Chapter Two: Identity in the Mist
Sion left the hut with the first threads of dawn, splitting the darkness like pale blue knives. The air was heavy with a strange humidity, as if the world were sweating in fear. Before him, the purple mist that had been on the horizon yesterday was now only a hundred paces away. It moved in a living way, undulating like a giant gelatinous mass inhaling the scent of its prey.
He turned toward the old man's hut. The door was closed, but Sion felt the gaze. The old man was watching from behind a crack in the wood. Was he watching to protect him? Or for something else?
He began walking toward the mist. With each step, the pendant on his chest grew warmer. It was not a comforting warmth, but a feverish heat, as if the metal were falling ill and recovering in rapid cycles.
Then, suddenly, he stopped.
The voice came from beneath his feet.
"It's not crawling toward you. You're drawing it to you."
Sion bent down. Between two frozen rocks, in a crevice too narrow for a child, he saw eyes. They were not fully human eyes. They resembled the eyes of a wild animal, but deep within them was a depressed human intelligence.
"Who's there?" asked Sion, his hand moving slowly toward the knife hidden in his coat.
"A place you don't want to know." The man emerged from the crevice, his movement strange—he didn't crawl, but flowed outward like a thick liquid. He stood before Sion, his body painfully gaunt. It was as if a skeleton were covered in translucent skin. His long white hair was tangled with tiny ice fragments, like a crown made of frozen tears.
"My name is Iron. And if you're asking what I am, I am a lost pilgrim."
"Pilgrims don't hide in rock crevices."
The man laughed a broken laugh, like wood cracking in the bitter cold. "Smart pilgrims do. The Road these days... craves warm flesh more than before."
Iron pointed his slender finger toward the purple mist. "Do you know what that is?"
"Fog."
"Wrong." Iron took a step closer, his scent wafting into the air—the smell of autumn leaves preserved in ice for centuries. "That is the Road's boundary. And that is its breath. And when it breathes, it pulls something from everyone in its path. Memory. Dream. Desire."
He paused, examining Sion deeply, like a doctor looking at a strange disease. "You... you're different. You make it breathe more deeply. As if it recognizes you."
"What do you want?" asked Sion, his voice as calm as the surface of a frozen lake.
"I want to offer you a place among us. We know the Road better than anyone. We know where it sleeps, where it wakes, where it hides its secrets."
"And why would I join you?"
Iron's nose wrinkled as if he smelled something foul. "Because you carry the Key. And because everyone will know soon. Those who tried to steal from you last night... were just scouts. Mere children playing in a dangerous yard. Now the adults will come. The real army."
Iron raised his hand, pointing in three different directions. "From the east will come the Frost Wardens with their ice armor. From the west will come the Dark Hunters with their merciless masks. And from the heart of the mist will emerge the Frozen Ones, who know only eternal hunger."
He placed his hand on his own heart. "And you are in the middle. And the pendant on your chest is the target."
---
The pendant was burning now. Sion felt its heat piercing his clothes and touching his skin. He pulled it out. In the faint dawn light, the metal glowed a deep blue, like ocean depths under thick ice.
"Give it to me," said Iron, his hand outstretched.
"No."
"I don't want it for myself. I want to show you what it is."
In Iron's eyes, Sion saw something rare: honesty. Honesty free from greed. Slowly, he removed the pendant and placed it in the slender man's hand.
Iron took it carefully, as if holding a sleeping infant. He didn't open it, but ran his fingers over the engravings. "This is not a map. This is a chain of memories. An entire library etched onto metal that knows no forgetting."
He pressed one of the circles engraved on the surface.
Suddenly, an image appeared in the air between them. Not a static image, but a moving scene, slightly transparent, like a dream appearing in water. A man sat on a throne made of blue ice, surrounded by weeping people, and he wiped their tears with his hands. The tears, when they touched his hands, turned into small glass stones glittering with different colors.
