Chapter 18:- "Ice and Silence"

Told by Agust

I wasn't always like this.

Before the stares weighed me down, before the applause felt hollow, before everyone expected me to be perfect… I was just a boy. A boy running through the marble halls of the palace, searching for a hand he never found. A voice that had stopped calling.

My mother.

They told me she left because she had a higher duty. That her place wasn't with me… but with the Magic Congress. That her job was to protect the structure of the world.

But what about me?

Who protected my world?

My father never spoke of her. The servants fell silent when I entered a room. I learned to stay silent too. I learned that showing weakness was a luxury princes couldn't afford.

When my magic awakened, it came as ice. Cold, perfect, lethal. Everyone said I was a prodigy, a gift from the gods. But to me… it was just a reflection.

Ice doesn't warm.

Ice doesn't comfort.

Ice only freezes.

And so I became what I am.

Arrogant, they say. Cold. Impossible to deal with.

They don't understand—it's my shield.

Because if I lower my guard, if I let something warm in… I'm afraid I'll shatter.

But I haven't forgotten.

The look on my mother's face as she left without turning back.

The vow I made in front of the mirror, eyes full of tears, fist clenched:

"I will become the strongest mage. Not to protect the world she chose… but to destroy it."

To destroy the Congress.

And with it, everything it stole from me.