FSE

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She had practically exhausted all her options.

“Asht bugh… No, no that way…”

Like a windmill before a storm, she stood against the steadfast wind, harmless on its own and as dangerous as a fan slap, but on its back, it carried an invisible and lethal foe.

Not her foe but of humans. Intangible, immune to stabs and slashes, a devourer of vivid colors. Imbi had called it hypothermia — the injury inflicted by the fatal dirk that was coldness itself.

“Asht bougha… Grr. That way neither…”

All rocks had been upturned.

The now bedridden man, emptied of most body heat by a warmth-sucking vampire, got enveloped by a cocoon of reindeer furs in an attempt to keep the remaining flame of his life from extinguishing.

The lovely pilasters that spiraled tall and once adorned the chamber of a self-proclaimed Spirit had been tumbled down, shattered into sizable chunks, and thereafter used to pile up a windbreak in front of the gaping entrance.

Yet, all attempts failed to hold the coldness.

“Atsh bogh… se— se— gaarh! Come on! I’ve heard those words twice. I should be able to replicate them!”

The elemental stored no firewood, animal grease, or any other food for fire within her sanctuary. And why should she? Heatness was anathema to Kiya’s kind; it was obvious her chamber had been built to prevent fire from rising!

Run out for wood? Sigrid could not — nor would not — abandon her current task. Not only did her body ache with the wounds of two nights’ worth of battles, refreshed because of her exertion over the tall pillars and the obstructing wall Kiya had summoned inside, but neither was she willing to leave Marek’s side for more than ‘one breeze.’

Her body, thick with comfortable fur and feathers, was quintessential for Marek’s survival and thus should not pull away from his side.

Sigrid was about to give in, to sink further into despair by the knowledge she could not generate additional heat to stop Marek’s breathing from slacking into expiring levels.

Just then, on the verge of hysteria, Sigrid had remembered the blade that had cut Kiya’s arm. It was the runed sword Marek took from one of the ghouls, the metal that emitted heat with its magic.

“Atsh bagh… eggh… Gya! ” A vexed bark met the chill air. Her chant, which had not stopped echoing along with the wind’s whizz during the last dozen minutes, fumbled once more. The endless series of mistakes had gradually curled down Sigrid’s meaty commissures into a snarl.

The last snag that delayed Sigrid from bestowing the warmth of a flame upon her beloved was a string of foreign words that she could not quite decipher.

The strange words had once been uttered in her presence — they lay hidden in a corner of her mind. Sigrid only had to beat the sentence out of her memories.

Nonetheless, too many failed attempts to count, and it was evident that the weapon considered the she-chimera’s intonation no better than gibberish. “Stoopid thing!” Another shrill bark came out. “It was not ‘eggh,’ it was—”

“ Gah— ” A gasp, more expiring-like of what Sigrid would have liked to admit, feebly floated to her ears, which reacted with a rapid twitch as if they just heard an unexpected growl of a snowcat.

Sigrid half-spun her head at the pained vocalization and saw Marek lying against the bed-cut rock, his body virtually engulfed by an animal blanket. “—! Marc. H-hang in there. I’ll be joining soon.” Sigrid spoke up before latching her sight back onto the runed sword within her palm.

Think, Sigrid. Think! What were the words? Closing her eyes shut, Sigrid gathered focus and rummaged through her mind in search of the exact words formerly voiced by the human warrior. “Atsh… bagh ... to thy… blade. ”

Immediately after finishing that foreign sentence, Sigrid felt like a pressure of heat hit the edge of her beak and spread toward her mask, suffusing across her mane afterward.

Sigrid then opened her eyelids and saw the blade turning orange, a hue that seconds later morphed into red.

“It… It did work!” A peak of hope seized Sigrid’s very being; almost like a miracle of entities she had not fully grasped, the odds of Marek surviving the night had unequivocally soared. Briskly, Sigrid scrambled on three limbs and drew near the unwell man.

“Marc, I did it. I said the magick words,” Sigrid commented, trying to be optimistic, more for herself than for the man, who could no longer register her words. The monstress proceeded to place the shortsword two yards away from Marek and her; the plan consisted of using the runed blade as an improvised fire, supplying Marek with the warmth he desperately needed.

Once on the ground, Sigrid missed no beat to slip underneath the furs and join Marek. Or, at least, that was what she tried to carry on before she noticed how the comforting sensation of the blazing sphere at her back dwindled.

An about-face of her head, and Sigrid saw how the hot redness of the metal had lessened.

“Nonono! Flares to thy blade. Flares to thy blade! ” Alarmed, Sigrid reevoked the incomprehensible phrase, but it did seem weapons had the ability to turn a deaf ear, as the sword gave off no reaction toward her words.

With an exasperated growl rising through her throat, Sigrid scooted back and tightly took the blade by its handle. “ Flares to thy blade! Doomb piece of shiny ore! Magick things aren’t supposed to— hooh?” She felt it again: a wave of heat gliding over her furs.

By the following series of heartbeats, Sigrid used her narrowed, owl-like stare to both study and admonish the magical tool; she accomplished neither of these two aims, but given there were no signs of the blade cooling down, she started to lower the weapon.

“Very well, now…” The operation behind enchanted items was a mystery for Sigrid, and this was not the right moment to figure it out. Nonetheless, she opted to use a calm approach this time by placing the blade down slowly. Who knows? Maybe these special devices required some gentle handling the first couple of times.

“... Stay lit, and don’t extinguish yourself… please. ” Once the metal touched the rock, Sigrid began to uncurl her fingers one at a time until her hand was no longer wrapped along the hilt. Everything was going according to Sigrid’s expectations until that point, when, once again, the decrease of both blaze and luminosity struck her with frustration.

“No way! You cannot stay lit by yourself?!” It took Sigrid nothing to join the dots and distinguish the reason for the shortsword’s ‘malfunction’: the runed sword needed a hand around its handle to keep its magic active. Release the handle, and the glow of heat would die like a candle before a fall breeze.

“Crap, crap. Crappy crap!” Sigrid found herself in a delicate situation. She could not grasp the weapon glowing with a flaming aura and cuddle with Marek simultaneously, lest the sickly fighter run the risk of having his skin scorched.