"A memory from Elydor," whispered Iron, his voice carrying a strange reverence. "King Gerond, the first to discover how to store emotions in ice. He believed he was protecting his people from the pain of painful memories."
He pressed another circle. The scene changed. Now it showed the same scene, but years later. The ice throne was broken, and King Gerond sat on the ground, surrounded by thousands of glass stones, trying to gather them as they rolled away. His face bore the expression of belated understanding.
"The problem with memories isn't in storing them," said Iron, passing his finger through the transparent scene. "The problem is that we think we can separate the beautiful from the painful. But memory is like a river; if you try to divert its course, it overflows elsewhere."
A third scene appeared when he pressed a third circle: the pendant itself being placed in an ornate wooden box, the box being carried somewhere, then buried under a bare, frozen tree. The person who buried it stood for a moment, then walked away without looking back.
"This is not a key to a place," said Iron, returning the pendant to Sion, his hands trembling slightly. "This is a key to time. Whoever carries it... can hear the Road's memories. Can know who walked here before him, what they felt, what they lost."
He paused, looking at the mist that was drawing closer. "And that's why everyone wants it:
The Frost Wardens want it to tell the Road to sleep forever, because they believe awakening means destruction.
The Dark Hunters want it to extract the secrets of the weak and blackmail the strong.
And the Frozen Ones... want it to wake the Road completely, to turn everything into eternal cold, because they believe that is final peace."
---
Iron pulled another pendant from under his tattered coat. It resembled Sion's in shape, but when Sion held it, he felt the difference immediately. It was lighter, less cold, and the engravings on it were faint like a weak echo.
"Take this. The fake copy. Made by the Frost Wardens three centuries ago, when they tried to trick the Dark Hunters into believing they had found the real Key."
"And why are you giving it to me? Why help me?"
"Because I saw what would happen if the real Key reached the wrong side." Iron's eyes became deeply sad, a sadness that knows it is eternal. "Ten years ago, my son... carried a fake pendant without knowing. He was trying to help me, trying to save us from poverty. The Dark Hunters took him. They thought it was real. When they discovered the truth..."
His voice broke. He didn't need to finish the sentence. Sion saw the story complete in the man's eyes: anger, betrayal, punishment.
"What did they do to him?"
"I don't know exactly. But he was no longer my son. Something else came out of their grasp. Something... cold."
"And you think my pendant can help him?"
"I think everything is connected. I think the real Key can open doors we believe are closed forever." Iron grabbed Sion's arm. "Promise me. When you reach the end of the Road, when you open the real door... call my son. His name is Kiren. Maybe... maybe there's hope."
"Where is he now?"
Iron pointed toward the purple mist. "There. He's become one of them now. Transformed by the hunters' anger and my failure."
---
Before Sion could respond, before he could understand everything he'd heard, the ground began to tremble beneath his feet.
Not a violent tremor, but a faint quiver, as if the floor of a large room had shifted slightly.
Then came the sounds.
From the east: heavy, synchronized footsteps, dozens of feet striking the ground in military unison. The Frost Wardens were coming. Through the light mist, Sion could make out their forms: tall men and women, wearing white-blue robes that blended with the surrounding snow, holding long spears of compressed ice with gleaming sharp tips.
From the west: organized whispers, like a demonic prayer. The Dark Hunters, this time not three, but at least thirty. Their black masks still swallowed the light, but their movement was more organized, more dangerous.
And directly ahead, from within the purple mist itself: shadows moving unnaturally, as if swimming in the air instead of walking. The Frozen Ones.
The three forces surrounded him from three sides. The fourth side was the road he came from, the road he would not return to.
"The first choice," said Iron quickly, his voice a low, urgent whisper. "Hide your identity. Put the real pendant in a safe place. Use the fake one. And outwardly join whichever faction you choose. But beware: every faction will force you to prove your loyalty. Every faction will ask you to do something... you may not want to do."
"Which faction do you trust?"
