Opening Scene

  The streets of the Citadel did not sleep. They watched.

  Lit only by the wavering tongues of necrice flame—ghostly blue-green lanterns swaying from iron chains—shadows moved with elegant caution through alleyways paved in obsidian stone. The air here carried a chill that clung to the bones and whispered along the edges of thought. Some claimed it was the wind. Others knew better.

  They called it the eyes and breath of Eryndis Skaldar.

  EVen in her absence, her presence lingered—woven into the very ice that laced the walls and crowned the arched rooftops. And beneath it all, the Citadel pulsed with the low rhythm of the Shadow Web, threads pulling taut and loose in perfect silence.

  Ralof Skaldar walked like a man who owned the night.

  His blue-black hair was pulled back in a lazy knot, a long coat fluttering around his calves with each unhurried step. Beside him clung a lithe assassin dressed in a whisper of silk and dusk-leather, her golden hair bound in coils that shimmered under the flame’s ghostlight.

  “You really shouldn’t walk these streets with someone like me,” she murmured, her voice soft and dangerous.

  He smirked. “Darling, if I feared women like you, I wouldn’t still be alive.”

  She laughed, a sultry exhale that fogged the air between them. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

  “I know.”

  They stopped beneath an arching stone bridge carved with serpentine runes, half-buried in frost. The woman leaned in, brushing her lips close to his ear as if sharing a secret with the dark itself.

  “Priests. Hollow-eyed. Speaking to no one. Moved like fog. Word is they came down from the north, from some fractured faith on the edge of the world.”

  “Anima Sola,” Ralof whispered, the name slipping from his mouth like an old scar resurfacing.

  She leaned back, eyes narrowing. “You know it?”

  “I know to listen when the wind stops blowing.”

  He took her hand, kissed her knuckles like a gentleman trained by devils, then released her.

  “Thank you for the night... and the morning.”

  “Both were excellent,” she said with a satisfied sigh, turning on her heel. “You owe me dinner next time. And something... dangerous.”

  Ralof watched her vanish into the mist, then turned toward the edge of the city where the necrice flames burned faintest. Somewhere in the beyond, something sacred was stirring, and in Niflheim, sacred things were either killed—or claimed.

  He adjusted the collar of his coat and began walking, the frost hissing beneath his boots like a warning.

  “No time like the present." he said with a sigh and a stretch.

  "Let's find these whispers in the wind..."

  Scene 1: The Serpent Coils

  The frozen falls of Niflheim whispered like a grave unsealed.

  Icicles hung in jagged, fanged clusters from the overhang of blacksteel cliffs—teeth of the mountain frozen in mid-snarl. Water once flowed here in thunderous torrents, but no longer. Time had stopped it. Entombed it. Beneath the still cascade, behind curtains of ancient frost, a narrow crevice opened into silence.

  It was not carved. It was grown—breathed into shape by generations of stillness and sacred reverence. The chamber beyond was smooth and dark, its walls of deep obsidian veined faintly with flickering silver. This was not natural light, but something else—resonance, woven into the stone itself. The armithium wasn’t visible. But it sang.

  Bjornir Skaldar knelt there—bare-chested, unshaking—on stone slick as mirror-glass. Snow gathered on his shoulders. His long hair was soaked with meltwater and ice. Green-violet veins laced his skin like living runes, glowing softly beneath the pale flicker of ghostlight fire.

  He had been still for hours.

  Within him: descent.

  J?rmungandr—the World Serpent—coiled through his inner vision, vast and slow, an ouroboros wound through his soul. It wasn’t a dream. It was communion. Bjornir’s consciousness hovered in a darkness deeper than sleep, a void lit only by the shimmer of a serpent's infinite form.

  Its scales gleamed with the color of venom on starlight. Its breath was older than ice. And as it circled once more, it turned its head and locked eyes with him.

  That was when the red appeared.

  Just a gleam at first. Then a pulse.

  Not heat. Not rage. Not poison. But something other.

  A resonance. A beacon. A knowing.

  The serpent’s eye glowed crimson—and held him.

  It saw through him. Into him. Past him.

  Bjornir’s body remained frozen in the waterfall’s grave-cold embrace, but inside, his soul trembled. The pulse wasn’t his. The rhythm wasn’t his. The fire didn’t belong here—and yet… it called.

  He opened his eyes.

  The cavern remained still. The ice, unmoved.

  But the world had changed.

  Later — The Inner Halls of Ice

  The Skaldar stronghold rose like a black cathedral carved from the spine of winter itself. Pillars of dark stone rose in coiling arcs, mimicking fangs and thorns. Necrice flames hovered in silver sconces shaped like fangs and claws, casting a pale, blue-green glow against walls that shimmered faintly—not with light, but resonance.

  This was not power on display. This was power in restraint.

  Whispers clung to the corners. Footsteps were swallowed by the velvet-lined floors. The entire citadel felt alive. Listening. Waiting.

  Eryndis Skaldar stood in her private sanctum—an arched chamber layered in frosted glass and cold marble shadows. She was draped in the finest black silk, her hair cascaded like silver down her back. Before her, a black mirror curved like the spine of a beast.

