Chapter Nine: The Girl in the Ice

Some flames are wild.

Some are fierce.

And some… sleep beneath snow, waiting for the world to remember them.

🔹 A New Direction

After merging with Rion, the Pyra Compass transformed.

No longer just a tracker it had become a beacon. Its runes flared with layered colors, guiding us toward the next flameborn. The thread of energy now pulsed eastward, deeper into the continent, beyond the jagged spine of the Southern Vhalgar Mountains.

Beyond the frost.

"You're sure this is where she is?" Rion asked, wrapping his desert cloak tighter around his shoulders as the temperature dropped.

"The Compass has never lied," I said. "And Selira's scrolls mention her a girl born of twin flames, sealed in cryo-bindings by her parents when the Circle came for their blood."

"She'll be cold, broken… or dead."

"Then let's make sure it's not the last one."

The next survivor's name:

Eira Velan.

🔹 Crossing into the Frostlands

The Vhalgar Frostlands were unwelcoming to all who lacked fire in their veins.

Snowstorms raged without warning, mana disturbances formed whirlwinds in the sky, and the very air held curses from an age when flame and frost waged endless war.

We moved cautiously, lighting small magical fires to keep ourselves warm but hidden. I wore an enchanted cloak borrowed from Arkon's vault woven with mana threads that could ward off the cold. Rion refused one.

"If I can't survive frost," he said gruffly, "I don't deserve fire."

Still, I caught him shivering at night.

After two days, the Compass began vibrating constantly. The flames swirled into a spiral pointing us toward an icy cliffside wrapped in ancient sigils.

Beneath it… a sealed cavern. Covered in centuries of snow. Guarded by silence.

"She's in there," I whispered.

We stepped forward

But the snow moved first.

🔹 The Frostbound Guardian

An explosion of white erupted before us.

From the ground rose a massive creature twenty feet tall, forged of black ice and shimmering steel.

A Frostbound Golem an ancient sentinel left to guard something… or someone.

It roared, shaking the mountain, and charged.

"Split!" I shouted.

Rion darted left. I sprinted right. The golem slammed its arms into the snow where I'd stood a heartbeat before, carving a trench through ice.

I summoned flame to both hands bright and focused—and hurled a twin strike.

The fire hissed uselessly against the golem's enchanted core.

"Fire won't work!" Rion barked. "It's feeding off it!"

"Then we freeze it!"

Rion looked at me like I'd gone mad until I traced the Icefire Rune, an ancient Pyra'Nahl sigil designed for rare flame-frost fusion attacks. It was dangerous. Risky.

And barely stable.

"You're going to overload your core!" Rion warned.

"Then let's hope she's worth it."

I dug deep into my mana well, summoned the coldest fire I could remember from Kael's past, and forged a runic blade of frostfire.

The golem struck again, arms raised to crush.

I didn't move.

I let it descend

Then leapt and plunged the blade into its frozen eye.

The golem screamed a horrible, grinding sound—and cracked from the inside.

In seconds, it shattered into shards.

Snow settled again.

Silence returned.

🔹 The Ice-Crystal Tomb

We pushed into the cavern past the shattered remains of what had once been a sanctuary. Dozens of frozen bodies stood encased in walls of ice priests, mages, warriors locked in time, faces twisted in fear or sorrow.

And then we saw her.

In the heart of the chamber, surrounded by glowing crystal frost and six ancient binding runes, floated a girl.

Small. Pale. Maybe sixteen. Her hair shimmered like silver-blue flame, and her arms were outstretched as if still reaching for someone in her last breath.

Her eyes were shut. But her body hovered.

Eira Velan.

"Is she alive?" Rion whispered.

"Barely," I said. "But the flame still flickers in her core."

The runes around her pulsed protective, fragile, old.

One wrong move could kill her.

I knelt, placing my hand over the nearest rune and whispered the activation chant Kael once used to unbind soul flames.

The rune shimmered… and faded.

Rion deactivated two others with brute force.

Each seal we broke made the chamber colder—as if her own body was releasing the frost it had contained for so long.

The last rune cracked.

And Eira fell.

I caught her before she hit the ground.

She was freezing. Trembling. Her lips moved.

"Mother… don't let them… take me…"

"You're safe now," I whispered. "You're free."

Her eyes opened.

They glowed with fire and frost.

And then she screamed.

🔹 The Twin Flame Awakens

Her power exploded.

A cyclone of flame and ice surged from her body throwing both me and Rion backward. The entire chamber groaned as the temperature fluctuated madly, creating a shockwave that collapsed the cavern's mouth.

Rion raised a shield just in time to protect us from falling debris.

When the chaos settled, she stood.

Panting. Glowing. Crying.

"Where am I?" she whispered.

I stepped forward.

"Your name is Eira Velan. You were flameborn. You were sealed to survive. And you… were never forgotten."

"I remember... fire. Soldiers. Screams. My brother" Her voice cracked. "He burned… trying to save me…"

"He did save you," I said softly. "And now, it's our turn to save others."

Her gaze met mine full of trauma and power.

And a spark of something new.

"You're like me."

"No," I said. "We're like us."

I raised the Pyra Compass.

It pulsed again now with three flames.

🔹 Eyes in the Snow

That night, we camped inside the cavern's deeper tunnels.

Eira slept beside a controlled fire, her breath uneven, her aura fluctuating.

Rion stood at the cave mouth, eyes scanning the snowy dark.

"She's powerful," he muttered. "Too powerful."

"She's young," I replied. "She needs time."

"Time," he said coldly, "is something we're running out of."

And he was right.

Because far above us, in a hidden Circle observatory near the Vhalgar Peaks, a robed woman watched our every move.

Her eyes were glowing silver.

Her fingers traced runes in the air.

"They've found the third," she said into the wind. "Initiate Phase Two."

Somewhere in Zareth, bells began to ring.