The sky above Skellmoor was a frozen tapestry of cloud and starlight, bleeding pale blue over jagged cliffs and frozen lakes that stretched like shattered glass across the tundra. Winter had long ago claimed the city. What remained was buried beneath snowdrifts and silence—crumbling towers, petrified trees, and icy paths that remembered the footfalls of ghosts.
Mara stood at the edge of the ravine, cloak whipping in the wind. Behind her, the others struggled to navigate the treacherous terrain. Adrian's breath misted in the air as he helped Alric over a slick patch of ice. Elira and Cormac moved with weapons drawn, ever vigilant.
The journey north had been long, their airship grounded a week earlier by a storm that twisted the sky into a black cyclone. Since then, they'd traveled on foot, relying on old maps and Alric's celestial calculations. And now, at the end of that frozen march, the city revealed itself at last.
"What happened here?" Elira whispered, staring out across the ruins.
Alric squinted into the wind. "Skellmoor was once the jewel of the northern realms. A seat of winter magic. Until the Reckoning came. When the Seals began to stir, this city was one of the first to fall."
Mara scanned the skyline. A single spire still stood intact—a needle of obsidian framed by ice-coated bridges and broken domes. Even from here, she could feel the pull.
"The Seal is there," she said softly. "Waiting."
Adrian stepped up beside her. "Then we go. Fast. We get in, locate it, and get out before nightfall."
"Why?" Cormac asked, frowning.
Adrian's jaw tensed. "Because nothing good hunts in this kind of cold."
---
They crossed a frozen river that groaned beneath their boots. The wind sang through broken arches and collapsed gates, carrying whispers that sounded too much like voices.
Each step deeper into Skellmoor brought with it a weight. The very air grew heavier, pressing down like snow on the soul. Shadows moved behind ruined columns. Shapes flickered in the ice.
Mara pressed her hand to the nearest wall, feeling the history echo through her. Memories, faint but sharp, pierced her mind like needles:
A woman running through these halls, carrying a child wrapped in wolfskin. Screams from towers. A dark mist rising from the river, swallowing soldiers whole. And at the center of it all—a mirror, cracked and buried beneath frost.
She snapped back to the present, heart racing.
"We're not alone," she whispered.
Adrian nodded grimly. "We haven't been since we left the tower."
They reached the base of the spire an hour later. The entrance had collapsed, buried under tons of ice. Alric studied the stone, then stepped forward and etched a glyph with his staff. Heat radiated from the symbol, melting a narrow path through the frost.
Inside, darkness yawned like a mouth.
"Torches?" Elira asked.
Mara shook her head. The crystal she carried pulsed to life, casting a soft glow that clung to the walls like firelight.
They stepped inside.
---
The spire's interior was colder than the outside, somehow. Their breath hung in the air like smoke, and the walls shimmered with frost-runes—ancient wards designed to bind magic. But many of them had faded.
As they moved deeper, they found evidence of the city's final days: skeletal remains frozen mid-motion, hands still clutching weapons or each other. A child curled in a corner, clutching a toy carved of bone.
No one spoke.
They reached the central chamber as the last light of day vanished behind the ice-stained windows. It was a wide circular room, once a throne hall, now layered in snow and silence.
And in the center stood the Seal.
Unlike the others, this one wasn't hidden or buried. It hovered above a dais, spinning slowly—an orb of crystal wrapped in chains of frozen blood. Within it flickered a flame that pulsed with impossible colors.
Mara felt her knees go weak.
The Seal recognized her.
And it welcomed her.
She stepped forward, but Adrian grabbed her arm. "Wait."
"Do you feel that?" Alric asked, staring at the walls.
They all turned.
Shadows moved across the stone—not cast by them, but moving against the light.
Then a figure stepped into view.
It had no face, only a mask of bone and ice. Its body shimmered like a reflection caught in broken glass. It wore robes stitched from frozen flesh and walked without sound.
"Elira, left!" Cormac barked, drawing his weapon.
More figures appeared, stepping from the walls themselves.
Sentinels.
But different.
These were not echoes of the Mirror King's will. They were ancient. Bound by the Seal. Guardians.
The largest one spoke, its voice like shattering icicles.
"Daughter of blood and flame. You come to claim what is not yet yours."
"I come to stop him," Mara said, standing tall.
"Then you must prove your right."
The chamber darkened.
And the guardians attacked.
---
The battle was chaos.
Adrian moved like lightning, blade flashing with bloodlight as he deflected icy claws. Cormac and Elira flanked the edges, their runes glowing bright against the darkness. Alric stood at the Seal's base, channeling protective wards to hold back waves of frozen mist.
Mara faced the leader.
It moved with terrifying grace, striking not with weapons but with memories. Every touch sent a jolt of stolen pain through her mind. She saw her mother's last breath. Her first kill. The child she couldn't save in the border war.
"You carry too much," the guardian hissed. "You will break."
"I won't," she growled, eyes flaring with Seal-light.
She summoned the energy within her, letting it flood her veins. Flames danced across her hands—not fire, but something deeper. Soulfire. The essence of what she had become.
She struck.
The guardian staggered, mask cracking.
It lunged again, but this time Mara caught its arm—and burned its soul from the inside out.
The mask shattered.
The others faltered.
Adrian drove his blade through the last of the lesser sentinels, and silence returned.
The Seal floated before them, unchanged.
Waiting.
Mara approached.
"Are we ready for this?" Elira asked.
"No," Mara said. "But it doesn't matter."
She reached out.
And the Seal unraveled.
Light burst from it, not blinding but warm. It wrapped around her, poured into her, merged with the first three Seals.
Visions slammed into her.
The Mirror King, standing atop a tower of bones, watching stars fall from the sky. A gate in the sea, opening wide. Her own body lying broken beneath a bleeding moon. And a voice—
Not his.
Not hers.
Something older.
"You awaken us."
Then the light faded.
The chamber was silent.
Mara collapsed to her knees, gasping.
Alric rushed forward, catching her.
"You did it," he whispered. "You've taken the Fourth."
But Mara looked up, eyes wide with horror.
"No. We didn't take it. We freed it."
From deep beneath the spire, the earth groaned.
Ice cracked.
And something ancient stirred.
---
That night, they camped outside the city. The spire behind them was sealed with runes, though none of them believed it would hold forever.
Mara sat alone, staring at her hands.
The fourth Seal had joined the others inside her. She could feel its presence—cold and unyielding, but alive. And something else now watched her from the inside. Not the Mirror King. Something older.
Something that had waited long enough.
Adrian approached, sitting beside her.
"You're not sleeping."
"How could I?" she said. "Every time I close my eyes, I see what's coming."
"And yet you keep moving forward."
She looked at him. "What if I'm making it worse?"
"What if you're the only one who can make it right?"
She didn't answer.
But in her heart, she knew the truth.
There was no going back.
Only forward.
Into darkness.
Into fire.
Into the end.