She ran out of options; the magic of the shortsword had been her last hope. No wood or fat meant no form to light a fire with the sword, and Sigrid was not confident in using reindeer furs as fuel. No human she had witnessed had fed fires with their attire, and this was no time to figure out why that was the case.

Another weak groan noised, interrupting Sigrid’s blizzard of thoughts. The hunt for the solution should continue next to Marek.

Dissatisfied with the blade still within her grasp, Sigrid shuffled next to Marek. She spent the next minute adjusting herself, carefully so as not to disturb Marek, her back pointing to the wall behind, and one wing acting like an additional sheet. Once she was done adjusting alongside Marek, she gingerly pushed herself onto him until her furless forehead, unnaturally crisp, touched hers.

Marek hardly emitted a whine during the entire process of seat adjustment. Ever since the fighter fell unconscious, his breathing rate had been mutating, shallow to vapid, then to almost null; only unpredictable gaps, sudden and erratic, wheezed through his brittle lips, barely leaving a noticeable cloud of fog before his mouth.

The sound of his weak exhalations that once unnerved Sigrid now distressed her with their absence.

“ Flares to thy blade. ” After finding the appropriate position, the runed sword sparked once more, one arm’s length up into the air, as far as possible from Marek so the glow would not parch his exposed skin. This was not the best way to transfer heat toward Marek, but until she thought of another method, this was the best she could manage.

“ Hoo… That will do now, I guess…” She detached from Marek a bit so she could observe him better. “You’ll be warmer this way, Marc. Just wait… you’ll be alive and kicking in no time.”

“...” No response. Not hearing Marek’s voice, or even a humble sigh coming from him, happened to inflict a heavy pain in her heart. The mere act of picking up the man’s labored breathing had turned out to be an endeavor on its own.

“... M-marc…” Almost on the verge of whimpering and with half-closed eyes, Sigrid looked at Marek and drifted one of her hands toward his face, caressing his bruised face with the tip of her fingertips.

What used to be muddy pink now appeared like pale dust — earlobes, cheeks, and the nose had been captured by frostnip. Moreover, his skin was no longer as malleable as before, and Sigrid feared that if she were to put additional pressure on her caressing, even if by a tad, the surface would crinkle and fray like a dry and old hide.

Sigrid lowered her gaze, scanning any curve and edge on Marek’s head and neck until she hit the collarbone, which lay concealed by the sheet for the most part. Reluctantly, one finger grasped at the hem and pulled aside the fabrics, revealing the zone where the elemental had dug her icy clutches.

Worse than paleness, the region on Marek’s shoulder had begun adopting onyx and cinder hues, the dreadful sign of layers of cells withering, never to regrow again. The very sight was unpleasant, causing Sigrid to narrow her eyes further, trying to hold more tears from sprouting and drenching her adventure partner and cooling him more.

She had not checked beyond Marek’s torso, but she recalled seeing the first blisters emerging around his fingers. She was afraid to move the furs aside and uncover something unsightly — something she would be helpless in mending — that would do nothing but increase her distress.

“F— forgive me, Marc…” Sigrid took her hand off the paralyzed face and adjusted her embrace, her strigine mask inching closer to his head. “I cannot help you further— hoo… I don’t know how to cure your w-wounds… I’m just… just… unhelpful as a healer…” Sigrid rubbed her beak along Marek’s cheek, transferring the heat of her outbreath.

Her mind backtracked all the way to their first dispute when Marek told her about the consequences of sustaining an injury in the wild. Marek has been right in saying that the most insignificant injury received in the wilderness would prove lethal in the long term.

The smallest of gashes would turn into a pulsating festering. The way insignificant punctures might later transform into a debilitating fever. The misfortune of having diminutive blisters morphing into charcoal skin that would eat away tissue, ultimately breaking into—

“No, please… no more… ” The thoughts of Marek’s unwellness tormented her; the possibility of seeing her beloved one and hero, mighty and swift, bedridden and short of limbs, pushed Sigrid to the edge of despair. She sought solace in Marek, making her embrace firmer, her eyes pressed shut.

She then began wailing in sorrow, erratically whistling and puffing across Marek’s black hair, her body jerking as she fought not to shout loud cries.

What am I supposed to do? I’m losing him. I can hardly hear his heart and lungs moving. Why? Why does it have to be like this? If only I had stayed at his side. If only I had refrained from bathing. I’m stoopid. I’m beyond stoopid.

For the next few minutes, Sigrid sobbed, chastising herself for her past unfruitful actions, punishing herself for the efforts that might have been made. Soon, the cave was filled with her wails, heartsick weeps that surpassed the intensity of the wind's beat.

And amid the whiff and her muffled cries, a gap of muteness emerged. It was just a fraction of a second, but during that fleeting pause where nature and sadness found respite, an oozing sound came to life.

It was faint, and it sounded similar to the echo of blood inside her own ears, but less constant. Whatever generated that noise felt alive, like an eel slithering in thick mud, hissing beneath the wet dirt.

Sigrid quickly discerned the unusual hum inside her ears and shyly opened her watery eyes. Ears jerked, first to confirm the sappy gurgle was not a product of the wind and second to make sure it was not a delirium of her sadness.

The two notions were proved wrong, so Sigrid detached herself from Marek’s forehead and raised her upper body to twirl her head at the entrance. A troll came to her mind: the only monster that could generate a noise close to that gloop; nonetheless, unless the troll was growling underwater or choking with its own blood, the sound came out as strange. Besides, it was unlikely for an ogrekin to travel through the narrow path that led it to where she lay.

Sigrid kept scanning the outside but detected nothing. What is more, the noise had picked up, and going by its intensity, it stemmed from the very chamber.

The owlhead spun back, this time faster since suspicion had started to build inside. The sparking of the ceiling icicles and sturdy rock were the only things that greeted her sight; no signs of life other than Marek and hers seemed to linger inside.

Notwithstanding, when lowering her scrutiny from the ceiling, Sigrid spotted something that until then she had utterly ignored.

Held prisoner inside the clutches of ice-made hands, a nail of steel of both obsidian and scarlet semblance loomed a few feet above the ground, a lamp of metal and malice glowing with a grim aura.

