A walking corpse made entirely of ice, frost, and bone. Its body is a crystalline structure, glinting under Autumn’s cold sunlight. With empty sockets for eyes, its mouth hangs open in a silent scream. Each movement is jerky and unnatural from the frozen solid limbs.
The temperature seems to lower, and I shiver uncontrollably. This thing is not alive—not in any way that I understand. It’s a creature of the winter, a being of frost and snow and cold.
Holding tight to Ezryn’s blade, the wraith pushes against him, and he slips in the grass. Then a glacial frost grows over the sword, emitting from the corpse’s touch. Ezryn’s entire blade cracks then shatters.
“Ezryn!” Rosalina screams. He leaps back, disbelief evident as his helm tilts down at the shards of his blade.
“Fuck this.” Dayton sprints ahead of us. “Blades are a no-go, eh, ice-bones? How do you feel about magic?” He throws his hands forward and a gale bursts from him, a wind of salt and storm, summoned straight from Summer’s Blessing.
The frozen corpse screeches, a sound like cracking ice. Holes tear through its flesh, revealing moon-white bone. Dayton grunts, continuing the wind, but smiles as more and more frozen skin peels away from the creature.
I hold my breath.It’s working. He’s got it.
The wraith falls.
Kel and I catch up, and Rosie runs to Flicker. She touches his head, his hands, asking if he’s okay.
It’s all right,I tell myself.It’s dead now.
Ezryn slaps Dayton on the shoulder, but Dayton doesn’t respond. He stares straight at the corpse, eyes all too serious. “Wait…”
The creature spasms and jerks. Then it rises. The holes Dayton ripped through its body… They’re knitting together, frost filling the gaps. The wraith tilts its head, then charges.
I leap to stand in front of Rosie and Flicker while Ez, Day, and Kel trap the creature in a semicircle. The ice making up its form is mottled with dark veins, like frozen blood vessels. Its joints rattle with each movement as if it’s about to fall apart. And yet, it keeps moving forward, milky eyes darting between each prince.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Rosalina says. She grabs the small dagger we’d given her before our journey today and starts chipping away at the ice trapping the boy’s feet.
Flicker’s face is knotted up with courage, but his nose is bright red. “I’m… I’m real cold.” Koop lets out a mournful howl, half his body now covered in ice.
I stumble away from them. My heart races. I need to help, but what can I do?
Keldarion paces before the wraith. It grabs for him, mouth agape in hunger, but he dodges easily. “You are no creature of Winter,” he growls. He bends his knees, then surges upward, arms reaching for the sky. “You’re a monstrosity!”
Huge ice spikes shoot up from the ground, impaling the creature through its legs and chest. The wraith lurches and a gurgling squeal fills the valley. Then its head jerks, eyes like twin points of frozen lights. The ice spikes creak and groan… and merge with the being. It grows, as if enveloping the magic, Kel’s ice making the creature bigger, taller.
“I think you fed it,” Dayton says.
Ez grabs Dayton and Kel by their tunics. “Get down!”
The ice monster erupts, shooting daggers of frost. The princes barely leap out of the way before the creature is on them again.
Oh no, oh no, oh no. I grip my hair. I have to do something. But if Kel can’t even stop this thing, what good am I?
Rosalina gives a frantic look at the fight, then jams her dagger harder against the ice crawling up Flicker’s chest. “Koop!” he cries, fingers straining for his dog.
Koop’s big, sad eyes stare up at his owner before the ice covers him completely. He’s frozen, mouth trapped in a sorrowful howl.
Now, Flicker’s crying in earnest, the ice nearly overtaking his arms. Rosalina swears and tries to pry her dagger into the growing frost. Her dagger snaps, the tip shattering. “No.” She stumbles back. “No, no, no.” She’s using her fingernails now, scraping at Flicker’s frozen body.
I can barely breathe, my heart is racing so fast. The abomination has Ezryn in his hands. Frost crawls over his armor. Kel roars, ramming his sword into the creature’s colossal ice leg, but it gets stuck and is yanked from his grip. It throws Ez straight into Dayton and Kel, and they roll one over another before landing in a pile.
This is what’s killing my home. It’s going to freeze my friends first, then take Coppershire. My family…. And Rosie. Rosie’s here.
The abomination stretches a frozen claw over the princes, who stare up in horror.
But I can’t let them do this alone.
There’s a well within me, a reserve of power in the deep darkness of my spirit. A well that needs only a spark to ignite.
