The silence broke first.
Not with sound—but with movement.
The three masked figures stepped back into the mist, their forms blurring as snow began to fall once more.
Within seconds, they were gone, as if the storm itself had swallowed them.
Lina stood frozen in place, her breath visible in the air.
The blue light on her wrist slowly dimmed, retreating beneath her skin like a secret unwilling to be seen.
"What… was that?" she whispered.
Her legs finally gave in, and she dropped to her knees.
The ice beneath her palms was cracked, veins of frost spreading outward from where she touched it.
She had done this.
A sharp ache bloomed behind her eyes—memories that were not memories.
A frozen throne.
A crown of ice.
A voice calling her name through centuries of snow.
She gasped and pulled her hands back.
"No," she said aloud. "That's not me."
But the cold did not leave her.
As she forced herself to stand, she noticed something new.
Footprints.
Not human.
They circled the cracked ice, light and deliberate, as if whoever left them had known exactly where to step.
Lina followed them to the edge of the village, where the frost grew unnaturally smooth.
There, carved into the ice, was a symbol.
The same symbol as the mark on her wrist.
Her heart sank.
"So it's real…" she murmured.
A sudden presence stirred behind her.
"You shouldn't be here alone."
Lina spun around, instinctively raising her hand.
Ice gathered around her fingers without effort.
A boy stood a few steps away, wrapped in a thick coat, silver-white hair dusted with snow.
His eyes were a pale gray—almost the same shade as the winter sky.
He raised his hands slowly.
"Easy," he said. "If I wanted you frozen, you wouldn't be standing."
She narrowed her eyes. "Who are you?"
Someone who's been looking for you," he replied calmly.
"And someone who knows what those men were."
Her grip tightened.
"And what were they?"
He hesitated for a fraction of a second.
"Guardians of the Seal," he said.
"Or what's left of them."
The wind howled louder, carrying whispers through the trees.
Lina felt the cold respond—not to fear, but to her heartbeat.
The winter was listening.
And for the first time, she realized something terrifying:
It wasn't hunting her.
It was waiting for her to decide.
❄️ To be continued…