It was Dalavut. The metal that fed Marek with healthiness at the expense of his humanity. The redstart that aroused Madakai and his undead progeny from its otherworldly slumber.

It was, too, Marek’s contingency plan the moment he sustained a clipping injury.

The pair of silvermist orbs glued themselves on the ebony-red length, the flow of tears on hold now that thoughtfulness began to boil within.

Hesitant ideas came to Sigrid as she studied her options. The longsword, deemed a vile weapon by her, used an unknown language, neither human nor animal, to persuade her into taking its cursed handle. Persuading her that it possessed the means to solve her troubles.

Most surprisingly, its seduction was having an effect on the monstress.

Sigrid emitted a whistle before hushing herself from further crying, wiping her tears with one hand. Her eyes shifted from the sword to Marek, moving back and forth a couple of times before making up her mind and beginning to detach from Marek.

With deliberate care, Sigrid broke her cuddle short. “Resist for a breeze. I’ll be back.” Whispered to the unresponsive man before standing to her feet and moving off toward the evocative weapon.

The soreness of her recent wounds made her trip over once, but her sight, almost captured along with her determination, never left off the metal on the wall, the imaginary hum inside her head echoing almost like an encouragement of a grim sort. In short order, Sigrid reached her destination, standing in front of the imprisoned metal, looking up at Dalavut’s edge.

Narrowing her eyes in evident untruthfulness, Sigrid swung up the runed sword toward the claws of ice, the clutches loudly hissing in contact with the superheated blade. After a twinkling, the cold bindings melted enough to let the deer skull peek outside.

Sigrid grimaced at the sight. Whoever forged that weapon had a gruesome taste for crafting. Not a human— or rather, mortal invention, that was certain.

But no matter the extent of her disgust and foreboding the length of malice inflicted upon her, Sigrid did not hesitate to grasp the weapon from the wall and yank it with a snapping, clean sound.

With the cursed longsword within her avian clutches, Sigrid returned to take her position next to Marek, who, as soon as the chimera retook her spot, started to be moved over into a seated position, getting a couple of flimsy wheezes out of the man. Hearing the man moan in such a weak manner saddened her, but at least the noises reminded her that Marek continued to hold on to life.

“This will not last long… I promise.”

Once both individuals remained seated, Sigrid set the runed weapon on top of the cut bed and at her back with a bit of haste, without even bothering to look behind. The longsword switched hands, and Sigrid’s right arm went inside the furs to retrieve one of Marek’s arms, bringing it outside the fuzzy confines of the reindeer blanket.

Sigrid almost regretted taking his arm.

Eyelids flinched with horror. The heart sank like iron in a lake. The stomach burbled like seething water and rolled like a whirlpool. Her fear had been confirmed true — fingers were being assaulted by frostbite, the affliction that bit as hard as a warg or manticore.

The sound of a throat bobbing echoed feebly, and Sigrid tightly closed her eyes. Don’t see it, Sigrid. Be quick. Sigrid carried Dalavut directly at Marek’s frosted fingers, and once the handle made contact with his palm, avian clutches forced the man’s hand closed, allowing him to keep the sword inside his impotent grasp.

Only when Sigrid assured her bird-like hands were firmly wrapped around Marek’s did she dare to unseal her eyes.

Her beak opened to release a wheeze — the easiest part was done. Now, the most complicated step was next.

Dalavut required a catalyst for it to heal the wielder, and that catalyst was blood. The problem was evident: there was no sign of life nearby, not even that of something that used to be alive. Kiya, even if she once had blood inside her body, disappeared below the edge, and Sigrid had reasons to believe the duo of monsters, Nija and Boris, had no intentions of approaching the sanctuary of their former master.

Of course, beyond the peaks and down the mountain, goats hopped freely, and Sigrid would have no problem hunting down as many as Marek needed for him to retake his health. That would have been the case had Sigrid not been weakened after two consecutive nights of life-and-death struggle — her wounds burned fresh, and the she-chimera was unfit to fly back to the creeks and search for a goat.

Even if she could eventually find and slay the bearer of the blood she desperately needed, how much time would it take her? Would Marek survive during her absence? The answers to those questions were something Sigrid did not want to find out by dipping her talons in water.

There was only one immediate remedy — Sigrid’s blood would have to serve as the catalyst.

Reluctantly, Sigrid took her left hand toward the sword’s tip, uncurling her index finger and pressing it onto the sharp point until her skin split.

Attentive to whatever might happen to Marek in response to her experiment, ready to cut off her own act at the slightest hint that discomfort assaulted the man, Sigrid observed her finger on the sinister-colored metal, waiting for a thin line of scarlet to flow from her and blend with the weapon’s red.

Five seconds in and nothing. Did she press with enough strength to puncture herself? Definitely — there was a sting of pain; blood should have sprouted from it. Then, where was the liquid?

Sigrid’s fingertip departed from the tip, confirming that her skin was, indeed, pierced. Did it work? Wrong question — Was that amount of blood enough to trigger the magic of the sword? Sigrid could not even confirm whether Dalavut would enable its curse while being held by two hands, each belonging to a different wielder.

However, as a matter of causality, one last droplet left Sigrid’s wound and plunged to the point of eerie metal.

Plink. Then, a sizzle, short-lived, as lasting as a heartbeat. Most notorious: the drop of blood was nowhere to be seen across the length. The sword had devoured it.

Sigrid’s eyes widened. It worked.

She quickly twirled her head to Marek, checking whether the longsword had mended any of his injuries or flooded him with frenziedness or both. Marek lay in the same ill manner, barely breathing.

Back to the longsword, a bit of her hopes restored, Sigrid wrapped her hand around the keen blade, her hold firm. Perhaps… more blood will do. The grip strengthened, and blood poured on the metal. Sigrid timidly groaned in anguish, eyelids twitching as she suppressed the sensation; it was surprising how little effort on her part was warranted to slice her hide — the weapon was sharp and more lethal than any other claw or gnasher she had borne.

In this instance, vital fluid had been witnessed coating the sword, but its presence only lasted for no more than a couple of eyeblinks as the very surface sipped the red into itself. And among that feeble hissing sound of suction, Marek gasped.

