The air in the armory was cold, smelling of oil, sharpening stone, and the faint, ever-present ozone of Bergian majik. Hybornyesis tested the draw of a Bergian composite bow. The pull was smooth, the craftsmanship flawless and alien. It felt like drawing an icicle. He set it aside. It was not his.

  His own gear, cleaned and returned, felt like a second skin. But the familiar weight of his quiver was wrong. Hybornyesis was gone, his sharp eyes and steady hands lost to the ice. The command, unspoken, had fallen to him. Pericles felt it too; the big man was methodically running a whetstone down the edge of his short sword, the repetitive shhhk-shhhk the only sound, his face a mask of grim focus. He was honing more than steel.

  Koronos stood by a narrow window, looking north. He had said nothing since returning from the Emperor's solar. His silence was a heavier burden than any order. It was the silence of a chieftain who has bargained with a devil to save his clan, and awaits the price. Hybornyesis knew that look. He had seen it on the faces of men sending their sons into hopeless battles.

  Chamberlain Vale entered, accompanied by two guards and Zeyzey. The Samiran woman moved with a new, unsettling stillness. The simple grey tunic and trousers they'd given her hung loosely, but her eyes… her eyes were different. They seemed to see the layers of the world, focusing on things that weren't there. On her right wrist was a manacle of dull grey metal, etched with fine, glowing blue lines. A majikal tether.

  “Your spear, Lord Koronos,” Vale said, gesturing. A guard brought forward the weapon. It looked unchanged, but the air around it vibrated subtly. Attuned. Koronos took it without a word, his grip tightening until his knuckles were pale.

  “The beast—Shelove—is prepared for travel in the royal sled-kennel,” Vale continued. “She is… restless. You will be escorted to the Northern Gate. Provisions for two weeks are provided. The garrison at Bleakwatch Fort expects you in five days.” He bowed, the motion perfectly empty. “The Emperor’s fortune go with you.”

  They were ushered out into a courtyard where a strange, enclosed sled waited, hitched to four shaggy, six-legged beasts. The air bit with true, wild cold. From within the sled, a deep, frustrated snarl echoed. Shelove.

  As they approached the massive, crystalline gates, the guards fell back. The way was open to the white, wind-scoured wastes beyond.

  “Move out,” Koronos said, his first words in hours. It was not a command to his men, but to himself.

  The manacle on Zeyzey was a cold, humming insult. It whispered of boundaries, of control, of the Bergian need to cage everything: even thoughts. As they marched from the palace, the hum tuned itself to the deeper thrum of the world. This place, she thought, her blood singing in answer. This world is alive with it.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  On Terra Primius, her witch-sense had been a dim, gut feeling, a prickle on her neck, a certainty of being watched. Here, it was a sense. She could feel the lifelines of her companions like threads of different colors: Koronos’s a deep, storm-blue pulse of power; Hybornyesis’s a taut, vigilant grey; Pericles’s a solid, angry red, but contained behind discipline. She could feel the massive, feline fury in the sled ahead, a knot of black and gold energy.

  And she could feel the manacle’s spell. It was a simple, arrogant knot of blue energy trying to bind her own muted silver thread.

  Fools. They thought their majik was the only kind. Theirs was carved, ordered, imposed. Hers was wild and inherited. It was in the blood, a whisper from the ancient times before the Fall.

  As they passed under the shadow of the gate, the world’s song grew louder, drowning out the manacle’s petty hum. She focused not on breaking the spell, but on… unweaving it. She didn't push against the blue energy; she invited her own silver thread to slip between its strands, to recognize it as a part of the whole, and thus, to be free of it.

  There was a tiny, soundless ping, like a crystal glass cracking. The blue glow in the manacle’s etchings flickered and died. The weight on her wrist became just cold metal. She kept her arm down, her face a careful blank.

  But the newfound sensitivity was a floodgate. As the city spires shrank behind them, the vast, empty tundra opened her senses further. She experimented, cautiously.

  She let her gaze soften. The distant, jagged peaks of the Bleak Pass didn’t just grow closer; she seemed to stand on them for a heartbeat, feeling the biting wind, seeing the unnatural shadows pooling in a particular valley. A place of deep wrongness. The Cold Whisper.

  Focusing on a snowdrift beside Pericles, she willed it to seem, for a fraction of a second, like a crouching, crystalline soldier. He didn't startle, but his hand twitched toward his blade, his eyes scanning the spot with new suspicion. A faint, cold smile touched her lips.

  She turned her attention to the lead guard escorting them to the edge of Bergian territory. She didn't try to command him. She simply… suggested. She let her silver thread brush against his dull orange lifeline, planting a seed of thought: Your duty is done. The cold is bitter. Return to the gate’s warmth is justified. At the next ridge, the guard halted, declared their escort complete, and turned back without a backward glance, his steps hurried.

  Hybornyesis watched the man go, then looked at Zeyzey. His eyes, the sharpest of any human she’d known, narrowed. He said nothing. But he knew.

  She met his gaze, then looked ahead to Koronos’s broad back and Daggeroth walking at his side. The barbarian warlord thought he was leading a mission. He was leading a weapon he didn't understand: a grieving soldier, a furious brawler, and now… a witch coming into her birthright.

  The gates of the crystalline city were a shimmering mirage on the horizon behind them. Ahead lay only the frozen waste, the jagged teeth of the mountains, and the whispering dark.

  Her shackles were off. The real game had just begun.

  Koronos the Kazarian | Royal Road