Chapter 34: Echoes of the Frost

  Ronen moved closer to Vivian, his voice a low rasp that barely carried over the whistling wind. "The village head wasn't lying... we’re trapped here, aren't we?"

  Vivian nodded slowly, her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. A layer of frost-like gravity settled in her eyes. "Not necessarily. At least last night, Wolf was still able to contact Alice through magical means."

  But her expression didn't soften. If anything, it grew more somber. "But if even magic fails... we are completely severed from the world." She looked at Ronen, her gaze unnervingly intense. "Unable to communicate, unable to leave. To the outside world, our status would be..."

  "Missing," Ronen finished for her, his face darkening. "Or worse."

  "Wait, what do you mean 'trapped'?"

  Zoe had managed to recover some of her spirit. Though she hadn't won her jerky back from the sled dog’s jaws, she at least had the strength to stand and speak. She hurried toward them, the relief of her survival fading into a new, sharper dread. "What are you talking about? Why can't we leave?"

  Ronen and Vivian exchanged a look. They saw no point in shielding her anymore. "That blizzard you encountered wasn't an accident, Zoe," Ronen said, his voice heavy. "It’s likely... not a natural phenomenon at all."

  They laid out what they had learned from Lei Fei that morning.

  "So... it’s not just me?" Zoe’s voice began to tremble. "Anyone who tries to leave gets lost in that storm and ends up right back here?"

  "So far, that seems to be the rule."

  "How can that be..." Zoe staggered back, then suddenly spun around toward the camp carriage. "I don't believe it—I’m going to try again! Right now!"

  "Zoe!" Vivian grabbed her arm, her grip firm. "Calm down. At least eat something first!"

  "How can I be calm?!" Zoe snapped her head back, her eyes rimmed with red. The playful girl from before was gone, replaced by someone frantic. "While there’s still daylight, I have to get out! I have to!"

  "Running blindly into a storm won't solve anything," Ronen stepped forward, his presence grounding. "There are too many things wrong with this village, and the blizzard is only the beginning."

  "Then what? We just sit here and wait to be eaten?" Zoe wrenched her arm free, her voice cracking.

  At that exact moment, a gust of bone-chilling wind shrieked through the village without warning. The violent air whipped up a veil of snow, lashing against their faces and forcing them to squint.

  Ronen’s heart gave a sudden, violent jolt—but it wasn't a reaction to the cold. A primal, suffocating fear surged from the depths of his soul, cold as the void.

  “Save me...”

  A girl’s voice, weak and hauntingly beautiful, echoed directly in his mind.

  Ronen’s pupils contracted. He forced his eyes open against the biting wind, and the world before him shattered.

  The snow-covered dirt path of Dragonwood was gone. He was standing in a dark, subterranean ice cellar. Directly ahead was a massive, heavy wall of ice—less a wall and more a monolithic block of frozen time. And deep within that translucent blue depth...

  A figure was suspended.

  It was a girl.

  The ice blurred her features, yet Ronen felt as though he could pierce through the frost and the distance to "see" her purity. For a fleeting second, he traced the delicate contour of her face and saw a single, crystallized tear hanging from the corner of her closed eye.

  “Save me...”

  The voice came again, half-sigh, half-plea. The tear slid from her eye, falling through the ice.

  The eyes are lying!

  The thought pierced his consciousness like an ice pick. The next second, the cellar began to shake and warp, as if stirred by an invisible hand. The world spun, and Ronen was forced to close his eyes.

  But the vertigo didn't stop. He stumbled back, bracing his hands against his knees to keep from collapsing. When he opened his eyes again—

  The wind had died. The dust of the snow settled slowly.

  He was back on the road in Dragonwood, surrounded by familiar fences and eaves. No cellar, no ice wall, and no frozen girl.

  Vivian was leaning against a mud wall, her back bent, gasping for air with a sickly pallor on her face. Zoe had collapsed onto the ground, her chest heaving as if she had just woken from a nightmare.

  "Did you... did you hear anything? Or see anything?" Ronen’s voice carried a rare tremor as his gaze darted between the two women.