“Marc!” Sigrid squealed in surprise, worry, fear, and hope plastered on her mask in a mixed expression never before shown by her.

Sigrid beheld how Marek arched his back a bit and opened his mouth. Air emanated from the depths of his throat at a greater rate, in and out, even with his mouth ajar. Another detail was that his upper lips were rising above the base of his teeth, reminiscent of a snarl’s prelude.

“Marc?!” Sigrid let go of Dalavut, the sword falling on the furred sheet as soon as released, and shifted closer to Marek, mildly setting both hands on the man’s two cheeks, using her eyes to scan for every change his features had undergone. “Can you hear me?! Please, tell me you’re fine!” She could not help but raise her voice, practically barking.

Predictably, at least in hindsight, no answer emerged from Marek, and, within a minute of starting to showcase signals of invigoration, Marek’s face and posture relaxed down to the lethargic quietness, back reverting to slackness and mouth closing, lips barely parted to let respiration occur.

“No, please… fweet.. wake up…” Sigrid lamented between whistles, seeing how Marek regressed to his dying state. “... Grr… More. He needs more. ” The time for faltering was over. Sigrid shot a stare at Dalavut and threw her hand at its macabre handle.

“A little more of my blood and you’ll wake up, Marc…” Dalavut was pressed into human hands, which in turn were forced closed with the aid of avian hands. Then, Sigrid paused to witness the self-inflicted wound on her palm, thinking about her next move.

Evaluating how much blood she had to shed to heal Marek.

How many gashes like the one burned in her palm would be needed to stabilize Marek? He barely managed a semi-steady respiration with that cut, so replicating the wound would be fruitless.

What about… more flesh? She did not miss the sudden wet throb after asking herself that.

Sigrid placed the edged length on the long bone of two of her fingers, considering giving up a pair of them. Those could regrow in the future. When Terror Sickle snapped her finger off, only two seasons, if not less, transpired before she had her whole finger back.

No. Severed fingers shed little blood. It wouldn’t work… I need to move further up.

The edge drifted to the base of her wrist. Important blood vessels lay underneath the hardened hide of her arm, distended with rivers of vital liquid, and without a doubt, their rupture would satisfactorily feed the undead artifact. It sounded logical to Sigrid, but nevertheless, more doubts sprouted.

Would flesh and blood work better than blood alone? Another throb, more a drum beat than a drenched hum. Was the weapon confirming her doubts?

Sigrid could not simply test the waters indefinitely with different parts of her body. Her blood in her was finite, and worse, it had substantially been emptied during the last two nights. She could only try so much until her very life bled out.

Her fingers managed to resprout, so why not her hand or arm? And, even if the hand would not regenerate anew, what difference could it make? Even stripped of one hand, no beast threatened her, and now that Gruhulla and Madakai were gone, the Frostscape was safe for the next generations. And as for Marek’s journey, she planned not to face Hissing Wing. In any case, in the unlikely event she willingly rushed for the wyrm, what difference would a hand make?

Stress itself turmoiled inside her mind like an enraged maelstrom. Sigrid had not noticed it, but her breathing had hitched, nostrils whistling afare with elevated rhythm. Waves of shakes took over her arms, and her grip over Dalavut lost stability, cutting herself amid her shuddering.

All while the ghostly hum resonated freely in her mind like a rouse of drums, as if giving wind to Sigrid’s wing membranes, pressuring her to take the most reckless choice.

Her instincts vehemently opposed the very idea of self-mutilation, regardless of the benefit. Only the wolves dared to sever their own limbs, and that was only during dire situations where they were caught up by a dangerous foe whilst trapped or snared.

Yet, there she was, seriously considering relinquishing her hand in order to save her beloved. Perhaps this was her own version of being trapped.

“Enough!” She barked, steeling herself and banishing the involuntary shivers. “It doesn’t matter. A hand doesn’t matter! ” She pressed the edge against her wrist, drawing a trickle of blood that the longsword did not allow to get into the waste. “He needs this… Marc needs my blood to survive…”

With eyes tightly shut and left arm curled into a ball, Sigrid prepared to experience the suffering behind the amputation of a limb. “Hands. Feathers. Wings. I’ll give everything for him.” The blade drifted a fraction of an inch as the owl-wolfess prepared herself to swish the weapon, gaining both impulse and courage for the instinct-defying act she was about to execute, spilling droplets of red, the rain that preluded the start of a gory monsoon.

“ ... Sss… ” Her right ear ticced at the coarse whistle of a voice.

“Ma— Marc?” Slowly, with the gravity of her emotions still etched on her features, Sigrid turned her head to the source of the noise.

“ ... Ggid… wh… ssi… ” His lips hardly articulated, but those definitely were not crude groans, Sigrid understood.

“You are… talking to me?” Tension eased further in Sigrid; she no longer bunched her free hand nor held the sword tight against her wrist.

“ ... Sg… wh— eere… wher… ” His soto voice lessened with every whisper. In no time, his tone would once more adopt that shallow respiration, face dropping more and more.

“N-no…” Her avian features crumpled with sorrow, her eyes watery and about to overflow. “I— I’m here!” Sigrid caught Marek’s cheek with the hand she was about to relinquish. “I’m here, Marc! I have not left your side. I would never!”

“ Ssii… ggd… ”

“Just a little more… I f-figured out how to save you… when you wake up, I’ll be there… you’ll s-see me cuddling… embracing y-oou… warming… you…” A pause. “... You’ll see me… bloodied… and short of a…”

Sigrid no longer had the energy to widen her eyes or yelp in surprise, but that did not mean the realization struck with less intensity. She herself did not want to see Marek in a weakened state — yet she tried to pass that burden to him by mutilating herself.

Guilt had tormented him when he fired that explosive cylinder and coated her with a layer of char. Sadness had taken over when he let Madakai drive her away from the mountain down the ravine.

What she was about to do was nothing short of foolish, reckless, and selfish.

Marek would have never accepted Sigrid tearing herself apart, not even for his sake.

Tears resumed their stream, quietly leaking out of her half-lidded owl eyes. “I… don’t… want to keep going…” Taking Dalavut by the edge and loosening her and Marek’s grip, Sigrid swung her left arm and flung the longsword to the corner of the cave, provoking a clunk to travel throughout the chamber.

