There was warmth.
A strange, golden warmth that wrapped around Ragnar like a blanket left too long by the hearth. He could smell something familiar, burning oak, boiled wool, a hint of lavender and old iron. The ache in his limbs was gone, replaced by a strange lightness, as though he'd never carried a weapon in his life.
He blinked.
He was in a room.
Small. Wooden walls glowing with the filtered light of morning sun. A pair of boots too big for his feet stood by the door. On the shelf, a wooden carving of a snow elk rested half-finished beside a curled strand of smoke rising from a stubby candle. Somewhere, a kettle hissed. The walls were etched with runes of protection, some old script, still smudged from when he'd tried to copy them once with charcoal-stained fingers.
Ragnar looked down.
His hands—small. His skin still untouched by blade or flame. He wore a soft tunic, half-buttoned, with sleeves he hadn't grown into. A mirror stood propped in the corner, and in its warped glass, the reflection of a boy stared back. His hair was neater than he remembered. His face rounder. Freckled.
It was him.
But not now.
A gentle knock came at the door before it opened without waiting.
"Still dragging your feet, snowberry?" came the voice—his mother's voice. Light, teasing, rich with love. "The market won't wait for lazy boys."
She stepped into the room, radiant in her long blue robe trimmed with gold-threaded fur. Her hair was pinned up the way she always wore it before entering the city, a gesture of grace before spell craft. She smelled of spell-ink and warm linen. Her eyes were the same pale steel as his own.
Behind her came his father, tall and broad-shouldered with bright green eyes like jade under the sun, wearing the familiar traveling cloak of a mage-hunter—dark grey, with the rune for "vigilance" barely visible beneath the wear. There was a time when that cloak had made Ragnar feel invincible.
They looked… younger. Happier.
"We'll stop by the baker first," his mother said, crouching to fasten the buttons on his sleeve. "I've heard they finally brought honey up from the southern ports. Real clover-honey, not the ash-thick syrup we've had all winter."
His father smirked. "And if we see a street-duel, your mother won't join in this time."
She raised an eyebrow without looking up. "Well if we do it together there's no chance we'd lose anyway."
They both laughed.
Ragnar laughed too.
And yet—
Something inside him twisted. Like a wire pulled tight in the back of his mind. A whisper just beneath the warmth. A thread tugging gently at the corner of the scene.
This was a memory.
But not just a memory.
This was the beginning.
The market was alive with the kind of joy only the long northern spring could bring. After months buried under snow and grey skies, the people of Gorma had spilled into the streets like river water freed from ice. Laughter mingled with the scent of spiced cider, fresh bread, and roasted meats. Banners fluttered. A trio of dwarves thumped on rune-drums while a child with frost-pale skin tried to mimic the beat with a wooden spoon.
His mother walked at the centre of it all like she belonged to another world entirely. The street lights hummed brighter as she passed, enchanted ever so gently by her presence. Her hands danced subtly as she pointed out things to Ragnar—glasswork charms, floating trinkets, a street artist weaving coloured smoke into the shape of a mountain stag. Ragnar grinned, holding her hand tighter, reluctant to blink in case it all disappeared.
They stopped at a stall built like a forge-turned-kitchen. A dwarven chef, muscles like braided rope and beard braided with spices, flipped skewers of flame-barbecue over a grate of volcanic stone.
"Want the extra heat?" he asked Ragnar.
Ragnar's eyes lit up. "Yes, please!"
His mother laughed. "You say that now. I'm not conjuring a healing spell when your tongue melts."
His father just chuckled and paid the coin.
They found a bench in the square's edge, Ragnar's father shooed away a decent sized spider before sitting down, and they ate as the sun dipped behind the distant crystal towers of the High Enclave. Music drifted from a nearby bard troupe, and birds—real ones this time—fluttered overhead, nesting in the eaves.
Ragnar thought it was the best day of his life.
And then, the crowd's buzz shifted.
Like a chord falling out of tune.
A woman stormed forward through the thinning market. Her cloak was torn, mismatched armour clinging to her like she'd just returned from the wilds. Her dark hair spilled like black ink down her shoulders, and her eyes—sharp, bloodshot, fevered—locked on Persephone with burning hatred.
"You" she spat. "I challenge You Persephone Laesis to a duel for ruining my life"
Ragnar's mother turned her head, stiffening and blocking Ragnar from this woman. "I'm sorry but I decline, I do not know who you are"
"You know who I am!" the woman roared, and her fingers curled. Heat pulsed in the air, wild and jagged—spell-energy born of rage. "You will remember!"
Before another word could be said, a jagged shard of ice screamed from her palm, followed by a volley of fireballs and a searing beam of white light.
Ragnar barely had time to cover his ears.
Persephone flung up a translucent barrier with the flick of her fingers—silent, clean, practiced. The fire and ice splashed harmlessly against it, breaking into sparks and mist.
Ragnar's father rose instantly, pulling Ragnar behind him.
