(POV: Solstice Burn)
People say that for someone like me, who burns alive every second, ice should be heaven. They say cold is the cure.They are so wrong.
Stupid. Blind.
This is not a cure. T
his is a torturous, slow amputation.
The cold enveloping my body now is not the gentle chill of an autumn breeze—it's absolute emptiness, like a vacuum sucking the soul from my pores. It feels like millions of microscopic needles forcibly stabbing into every nerve fiber, stitching them shut to keep them from exploding, only making them tremble in silent agony.
My core—the damn nuclear reactor pulsing in my gut—screams a soundless protest. Not cooled, but choked nearly to death.
Inside this crystal coffin, I do not feel peace. I feel like a machine forced to a halt while running at full speed. It hurts. It hurts so much. My bones are being slowly filed down by never-dull ice knives, while my internal heat struggles in vain, burning from within with no escape.
And in front of me... this dead weight clinging like a curse.
Wynter Ash. The 'Ice Block' who is now literally a frozen icicle.
His head lolls on my shoulder, heavy and stiff. In this damn stasis, I have too much time to stare at the details of his face. His skin, usually pale as a corpse, is now transparent like wet paper. His lips are blue, a sign of the chronic hypothermia gnawing at him from within.
But his eyes... damn his eyes.
Even though tightly shut, I can picture them clearly. Crimson. The color symbolizes thirsty hunger, frozen blood demanding more energy than this world can give. Isn't it ironic? The Ice King has glowing red eyes, as if he is always thirsty for heat he never possesses—the heat I have in abundance, but can never give without burning everything.
And me? I see my own reflection faintly mirrored in the ice wall imprisoning us.
A pair of Pale Dry Blue irises. The color of flame at its highest temperature, perfect gas combustion leaving no ash—only pure destruction. My eyes look like ghosts in this ice: visually cold, but I know if I blink too hard, that heat could melt steel.
Two monsters trapped in one frozen cage.
The Red-Eyed one freezing cold, and the Blue-Eyed one burning hot.
God—or whatever bastard wrote this fate—must have a sick sense of humor.
"Don't die, parasite," I think, sending a small wave of heat through our touching skin—just enough to keep his heart beating. "You haven't paid me back in full yet."
The outside world is a muffled sound, like a nightmare heard from behind a thick wall.
KRRR-CHNK... KRRR-CHNK...
The sound of rusty chains being roughly wound, the grating of metal on worn pulleys, and coarse shouts that sound like angry mosquito buzzes from behind five inches of ice. My vision is still blurred, blocked by the frozen strands of Wynter's black hair right in front of my face—an unwanted black curtain.
His body is pressed tightly against me. His cold seeps into my bones.
I hate this. I hate this dependency.
But I can't let him go—not yet.
The sounds get clearer as the ice begins to crack. I feel vibrations on my skin, the cold starting to melt, replaced by damp air smelling of salt and rust. My pale blue eyes blink, adjusting to the dim light that stabs like a knife.
We are being hoisted. Like fresh meat in a black market.
I look down—the dark Aurum Sea, churning like pent-up rage. Above us, a modified wreck of a ship, its deck full of junk and a crew that looks like pirates down on their luck. They are pulling us up with a primitive pulley, laughing roughly and pointing.
One of them—a woman with a cybernetic eye that spins like a broken camera—stands at the deck's edge, watching us with a sly smile.
Her name is Sable, I guess from their shouts. Their captain.
"Good salvage today, lads!" she cries, her voice raspy like cigarette smoke. "Two humanoid units. One seems to be a Fire-User—see the steam. The other... dunno, a living ice cube?"
I try to move, but my body is still stiff. The heat in my core is beginning to stir, but the ice's cold tortures me first—it feels like ice needles stabbing my bone marrow. Wynter is still unconscious, his body limp in my arms.
They drop us roughly onto the deck.
The ice cracks, shatters, and I fall to my knees, holding Wynter so he doesn't hit the deck. The cold still clings, torturing my skin like a cold burn.
Sable approaches, her boots stepping on ice shards. Her mechanical eye scans us like merchandise.
"Name?" she asks. Short. Authoritative.
I try to speak, but my throat is parched. My tongue feels stiff. "..."
I have no ID. My Smart-ID is at the bottom of the sea now. Without it, in the eyes of this world's law, I don't exist.
"Mute? Or prideful?" Sable tilts her head, her camera eye whirring. "Quartermaster Grimm, log it: Salvage Item #47. Two humanoid units. Condition: One critical, one functional but mute."
The word 'Salvage'—Scrap—triggers fury in my core. It's a term for junk, shipwreck debris.