And after the echo, silence. Not even the twisted gurgle of the weapon kept humming in her head.

“ Hoo... I’m sorry…” And after the pregnant pause, a sorrowful hoot. “I cannot use the weapon…” She leaned against Marek and wrapped her arms around his sheet-covered body. “I’m a fool and doomb… feew… I cannot think of a way to keep you healthy… I’m too stoopid… ooh… ”

Just like before she tried to use Dalavut to her advantage, Sigrid whimpered and wheezed on Marek’s head, letting her tears run through the black hairs of the bedridden fighter.

She wanted to wail to the night, for her grief to reach every living being at the Icing Boundary. It was all so exhausting, and howling her sadness was the only way she could cope with it.

But she needed to refrain from such an act. Her male needed her, and shedding tears would do nothing but worsen his condition with cool droplets.

Without turning her face or even separating from Marek, Sigrid extended her arm to reach for the runed sword, planning to retake the previous course of action. She missed the target; during her unsuccessful epiphany, Sigrid neglected the shortsword and put it out of her reach.

Too tired to look back, she used her left wing to detect through tact the exact location of the magic item, dragging the quills along the surface until they touched the now-cooled blade. With the shortsword already localized, she was about to extend her arm, but an idea interrupted her.

At the spark of thought, Sigrid detached from the man’s head and looked behind. The sword loomed close, so close to the point that missing it would be considered laughable. Nonetheless, with her remiges grazing the length, her throat synchronized with her idea, and she let out a sentence.

“ Flares to thy blade. ” It took a fraction of a second for Sigrid to discern the temperature change. The blade required direct contact with its wielder, but not necessarily by hand.

Her beak gaped a dash, and one heartbeat later, Sigrid crawled with urgency toward the spawner of warmth, using both hands to grasp the hilt, clumsily fumbling a couple of times before securing the item in her grip.

“Maybe… maybe I can do something else… ” Her mind operated like a gear mechanism. Her head almost drew a full circle as she surveyed her surroundings, coming up with human-like ideas, the fruit of her time with Imbi.

It all came together — a way to maximize the heat without shedding more red liquid.

Sigrid rose in a blink and scooted a couple of yards in front of Marek, impaling the runed sword in the hard rock. Next, she turned around and went for Marek.

Momentarily, she exposed the man from the fur layer and began to take his clothes off. Boots, pants, and underwear — all pieces of clothing — were stripped from him. It was a quick act; it needed to be: Marek should not lie uncovered to the arctic breeze for more time than necessary. At one point, she struggled with the trousers and was tempted to tear the fabric apart, but as far as she knew, that was the only set of clothes Marek had, thus irreplaceable.

Despite her haste, Sigrid never dropped her gentleness.

Once no other piece of textile was stuck on his body, Sigrid enveloped him and herself with the furs, subsequently lying on the floor. The cocoon of reindeer hides was almost sealed, its only aperture located at Sigrid’s back, where one of her wings stuck out to the surface — the same wing with which she began stretching above Marek and directly for the incrustate sword.

And with a length that matched the eight feet, it was a trivial task for the chimera to place the palm of her wing over the pommel of the weapon. “ Flares to thy blade. ” One phrase, and the work was done.

Like a fire, the enchanted blade flared with calidness, far enough not to scorch Marek and close enough to transmit comfortable hotness, just as Sigrid intended from the very beginning.

“That’ll do…” She adjusted her embrace. It could not be seen, but her snow-white body enveloped Marek beneath the furs, one wing slipping below and rising to the back where it met with both arms, with legs and thighs hugging him at the level of the hip.

In more lighthearted circumstances, that embrace would have made her tuft puff in both abashment and loveliness; given that Marek’s life was on the line, she could not think about other things but keeping his heart beating and lungs inflating and deflating.

“I did everything I could to keep you warm, Marc…” Sigrid whispered with her mask right in front of Marek’s face. “The battle is up to you now.” She rubbed her curved beak one last time across the human nose, cheek, and lips. “I trust you. You are the strongest hooman ever.”

Sigrid managed a soft smile filled with both sadness and hopefulness. Afterward, she tuned up with a quiet and soothing melody, the same birdlike tone she used during Marek’s previous fit. The vibrations of her hum spread through the duo like vibrations on a lyre’s strings, and just like a music box, her tones gave off a nostalgic and gentle sentiment.

Like a mother wolf nursing her cub with soft whines or a snowcat purring on her kittens, Sigrid’s croon transmitted comfort to Marek and, surprisingly, to her. Eventually, the owl-chimera lullabied herself to sleep, for once letting the tiredness overtake her body now that the battle against the elements ended.

The songbirdlike candle song hushed until it disappeared in the wind. No more tears flowed that night, and, like a rock, Sigrid sank into the sea of dreams, hoping that when awakening came, she would feel the living and tepid blow of her loved one in her mask.

Goodnight, my love…

—————————————————————————————————————————————

“Hate… this…”

All the way down to the glacier floor, amid its myriad of alleyways of dirty white and semitranslucent turquoise, a unique entity, thought to be beyond earthly hardships, battled against the circumstances.

“Hate… this…”

A pair of legs, formerly elegant in their strut, tottered like a reindeer fawn’s sticks during its first steps, ready to collapse at every moment. The left hand, petrified into ice, obstructed what used to be a desirable swell, now burst into a swirl of selenite-looking crystals.

“Hate… this…”

A castle tower collapsing over her head would do nothing but dust her figure and ruin her clothes. What was that compared to a thousand-foot fall?

Ice crunched as the one who clung to the title of mistress tripped. “ Krr— damned ice… hate it… too…”

Against all odds, Kiya had survived unscathed a fall that would otherwise flatten most living beings into a paste of oozing red. Nevertheless, the aftermath of her defeat had cost her the little she had obtained ever since she came into the Frostscape.

Beaten down by the fearful Howling Talon, Kiya’s previously smooth skin had been replaced by crystal ice. That her body would abandon its illusion of skin upon taking significant damage was a shocking particularity — her mother must have omitted that detail during the short time they spent together. Although no less captivating than before, Kiya now looked more like a moving sculpture than a being of flesh.