  "What did you see?" Vivian countered immediately, her composure returning as a sharp, professional edge.

  "I saw a girl... sealed deep in an ice cave..." Ronen struggled to find the words, but his sentence cut off abruptly.

  A sudden, crystalline certainty flooded his mind. It wasn't a picture or a sound, but a sense of direction—cold, sharp, and undeniable. He raised a trembling hand and pointed straight to the north.

  "That way... she’s that way! I can feel it. It’s not far."

  Vivian’s brow furrowed deeply. She turned and knelt before Zoe, wiping the cold sweat from the girl’s brow with her sleeve. She gripped Zoe’s shoulders steadily. "Zoe, I know you're terrified. But we need a mage right now. I need you to find your center. Can you do that?"

  Zoe was pale as a ghost, but she nodded fervently. "I... what do I do?"

  "Detect the mana flow around us," Vivian commanded, staring into her eyes. "Can you sense any magical traces? Any abnormal fluctuations?"

  Zoe closed her eyes, focusing. A faint magical shimmer flickered in her pupils, but after a moment, she shook her head blankly. "Nothing... I can't feel a thing."

  "Are you sure? Not even a ripple?"

  "I don't know... should I be feeling something? I... I can't tell..." Zoe’s voice began to shake again.

  "Did you see a vision too?" Vivian asked, her voice soft but direct.

  Zoe’s expression was instantly seized by terror. "There were fragments... images flashing before me... but I couldn't make them out. I didn't see a girl or a cave, it was something else... I don't know! I don't know!!"

  Ronen turned to Vivian. "And you? What did you see?"

  Unlike Zoe’s panic, Vivian had regained her usual calm, though a lingering chill remained in her eyes. Her right eyelid gave a tiny, involuntary twitch. "It seems we all experienced some form of hallucination."

  "Hallucination?"

  "Because what I saw couldn't possibly be real." She spoke with iron certainty, then lowered her voice. "I suspect a mage is subjecting us to mental interference from the shadows. But..." She glanced at the distraught Zoe, a flash of helplessness crossing her face. "I can't confirm it. In our current state, even if there is someone, we have no way to track them."

  Suddenly, her eyes sharpened. "Where’s Mark? If someone is attacking us from the dark, Mark is alone!"

  Their eyes met, and without a word, they spun around and bolted toward the temporary residence.

  The wind howled low, carrying an unnatural chill that seemed to freeze the very air into invisible shackles. The village was small; the house they had stayed in was only a short distance away.

  But as they reached the front, they skidded to a halt.

  The wooden door, which should have been bolted and reinforced, was standing wide open. The monster’s corpse that had been lying by the door was gone. In its place was a scent of blood so thick it felt viscous, drifting out with the wind and clinging to their breath.

  "Uncle!" Zoe screamed, being the first to charge inside. She called out his name repeatedly, but there was no answer.

  Ronen and Vivian exchanged a sharp look, drawing their weapons in unison. With light, calculated steps, they followed her in.

  The air inside the house felt heavy, stagnant, as if every breath required swallowing damp cloth. Ronen’s heart hammered against his ribs—a dark omen, hatching in the silence.

  In the center of the dim hall, the monster’s corpse had reappeared. But it was no longer recognizable. It had been torn apart, crushed into a blurred mass of gore. Dark red fluid seeped from the remains, snaking across the floor to form a widening, horrific pool. The stench was a physical weight, pressing against their chests.

  "He’s not here..." Zoe stumbled out of the back room, her voice trembling. The house was small and sparse; there was nowhere to hide. She had searched every corner.

  Vivian’s gaze remained locked on the mangled remains, her guard up. "Maybe he left on his own. Or maybe—"

  She never finished the sentence.

  BOOM!!!

  A thunderous explosion cut her off, the force of it shaking the old house to its foundations. Then came a series of crashing sounds—the unmistakable noise of something massive collapsing.

  The three of them looked out the window simultaneously. Not far away, another small hut had collapsed into a heap of rubble, sending a plume of dust into the grey sky.

  Without a word, they turned and ran toward the ruins.