I am not junk. I am Solstice Burn.
"WAIT," my voice finally comes out. Hoarse, cracked, ugly like the grating of hot stones. I hold Wynter tighter with one arm, while my right hand grips the hilt of Solaris, still half-embedded in ice. "He's not cargo. He... he's human. We are both human."
The weakest defense I've ever concocted in my life.
Very unlike the usual Solstice—who burns everything without hesitation. But my brain isn't fully functional yet.
Sable laughs. Her laugh is dry, humorless—the laugh of a businesswoman explaining basic economics to a stupid child.
"Sweetheart," she says, stepping forward, her boots crushing ice shards. "On the Aurum Sea, outside city jurisdiction, the definition of 'Human' is expensive."
She crouches, looking straight into my pale blue eyes. I can feel my core's heat rising, wanting to burn her, but the ice cold still holds it back.
"A Human is someone who can pay the Existence Tax. A Human has an ID. A Human has Insurance."
She points at the unconscious Wynter. "You fell from the sky with no ID. No beacon. No money. By International Maritime Law, you are Flotsam & Jetsam. Sea junk."
Sable stands up, then draws a short dagger from her belt. She twirls it casually, sunlight glinting on the blade.
"But I'm not a monster. I'm a businesswoman. I'll give you a choice, Miss Blue Eyes."
She points towards the open sea.
"Option A: I throw your dying friend into the sea right now as shark bait. You? I'll sell you to the coastal mines as a forced labor slave. They like Fire-User types for melting ore."
My heart stops for a moment. Blazing hot anger flares in my chest, but the ice cold traps it.
"Option B,"
Sable continues,
"You sell yourself to me. Sign a 5-year crew contract. You work for me, you obey my orders, and you protect this ship."
She looks at Wynter again. "In exchange, I'll use this ship's medical facilities to keep your friend alive until he wakes up. His life in exchange for your service."
Sable extends her empty hand towards me.
"So, what's your choice? Become Cargo... or become Crew?"
I stare at that hand. Then I stare at Wynter's pale face in my arms—the bastard who owes me a mountain of debt.
I take a long breath, exhaling the last steam from my injured lungs.
"Where's the pen?" I hiss.
I stare at the short dagger twirling in Captain Sable's hand. Five years. Five years as a walking furnace for these pirates, just for the life of this Ice Block who now hangs like dead weight.
But this world never gives choices to monsters like me—only logistical traps, business transactions wrapped in words like "deal" or "opportunity".
"I accept," I say, my voice rough and hoarse. "But on one condition: He sleeps in the same cabin as me. I have to be near him—my heat is the only thing keeping his core pulsing. Thermal symbiosis. You can see this anomaly yourself."
Sable raises her thinly-shaved eyebrow, her cybernetic eye whirring again, scanning our body temperatures. She's no fool—she sees how heat flows from my skin to Wynter's body, keeping him from total freezing, while his cold dampens my overheat.
Ironic. Torturous.
Me, the always-boiling reactor, a battery for this heat-sucker.
"Thermal symbiosis? Very interesting for business," Sable murmurs, her smile widening like a merchant who just found rare ore. "Alright. Deal. You'll be useful for melting the rusted iron on this ship, Furnace—and maybe more."
She bites her own thumb until it bleeds, red drops falling on the damp wooden deck. Then she extends that hand to me, her camera eye blinking like a cold challenge.
"Blood for blood. Sea Contract. No lawyers, no backing out. Only blood and waves—or you become shark bait."
I hesitate for a moment—not from fear, but from anger at myself for being trapped in this damn situation again.
I bite my own thumb too. My skin, hardened by perpetual heat, cracks easily; my blood steams as it meets the damp air.
We shake hands. Our blood mixes, warm and sticky."Welcome to The Gilded Wreck, Cargo #47," Sable says with a wide grin. "Your call sign is now: FURNACE. Because I hear you're hot—and I like things hot for business."
I give a stiff nod, holding Wynter tighter as the crew starts to lift his limp body. I follow them to a small cabin below deck, the smell of oil and salt stinging my nose.
A narrow bunk. The only bed.
I lay Wynter there, injecting a bit more heat through our skin contact. I sit on the floor, my back against the damp wooden wall, feeling the ship's sway.
This is a new hell—five more years as a tool.
But at least, I'm still burning. And this Ice Block owes me—I'll collect, bit by bit.
Author Note :
My apologies if updates will be slower from now on, as I happen to be currently focused on my final academic project/thesis. Thank you to my readers, even if only a few have made it to this chapter. I will try my best.