“It’s… all… your fault…”

The remnants of her silken dress, embroidered by her mother’s servants, had succumbed to the descent. Not a single thread of that exotic fabric remained whole, and now her white-as-snow self lay bare to the outside world.

Kiya was not more vulnerable while naked, and coldness induced a small degree of comfort to her battered frame; nevertheless, like a sweet kiss on a stomach stab, the elements under her command failed to bring real ease into their matron. That dress — the kimono — had been her sole reminder of her wealthy life.

Everything left of that mighty and gorgeous elemental who could subdue entire settlements was the capacity to walk away, to escape with her splintered pride into the wild and the unknown.

“Your fault…” The hateful mantra went on. “It’s all your fault… geezer…”

Kiya’s senses left the present, the intensity of her pain making her revive the breaking point that cast her in this miserable place.

Your days of luring men into their death have concluded, you wicked spirit! The echo in her memories was crinkly and hoarse, heavy with many generations, but also deep and filled with firmness.

“... What I did… was inconsequential…” Kiya murmured as if she were reliving the memory. “... people… die all the time… The lives of a few… are as trivial as a ripple in the middle of the sea…”

Your power may be greater than that of this elder priest, and I cannot kill you, but I can send you back.

“Back?... Back… to where?… ” Her legs staggered, but she kept dragging herself forward. “That is my home… I was born here… foolish mortal… You have the authority to banish me no where… ”

You proved yourself to be unworthy to live among us, earthly beings. Thus, I sent you a place rich in your essence.

“No… *no… * you— cannot…” She growled raspingly, enraged eyes latching onto a nonexistent ghost presumably located in front. “This… Frostscape… is not rich in my essence… It’s anathema to me!”

As expected by everyone not afflicted by delirium, the illusory priest gave no reaction to Kiya’s bawl, and he began to chant in the one ancient dialect of the Vermillion Islands before shouting. “ Begone, spirit! Disappear from this land! Torment mankind no more! ”

“ Don’t you dare… ” Kiya extended her frosted arm forward. “My wealth… grr— my home… my very life… You cannot take it from m— !”

Unaware, too lost in her self-induced illusion, Kiya stumbled upon a slippery surface and floundered, crashing into the hard ice with surprising clumsiness. The impact, which resounded clearly throughout the glacial hall, freshened the ache of her wounds, though it did not aggravate them.

Her dignity, however, was a whole different matter.

An unpleasant beat passed, a time Kiya took to digest that she no longer stood before the priest — a time to digest that she was no longer in the calm Kuriroku. She was homeless, allyless, and graceless in an unknown land.

“... Curse you…” She muttered with disdain. “Curse… you… all! ” The ice beneath her shook and fissured into icy plates as her anger evolved into a slam; such a bang was the prelude of many more to come. “Humans treat their own less humanely than I do! What I did was no w-worse than hunting for food! That babbling g-geezer… T-that beastlayer brawler… That abominable buzzard… Selfish… Humanitarian snobs, all of them… Fuck you all!”

The glacial floor underwent punishment for another while, the air thickening with variable curses, several of which were hissed in the Vermilion Island’s language. In normal circumstances, the very wind would join its commander in its tantrum with potent currents, but that night, it barely succeeded in making the plum-colored hair whirl.

The bangs eventually faded away, leaving a crack carved in the ice as a testimony to Kiya’s outburst, its diameter as long as she was tall.

“... They can rot in hell,” Kiya hissed lowly after a pause. “ Ghh— I’m… not done… I’m still an empress in an uncontrolled land… That Marc will die, whereas I’ll prevail to erect another palace…” Her injuries were severe, but not to the point that they tormented her with impending death. With due care, the cracks and nicks would mend, and her breast would regrow into its round and sultry shape.

Kiya only needed a shelter to rest in, after which she would find a place less untamed and more traveled by humans to settle in. Kiya had no interest in taking revenge on Howling Talon — not after the beatdown the elemental had experienced — nonetheless, were the human fighter to die, there was a possibility the manticorespawn would seek retribution, and that haunted Kiya with a sense of urgency.

Her authority over the snowy and arctic monsters would help her to build a private army of some sort: the idea of allying with beasts almost made her spit, but what other choice did she have? However vast the Frostscape might be, Kiya would eventually stumble upon a creature.

Her teeth gritted along her dainty jaw after she evaluated her options. “I guess… I’ll have to find another beast to guide me… kr— It’s that or wander in blind…”

Kiya groaned as she picked herself up, but her many wounds anchored her to face the floor, ripples of pain traveling across her frosted being with every wince of her joints. “ Krr… bear it with the chin high, Kiya. You are a monarchess…” One leg at a time, Kiya eventually managed to support her weight on a knee and one foot; a lungful breath in and out, and she finally took her eyes off the ground.

“... eh? ”

Then, she saw it: a spot, one that had not been there the last time, one painted with ashen tones of magenta, akin to a wilted rose.

It split into two branches — those were legs with feet, she discerned, their appearance taut and bony. A set of sharp, colorless nails pointed in her direction.

Is that… a human carcase? Did I miss something obvious like that… Wait… Why… Why would a frozen corpse be standing? Her gaze kept moving up from the ground, uncovering new details she would soon regret finding.

Fatless thighs, devoid of muscular mass. Some dark kit reduced to tatters, waving faintly with the wind. Thin fingers looking like long, vermin legs. Jutting bones in every joint, threatening to pop out of the stretched skin.

Every ghastly aspect Kiya detected brought about apprehension upon her, which accumulated until her disbelief began to materialize across her silhouette in the form of squirms.

Kiya caught a glimpse of hair darker than hers, and then her sight passed by rows of ribs bulging over a fibrous chest. She was hyperventilating by that point, her mouth ajar as she built a scream deep down her throat.

Her view traced the tight cervix and up until she saw it — a gruesome injury, dried of blood like an ancient river in the desert, located where the jaw should have been, with a mutilated tongue hanging and ineffectively covering the raw opening that led down to the guts.

A row of teeth, white as ivory, flashed with two dagger-like fangs pointing downward.

