tone softened.

> "He's near the edge. I've seen men like him. They burn through themselves trying to outrun the weight they carry."

Atiya's leg buckled. He dropped to one knee, biting back a sound of pain.

Zelaine cursed under her breath. "Oi— not now, don't you collapse now."

She caught him with a burst of petals, forming soft tendrils beneath his arms to prop him upright. The frost bit at her fingers.

The old man took one more step forward. The wind shifted with him.

> "You are not alone. Another came through — unconscious. Found outside the wards."

"He's been taken to shelter. It seems the cold does not suit him."

Zelaine froze.

> "Another? Who?"

The old man did not answer right away. He looked out toward the shimmering ice dunes, where faint lights glowed beneath half-buried domes far in the distance.

> "If you wish to see him," he said finally, "you'll need to walk."

Zelaine groaned. "How far?"

> "Far enough for silence to matter. Not far enough to die."

He turned, slow and quiet, cloak trailing over the frost.

> "Come. I will walk with you."

> "The path is treacherous if you forget to listen."

Without another word, he began down the slope — a single figure moving through a land of forgotten gods.

Zelaine hoisted Atiya gently, her flower-crafted supports shimmering beneath him.

>"Don't you dare die on me now," she muttered, lifting him with a tired grin. "I didn't carry you through hell just to let you freeze."

Above them, the sky danced green and violet.

And behind them, the door that had led to horror — the Mansion's mouth — disappeared into ice and memory.

---

The battle was over. But victory left a bitter aftertaste.

Crept Artem stood amidst the fractured skyline of Henriech—a city now reduced to smoke-veiled rubble and weeping towers. Streets once filled with life had been hollowed into scars. Fires crackled in corners, not with rage but exhaustion.

He had ascended. Dominion to Continental.

But looking at the shattered homes, the bleeding sky, the limp flags half-torn by stormwinds—

> "What did it even change?"

The real enemy had escaped. Again.

---

Later.

The infirmary hissed with sterile quiet.

A curved, modular structure bristling with titanium panels and embedded solar veins, it pulsed like a living thing—self-powered, temperature-stable, breathing filtered air through silent ducts. Inside, chrome surfaces shimmered under soft white light. Rows of recovery capsules lined the far wall, and diagnostic AI flickered across translucent displays.

Crept walked in, boots thudding too loudly on the composite floor. His cape dragged dust from the battlefield with it.

He found her sitting upright on the side of the medical berth, one boot still unlaced. A soft blue healing wrap was coiled around her left arm like ivy. Her white coat was burned at the hem, hair matted but face untouched.

> "Shilial."

She looked up. Calm. A little tired.

> "Nothing major. I'm already healed."

His brow twitched. "You charged after Henriech alone."

"I didn't know he'd turn himself into a goddamn bomb," she snapped, crossing her arms.

Silence stretched between them.

Crept sighed—long and slow, as if exhaling not breath, but weight.

Then without another word, he walked over and dropped—head-first—into her lap.

> "What the hell—Crept—!"

"Shh. I'm resting."

Shilial bristled. "So this whole 'you okay?' thing was just an excuse to collapse on me?"

A ghost of a grin touched his lips. "...Was it effective?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Infuriatingly so."

He chuckled, eyes closed, exhaustion melting the steel from his body.

Minutes passed.

His voice came again, softer now.

> "...Hey. Was I cool?"

Shilial looked down at him. Dirt streaked his jawline. His uniform was torn. His knuckles swollen.

> "Cool as a collapsed building," she muttered.

But she didn't push him away.

---

The door slid open with a hydraulic hiss.

Marcaella Artem entered.

White hair—long as banners—trailed behind her like lightning turned to silk. Her jade-yellow eyes caught the light like molten glass. The heavy coat slung over one shoulder bore the insignia of the Artemic Spear: a jagged silver bolt split down the middle. At her hip, an obsidian-bladed dagger gleamed. The same one she'd carried into her first campaign. It hadn't dulled. Neither had she.

She paused at the threshold, gaze cutting through the clean air like voltage.

> "So. This is what 'Continental-tier' looks like now."

Crept sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

> "Didn't expect you to show up, Mother."

Shilial stood, brushing her coat down. "Lady Marcaella."

Marcaella inclined her head. "Shilial. You look well."

The warmth in her voice was faint—but unmistakable.

Crept's mouth twisted. "How'd you know I ascended?"

She scoffed. "Because you're still weak. Loud ascenders are always the most fragile."

Her eyes paused briefly on his bruised hands.

> Her gaze softened for a split second. Something flickered. Then she crushed it before it could show.

Back to lightning and command.

"I came to check on the soldiers," she said crisply, already turning. "Meeting starts in an hour. You'll be there."

"Understood," he muttered.

She walked out without another word.

The automatic doors whispered shut.

For a moment, silence returned—broken only by the distant hiss of the oxygen vents.

Crept leaned back again. His muscles sagged, his spine curving like a bow unstrung.

Shilial sat beside him.

She didn't say anything. But after a moment, her fingers brushed against his—brief, hesitant. A quiet tether in a room full of war.

He didn't pull away.

---

> "You better be ready for that meeting," she murmured.

> "Only if you'll carry me there."

> "Petals aren't for dead weight."

They smiled. Just a little.

Because outside, the world still burned.

But in here, for now—

There was still breath. And silence.

And a moment to hold it.

---