  She held a single shard of broken crystal—smooth-edged and wet with memory.

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  She did not turn when her son entered.

  "You felt something," she said, the statement colder than the ice that lined her voice.

  Bjornir bowed his head. "Yes."

  She lowered the shard. "Tell me, son."

  His voice was even, but beneath it, something stirred. "The serpent's eyes changed. There was red. Like blood behind glass."

  She turned.

  The mirror dimmed.

  "Did it speak?"

  "No."

  "But it watched you?"

  He nodded once. "It knew me. Knew something."

  She was silent for several heartbeats. Then, slowly: "Then it is not the serpent you saw. Not fully. That red... does not belong to it."

  "Then to what, mother?"

  She walked past him, her hand trailing along the frost-layered wall. "Something older. Something we do not name."

  He frowned. "But you know it."

  Her silence was answer enough.

  Finally, she said, "Once... I felt it. Long ago. Before you were born."

  Bjornir stepped closer. "And..."

  She turned toward the mirror again. "I ignored it."

  "What happened?"

  Her voice dropped to a whisper. "That was the mistake."

  Her eyes shimmered faintly then, and her breath left a sharp mist in the still air. In that moment, she looked not like a queen, or a woman, or a mother—but something that had lived too long. Something ancient, coiled, and watching.

  The mirror cracked slightly. No sound. Just a new line that hadn't been there before.

  Moments Later...

  Bjornir exited the sanctum, his boots tapping faintly on the frost-rimmed floor. The hall here was carved from layered obsidian and shale, each arch shaped like the ribs of some forgotten god. The glowing sconces pulsed gently in their iron mountings, chasing the dark with ghostlight.

  Leaning against a sculpted support pillar of bone-black stone, Viktor Skaldar awaited him.

  The All-Father of Shadows.

  He smirked, his white eye gleaming like ice left in the sun. "She always hated surprises."

  Bjornir didn’t slow.

  "She was right to be afraid," Viktor continued, straightening. "But you—you were born to chase omens."

  Bjornir’s voice was low. "She told me not to follow it."

  "That’s why you should," Viktor said, stepping beside him. "Red eyes in the serpent's gaze? That’s not a warning. That’s a summons."

  They walked together beneath the glowing arches, two shadows moving through cold firelight.

  Somewhere, beneath the Citadel's deepest layers, the stone hissed like a breath drawn sharp. A pulse answered the call of the Red.

  Scene 2: Whispered Drinks and Ice

  The Snared Prey was never loud. Not in the way common taverns were. It breathed in hushes—footsteps softened by velvet runners laid over glistening blacksteel floors, conversations veiled in riddles, and laughter so delicate it could have been mistaken for sighs escaping grave dust.

  Gothic arches framed the space like fangs of a sleeping beast. The ceiling was high, cathedral-like, layered in engraved sigils that shimmered only when necrice flame caught them at the right angle. Chandeliers twisted into the shape of descending serpents dripped pale blue-green fire, casting dappled shadows on walls of midnight stone and frost-veined steel.

  Here, assassins and spies—the ghosts of the world—took their drinks not to forget but to remember in silence.

  Ralof Skaldar stepped into the private lounge with the ease of a man who belonged to shadows. His boots echoed only slightly on the obsidian floor inlaid with mirror-threaded veins, his long coat trailing behind him like smoke caught in moonlight.

  At the far end of the room, behind a bar of dark ironwood inlaid with glowing white runes, stood Mr. Graey.

  "Mr. Graey," Ralof drawled with a smirk, pulling off his gloves. "You’ve always had a talent for timing."

  Mr. Graey inclined his head with the grace of a man built from patience and old secrets. His ivory shirt was pressed crisp, and his collar fastened with a silver pin in the shape of a serpent’s fang. He slid a crystal glass across the bar—already filled, perfectly measured, condensation glistening.

  “Of course, young master,” Graey said, his voice like aged velvet poured over polished blades. “You and your siblings have known me long enough to realize—I prepare before you arrive.”

  Ralof chuckled, lifting the glass and swirling the liquid. Frost clung to its rim like reverence.

  “Mm. And yet, even after all this time, you’re still a hard man to figure out. Tell me—ice in your veins, or just in the glass?”

  Graey allowed the faintest of smiles as he prepared a drink for himself. The deliberate clink of ice into the black-crystal tumbler echoed like a chime through the dim air.

  “The sound of ice in glass,” he said, gaze distant, “is one of life’s more satisfying little certainties. It speaks of balance. Precision. Time.”

  Ralof raised his drink. “To the cold, then.”

  Graey mirrored the motion. “And the clarity it brings.”

  They drank.

  Above them, a lone necrice sconce flared slightly, its flame shifting hues as if listening.

  The silence lingered a few breaths more before Ralof leaned in—still casual, but with the weight of intent. “I overheard something… peculiar last night. About priests. Hollow-eyed ones. Wanderers from the north.”

  Graey’s pale eyes did not blink. “I’ve heard the same. They’ve been seen along the outer streets. Always at night. Never in groups larger than three.”