Kiya’s violet eyes widened to their fullest, and her lower lip trembled like a piece of pudding. The breaking point was the attribute that loomed above the flattened nose — two rings engraved with the patterns of the planet’s bowels— no, of hell’s bowel, swimming over a sea of blackened sap.

The rings stared right into her soul, the gold shine of his eyes burning past the whizzing snow and swirling winds, sending impossible chills through her frosted body.

It was no monster. Howling Talon was a monster, however unique she might be — that thing standing yards away was nothing short of a demon.

“Ah— Aaaaaahhhhh! ” The very force of Kiya’s shriek, heavy with utter terror, threw her unstable body backward and made her fall over on her buttocks. “Whawhawhawhawha— what are you?! ” Every trace of an elegant mistress, which until now had survived the encounter with Howling Talon, snuffed out like a candle amidst a flood.

She screamed like a child who awoke after a nightmare; her eyes were bulging and focused on the otherworldly rings, incapable of staring anywhere else. She could have sworn she saw her own face burning inside them.

The devil reacted in the least to her cries; he did not even blink.

“St— S-stay a-away! ” The shout was intense, yet it could be perceived as a plea rather than a warning. “I— I’m a S-spirit, you-u… you cr-creature! ” No response; the demon only gazed down, with the only movement coming from the waver of his hair.

The entity’s unresponsiveness did nothing but make Kiya’s panic soar, the feeling emptying the remnants of strength in her legs. She could not pick herself up and flee at full speed, cornered to drag herself behind using her elbows.

“I’m the F-frostscape, entity of the un-underworld— get an inc-ch closer and you’ll fa-fa-face the wrath of na-nature!” Not even Kiya herself believed the words coming out of her mouth.

The jawless monster regarded her for a moment, seeing how she desperately shuffled on her back away from him. Kiya achieved the wretched deed of moving ten feet when the creature opted to do something. He stepped forward, patient, eliciting no sound with his footsteps.

The purple inside Kiya’s eyes jerked. “Nononono… I s-said st-stay away!” Her right arm swung up and ahead, and a spear of ice sprouted from the ground, lunging slantwise for the creature’s head.

He hardly tilted his head to the left, and the needle whistled inches away from his cheekbone, missing its mark.

Miss?! How could I miss?!

Before Kiya could linger more in her blunder, the entity stopped and, with his left hand — his only left hand, the elemental noticed — grasped the length of solid coldness. The ice crunched; instants later, it shattered into dozens of splinters.

Then, he continued advancing as if nothing had happened.

I’m not done. With clenched teeth, Kiya gathered her remaining energies and lifted her other arm in a half-stiff movement. Another spike upspeared, its speed and width inferior to her latest attack.

In midair, the icy spear burst into hundreds of tiny shards before reaching its target — the entity had intercepted the attack with his handless arm. He did not even bat an eye.

He— he destroyed it?! This cannot be. This cannot be! Desperately, Kiya tried to call for more spikes, but her stamina had already been depleted. The only needles that manifested did not surpass two feet in length, and the creature casually circumvented them with casual treads.

A defense was no longer within her options.

Not lost. Not lost. Not everything is lost. “W— *wait! * Aug— ” The simple action of amplifying her voice infused her with pain. “Y-you— was— are a man. I’m a s-source of warmth among m-men.” She tried to make her voice sound more coquettish, but fear and ache turned the knife on her throat. “I can— I can b-bestow pl-pleasure upon you! Gi-gi-give you c-company!”

The desiccated monster gave off no hesitation, deaf to the elemental’s attempt at a proposal as if her beautiful voice were not more impactful than the flutter of a moth.

Unbeknownst to Kiya, the mind of whatever kind the demon belonged to had long ago been warped by the ether of a distant plane. Their psyche operated on another level of existence.

Mental inducements could not ‘touch’ them.

Nonononononono. Why isn’t he reacting? Kiya tried to pick up the pace, but her arms were not leading her far. She attempted to call up more ice, at least to freeze the creature’s soles to the floor, but only hoarfrost came out, spreading no more than one yard from her palms.

She felt under the effects of a ghostly pressure, as if immersed in one of these nightmares where the sleeper could not move or even blink, defenseless against the devil of blazing eyes who closed in like a hungry vulture.

Her panic evolved — her arms became as wobbly as her legs, and for some reason, she felt the prominent walls of the glaciers leaning in, closing over her naked and vulnerable form, caging her with a devil.

I’m still a high elemental. I cannot be harmed. Right? This akuma doesn’t give off the aura of a high demigod as I do. He is just extremely hideous. He lacks the power. He must lack the power!

Sooner than later, the undead stood tall, inches away from Kiya, reckoning her with a keen and strange interest. What would the monster want from her? Quench his hunger? Hunger for what? Lust? Flesh? Soul? Morbid insight?

“Help… Help m-me! Nija! Boris! Anyone! T-to me! Pl-please! I need— aargh! ” He lashed out, its near-skeletal hulk blurring, and a pressure coiled around her fine neck, the strain ironclad. Kiya was then raised off the icy floor with trivial difficulty. “N—no!… Let me—!” Kiya choked out a few coherent words before the strangle turned too strong.

How?! Howhowhowhowhow?! Why am I being damaged?! “Ple— let… m… go—” Why can he hurt me?

Crack. Diminutive fissures began manifesting across her neck, and so did the icy white color of her injuries.

Why can everybody harm me?

Kiya raised her arms and tried to get the emaciated claws off her neck. His skin felt cold, even for an ice elemental. It emanated no form of warmth, not on top or underneath the leathery skin, and she felt no blood flow.

He was devoid of vital functions.

Why can two creatures harm me? Am I not a high elemental? Am I not an elite among my kind? One last attempt — ice energy was released from her palms and expanded in slow ripples, covering the entity’s arm. She saw the withered surface get covered by a thin layer of ice, crackling and peeling off skin in small amounts.

Whether her effort caused any level of pain upon the apparition, Kiya did not see it.

She could not absorb his warmth, either. There was nothing to absorb.

Creak-pop.

Something cracked, and it was not the assailant’s arm. The sound stemmed from her neck.

As an elemental, Kiya needed not to breathe, but even as a powerful sample of her kind, she would not survive if her neck split apart.

