Chapter 25: The Emissary of Frost
Beneath the shattered remnants of a temple long buried in snow, deep in the glacierlands of the North, something ancient stirred.
Pillars of frost enshrined forgotten relics—armor of silvered bone, swords frozen mid-swing, and a mural depicting gods locked in battle against winged beasts. Time had stopped in this place. Even the wind refused to howl.
Then came a single, echoing crack.
Another.
And then the ice broke.
From the heart of the ruin, within a crystal casket preserved by divine enchantment, a girl opened her eyes—pale as moonlight, irises shimmering like fractured ice.
She exhaled a single breath, and it turned the entire room white.
Her name was Ilyana Veyr, Emissary of the Winter God Kareth, Guardian of Stillness.
And she had awoken.
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Ilyana rose, her divine aura pulsing faintly with cold calm. Her guardian stirred beside her—a massive, antlered wolf-elk hybrid made of snow and shadow: Thirn, the Frostborne Warden. Its eyes glowed with glacial fire.
"The seal has broken," she whispered, brushing strands of frost-white hair from her brow. "The Dragon Lord stirs again."
Thirn bowed its head. The world burns. And so you must walk again.
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Far away, in the marble halls of the Argon Sovereignty, bells began to toll.
High Priestess Caldrein awoke from her meditations with a cry, divine blood dripping from her nose. She turned to the Oracle Mirror—its surface flickering with divine visions—and beheld a vision:
Three lights.
One gold.
One blue.
One devoured by shadow.
The gods were speaking once more.
And their messengers were awakening.
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Jean felt it too.
As the stars turned overhead, she collapsed to one knee on the Iron balcony, her head ringing with echoes not her own.
Whitney growled, stepping between her and the edge.
"Celeste," Jean whispered. "What… was that?"
A voice, serene and terrible, flooded her thoughts.
"Your sister in frost walks again. The winds return to balance. But the storm that follows… will not choose sides."
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In the frozen chapel, Ilyana stepped out beneath a sky veiled in shifting auroras. The wind, once still, now howled with reverence.
She gazed south.
To war.
To fire.
And to the girl bathed in light.
"Jean Luther," she said. "I dreamed of you in ice. Let us see if your flame endures the storm."
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