  Ralof’s fingers tightened ever so slightly around his glass. “Do they speak?”

  “Only to one another. And not in any tongue I’ve heard.” Graey’s voice dropped like a whisper etched into stone. “They disturb no one. But those who watch them too long report… sensations. Pressure behind the eyes. A ringing. As if the stones themselves object to being watched back.”

  Ralof finished his drink, the ice within chiming gently. “And where might a curious bastard find them?”

  Graey set his glass down with the reverence of a priest laying down ritual blades. “They were seen at the Wailing Thread. A bar near the old glassworks—its windows weep frost even in summer. Quiet. Forgotten. But not by them, it seems.”

  “The Wailing Thread,” Ralof repeated, as if tasting the syllables. “How poetic.”

  Graey inclined his head. “And telling.”

  Ralof rose, letting his fingers glide once over the bar. “You’re a treasure, Graey. A cold, enigmatic one.”

  Graey returned the gesture with a ghost of a bow. “Do try not to get yourself killed chasing whispers.”

  Ralof’s grin sharpened like a dagger unsheathed. “No promises.”

  His coat flared as he turned, boots striking softly against the blacksteel floor as he stepped out through wrought-iron doors framed with coiled serpents and pale flame.

  Outside, the frost-bitten air of the Citadel closed around him once more.

  The Wailing Thread waited.

  Scene 3: A Lingering Feeling

  The chamber doors sighed closed behind Queen Lavicia with a sound like wind retreating through hollow halls. Echoes softened against the curved, armithium-carved corridors—veined white like a river frozen mid-motion. Light shimmered faintly from within the walls, responding to her presence with a subdued pulse, never flickering, never failing.

  Leius lingered a moment longer.

  He hadn’t meant to pause. Hadn’t meant to watch.

  But just before the doors shut, his eyes caught it: a touch. Brief. A single graze of her fingers along Lance Valor’s arm. A familiarity that did not belong to formal command or royal decorum. Not inappropriate—not truly. But unguarded. Too long. Too warm.

  He said nothing.

  The corridor was quiet, save for the ever-present thrum beneath the floor—a subtle resonance, as if the Spire itself were aware of its inhabitants. Leius inhaled slowly and turned, only to find someone already watching him.

  “Elliot,” he said without surprise.

  His friend leaned lightly against a flowering wall column—its branches sculpted into seamless marble by resonance shaping. His long coat draped like shadows, and his silver-rimmed glasses caught the opalescent gleam of the corridor’s breathlight.

  “I wasn’t spying,” Elliot said dryly. “Though I do appreciate your commitment to dramatic pauses.”

  Leius offered no smile. “How long have you been here?”

  “Long enough to see you not speak.” Elliot stepped forward, adjusting his glasses with a graceful flick of one finger. “You always square your shoulders when you're confused. I thought perhaps someone insulted your tactical acumen.”

  “No,” Leius replied, voice low. “Just a feeling I’m not sure I trust.”

  Elliot regarded him for a moment, then offered a black folio marked with a pale gold clasp. “The report on Lord Duremont’s movements. I’ve cross-referenced all known correspondences, public and private, going back six months. Nothing illegal, but several meetings took place off-record. Deep underground. No recorded guests.”

  Leius took the file without opening it. “Caution?”

  “Perhaps,” Elliot replied. “Or secrecy. And it seems his security chief resigned the day before his death. Vanished entirely.”

  They walked together down the curving hall, boots muted against the armithium floor. The Spire around them whispered nothing, but it felt like it listened.

  “I keep wondering,” Leius said, gaze fixed forward, “if we’d acted sooner...”

  “No,” Elliot interrupted, his voice measured but firm. “You’re not allowed to take blame for someone else’s silence. That’s not strategy. That’s superstition.”

  They stopped beneath a curved arch of false-stone carved to resemble cascading vines, its surface humming faintly in time with the heartbeat of the Spire. Leius looked down at the folio in his hands.

  “I’ll begin the investigation immediately,” he said. “I want to know who Duremont trusted, and who benefitted most from his silence.”

  “And if the answers lead inward?” Elliot asked.

  Leius’s jaw tightened. “Then we listen more carefully.”

  From the upper levels, a faint vibration rolled through the stone, almost imperceptible—like a breath held by the structure itself.

  Neither man spoke again. But in the stillness, something between them was agreed.

  To be continued...

  Eryndis eased out of her overcoat, the garment sliding from her shoulders in a whisper of silk and authority. The night air kissed her skin, and for a moment, she allowed herself the illusion of stillness.

  Then a voice—low, measured, and laced with something far older than this world.

  “It’s been many years, Lady Eryndis…”

  She didn’t startle. She didn’t need to turn, but she felt the gaze of red eyes resting on her.

  “My son’s vision,” she said, her voice steady. “That’s why you’re here.”

  The answer came like a blade drawn slow across silk.

  “Only to see that you do not ignore the Red this time.”

  Eryndis turned—slowly, precisely.

  The room was empty.

  But the air was warmer than it had been a moment before.

  And the scent of blood lingered on the velvet.