Didn’t you say I was untouchable, Mom? That only an insignificant minority could? “Mo… I… want…” Without noticing, Kiya’s language drifted into her native one. Not like one could tell the difference going by the way she choked out. Why did you lie to me, Mom? Why didn’t you prepare me better?

More dry crunches resounded. Kiya was one foot above the floor, eyes aligned with the demon’s circlets of irises. She kicked in the air, but as the pressure around her neck increased, her strength lessened; after a few seconds, her legs could not sway enough to touch her attacker.

“ Want… home… ” She wheezed, her voice no louder than a whistle. “ Miss… Hom… Hom… ”

This has been no banishment. Another pop and crack emerged from within the grip that squeezed her neck. Just then, droplets of sorrow sprouted from her eyes and ran down her face. The priest sent me here to die. This banishment… Her lower jaw was no longer skin but hard ice; the tears had become frost as well. … was a death sentence all along—

Snap!

A myriad of creaks and crackles echoed night and day across the alleyways of the glacial landscape, the sound variable in continuancy and intensity. Yet, none of them compared to the snap that reverberated now — it was not louder or lengthy, but it transported a grim sensation with its sound.

It was the last breath of possibly the last elemental of the Everfrozen Lands.

Kiya’s body elicited no spasmodic jerk, nor did it go heavy with sagginess. Rather, her body creaked as the white of her wounds spread over the rest of her frame. Lips. Eyes. Hair. The small shades of pink belonging to her lips and more intimate parts, as well as the dark of her irises and locks, were swallowed and replaced by white.

By the time the freezing sound died off entirely, Kiya’s body had completed the transformation of flesh and skin into pure ice. Now, her lean, womanly shape floated above the floor in the form of a statue. Reflective. Glassy.

Crackle-crack.

And, of course, brittle.

Shards that used to compose Kiya’s anatomy ticced as they tumbled. They first came down in splinters, but after a few seconds, a more sizable chunk plunged and shattered on impact. The chunk in question, although partially destroyed, was oval-shaped and had flat strands extending from it, all featuring uniform patterns.

It also had sculpted the grievous grimace of a maiden. The piece of the statue caught Kiya’s last emotions flawlessly. No detail was lost on her transmutation to ice.

The cadaverous demon — Madakai Striigori — stared a little more at the headless corpse of the elemental. The undead had no power to reanimate the cadavers of the elemental entities — that gift belonged only to less than a handful of Undead Overlords.

There had not been a real reason for him to slay the ice maiden, but during the entity’s loudsome swearing, few of her words captured the lieutenant’s interest, so he opted to get information out of her.

Needless to say, an entity of such caliber should be disposed of after he revealed himself. He might be the last of his kind, and there could be no loose ends that could potentially threaten his existence.

An elemental of coldhed. He mused. To think a gripe of them had not voided beyond thy Icing Boundary.

The vampire kept studying the headless corpse of the elemental. The moment she died and turned into solid ice, the arms remained hooked to his own, preventing the sculpture from dropping. Its integrity would not last long, Madakai knew; the growing creaks of the arms’ joints were proof enough.

But that did not matter: his job was done.

Not many could inflict injuries upon these entities. Magickal mettle could curven thir bodies, but there is no clife cut of thy gift or thy elven weapon… these wounds seemed inflicted by a firk.

The solidity of the statue’s arms reached its limit and shattered. The most fragile parts of the cadaver were ruined upon falling; a headless and limbless trunk was all that was left. Even reduced to half its original mass, the sculpture was as gorgeous as in life.

Madakai did not react to the body breaking; he was too lost in thought.

Indeed. Thy winged firk… Its feathers veilth more than thy eyes can conceave. He stared down at what used to be the ice elemental. And it seemeth thy lesson had been carved upon thee.

Madakai shifted his gaze to the horizon, beyond the screen of white that permeated the skies.

He could feel it; it was floating in his mind. A sense of utter disappointment, frustration even, as if someone had his desire to join a feast rejected, instead secluding it in a corner to see how everyone took a share of his food.

The feeling originated not from the vampire but from a cursed item.

Caud-pie, do not thou think? They have put thee inside a scawberk. They put aside thee — for-leted thee — to collect dust as doth an old kitchen knife. Cast to rust with tedium, all whilst they think of a manner of ridding thee.

Madakai raised his arm and stretched it toward a faraway location in a manner that looked like he was trying to lend a helping hand.

Say it. Decantate me. Say thou need me. I will help thee, but let me hear thine song once more.

He stood quiet, eyes unblinking, hair softly swaying back and forth, just like the remnants of his attire. His patience was a feature that only a millennial entity could attain, an ability few could achieve.

…

Thy living hath thy gift. ** A glimmer of triumph manifested in Madakai’s eyes. Not even the fragment of the Netherian Princess had a patience that surpassed Madakai’s. **Thy living hath me. Free me. Free me.

He had no lower jaw, and yet, an elated grin was palpable across his mangled face, one smile worthy of being among the worst of nightmares of all younglings.

Shall be done, my gift. He tilted his head down and made a classy gesture with his hand. This is our joute. Both of us art entangled in these circumstances. But do not forget… He straightened his head. Thou need me.

Free me. Freedom from thy gaol. Freedom from thy living.

In short order, Madakai abandoned his minimalistic bow and observed the horizon for another while.

He was no fool — Madakai was at his lowest, he recognized. The winged chimera had just slain an elemental of ice, one belonging to a high class, a feat that should not be taken lightly. He had no chance of winning a direct encounter against the sellsword or his beast.

Time was on his side, but the same could not be said about Dalavut, who could only hear how its current wielder conspired to get rid of it.

Resorting to guileful tactics was his only alternative.

In due time, my precious gift. The vampire turned away from the scene. The blazing sphere would soon set over the arctic sky, and he needed shelter. In due time.

He moved off slowly, generating the least of noises, leaving a crazing head with panic and sorrow carved cleanly across its surface, a hair-raising expression that could only be erased by the radiant sunlight.

Such a thriving expression that one was.

Madakai might have mastered patience, but that did not prevent him from daydreaming about mortals eliciting the same expression before his presence once more.