Iron let out a short, bitter laugh. "I don't trust any of them. But you must choose whom you will deceive, and whom you will face. This is the game on the Road: everyone deceives, and everyone knows the other is deceiving, but they pretend not to know."
He gave Sion one last look, a look carrying both warning and farewell. "Only one of these factions knows the full truth about the Road. Only one is ultimately worthy of trust. But even they... have sold part of their souls to stay alive. Your task is to discover which one, and why."
He handed him the fake pendant. "The Road will split here. Before you are three paths:
The first, toward the Frost Wardens: safe, slow, leading to their fortress, 'The Snow's Grasp,' where they rule and maintain the 'Balance of Frost' as they call it.
The second, toward the Dark Hunters: dangerous, fast, leading to their hideout, 'The City of Masks,' where they live in utter darkness and collect secrets as currency.
The third, toward the unknown: the path of the lost pilgrims, leading to a place not even we fully know. A place we hid in when we decided we belonged to no faction."
He pointed toward a large rock to the side. "Hide the real one there. Mark it with a special sign. Something only you can understand."
---
Sion hurried to the rock. It was large enough, with a deep crevice on its side. He placed the real pendant inside, then looked around. What could he use as a marker? Something from his past? Something of himself?
He remembered something from his childhood. There was a game he played with his younger brother: they drew special marks on trees to find each other in the forest. The mark was a small circle, with a wavy line like a river inside, and two dots above it like eyes.
He drew his knife and carved the mark onto the rock above the crevice. Simple, inconspicuous, but he would recognize it.
He returned to Iron. The purple mist had receded slightly, revealing three actual paths:
The first path: covered in pure white snow, clean as if untouched. On its sides stood the Frost Wardens in two rows, their spears raised in salute or threat.
The second path: dark, its floor of shiny black stone, as if made of volcanic glass. The Dark Hunters stood along its edges, their black masks still showing no details, but their hands were on their weapons.
The third path: narrow, winding, disappearing between two large rocks. No one stood at its entrance, but from within, a faint light seemed to glimmer, like distant stars.
"Choose," said Iron. "Now. Before they force you to choose."
Sion's fake pendant was warming in his hand. It radiated a faint heat, but a false heat, like the warmth of a fire made of colors, not real heat.
The scar on his neck began to prickle. The prickle he always felt when in danger, or when about to make a decision that would change everything.
He looked at the white wardens. Their faces were hard as ice, but in the eyes of some, he saw something: weariness. Weariness from carrying too great a responsibility for too long.
He looked at the black hunters. No faces to see, only light-swallowing masks. But the way they stood... carried an overconfidence, as if they knew they would win in the end.
He looked at the third path. The unknown. The place where no one waited for him, and no one promised him anything.
Iron's final words came like a whisper in the cold wind: "Remember: trust is not for those who show truth, but for those who hide the fewest lies. And the Road... hates lies more than it hates the cold."
---
Sion took a deep breath. The air was so cold it hurt his lungs.
The first path? Relative safety, but the price would be blind obedience.
The second path? Dangerous knowledge, and constant peril.
The third path? Complete unknown, but complete freedom.
He turned the fake pendant in his hand. The false metal glowed with a faint green light, the color of envy, the color of deceit.
He stepped.
He did not step toward the white wardens who promised safety.
Nor did he step toward the black hunters who promised knowledge.
He stepped toward the third path.
Toward the unknown.
Not because he trusted the lost pilgrims.
But because he didn't trust either of the other factions enough to follow them.
And because he realized something: everyone who promises you something on this Road is hiding a dozen other things.
And the first move in this game of deception is to belong to no one.
But he didn't know, as he passed between the two large rocks, that the third path was itself a trap.
A beautiful trap, made of illusory freedom and tempting mystery.
A trap set by the lost pilgrims for those who wish to remain free.
Because on the road of eternal cold, even freedom has a steep price.
And the lost pilgrims... were the most willing of all to pay it.
---
End of Chapter Two