"Get the magistrates," Persephone said, not looking away from the raging woman. "Now."
He hesitated—but the tone in her voice brokered no argument. He vanished into the panicking crowd, cloak snapping behind him.
The woman was screaming now—words laced with verbal magic, her voice cracking like thunder. Each syllable warped the air around her, twisting stone, splintering stalls. The spells came chaotically, emotionally, drawn from a heart long-broken.
Persephone remained still. With her hands she swirled them in the air, almost painting it with light. A florist's stand nearby began to shake. Large flowers varying from a multitude of colours began to close, their bulbs began to grow and in the next moment birds made up of petals and vines launched themselves out of the flowers. They dove at the woman with sharp cries, pecking and tearing at the spell-flames that radiated around her. The air smelled of wild lilac and ozone. Magic hummed through the cobblestones.
The duel raged, flames licking the banners above and turning cobblestones into cracked, steaming slabs. Her magic unravelled into raw emotion—fire, frost, and light flung with desperation, not intent. She shrieked spell-words until her voice broke, her magic erupting into pure chaos.
Persephone moved like the wind through it all—fluid, resolute. Her spells bloomed from silence, summoned not through anger, but through will. She raised a hand, and vines burst from the gaps between cobblestones, crawling like serpents. She turned her wrist, and the very stone beneath the woman's feet began to shift, grinding upward with groaning weight.
The ground rose and closed around the attacker like the jaws of some ancient beast. The woman thrashed, screaming, as the stone gripped her arms and legs, binding her to the street. Her voice frayed into a high-pitched wail, and her magic sputtered—then stopped entirely.
For a long second, silence.
Then, the woman's gaze snapped to Ragnar.
He flinched as their eyes met.
And she smiled.
It was wrong. Not triumphant. Not broken. Something else—twisted, satisfied.
Persephone's expression darkened, and she raised her hand again—but too late.
A thin line of red dripped from the woman's wrist, where one of the spectral birds had clawed her. It shimmered unnaturally, moving with its own purpose. The blood coiled upward in defiance of gravity, solidifying as it rose—a single, glistening needle. It hovered in the air like a compass finding true north… and pointed itself directly at Ragnar.
He stared, too young to fully understand—too frozen to move.
The needle fired.
Persephone didn't hesitate.
She threw herself between them, arms outstretched. The needle struck her in the chest with a sickening thud, and for a moment, the entire world stood still.
Ragnar screamed.
She stumbled, legs folding beneath her as she crumpled to the cobblestones, catching him even as she fell. He clutched her desperately, feeling her warmth already starting to slip.
"Ragnar…" she whispered, her voice like cracked porcelain. "My brave boy."
Blood spread beneath her, soaking into the cobbles as magic flickered and died in the air.
"I'm so proud of you," she said, brushing his cheek with a trembling hand. "You're… everything I hoped you'd be."
Behind them, the woman howled, unseeing now, broken by some curse of her own making. But Ragnar barely heard her.
He looked into his mother's face.
She was crying, but she smiled through it, that same gentle smile she always wore when he showed her his drawings, or tried to lift his toy sword.
"It's going to be okay," she whispered. "You're going to be okay."
And then… her body began to change.
First her skin—cracking like dry leaves, flaking to dust. Then her arms, dissolving in his grip. Her breath hitched, and her smile remained even as her lips faded to ash. Hair turned white, then to strands of air. Flesh shrank away into powder.
"No," Ragnar gasped, clutching harder. "No, no, no—!"
Persephone Laesis crumbled to dust in his arms.
And Ragnar, just a boy, was left alone with the screaming wind and the ruin of the day that was supposed to be perfect.
His father came running with a group of magistrates that quickly subdued and contained the woman, who had now finally ceased the laughing. His father looked around and then down at his son.
"Where's your mother" his voice hitched in his throat, there was something hidden, it was fear.
Tears streamed down Ragnar's face as he looked down at his hands, there was nothing left of his mother only the tips of his fingers had been slightly stained with what was left of his mother.
"I—I don't know" Ragnar was whimpering, how was he meant to react. If he wasn't there his mother would have never sacrificed herself to save him. Was it his fault?
Ragnar's father collapsed to his knees in front of Ragnar, he leaned in and pulled his son as close to him as he could, worried he might lose him as well. His grip tightened until his arms felt weak. In that moment Ragnar felt his father shaking, he began to hear him sniffle and when he finally let go he burst into wails. His emerald green eyes were full of sorrow and his cries echoed with pain.
Ragnar had never seen his father like this, he was always so strong. Was his mother the only thing keeping him sane?
His father's neck darted behind him in the direction of the woman, his green eyes swollen red and his heart full of hatred. However the magistrates and the woman had already left, nowhere to be seen. With that he stood up and began to trudge home, leaving Ragnar to follow behind him.
For weeks on end Ragnar had to fend for himself, cooking, cleaning and doing odd jobs in town. His father had locked himself away in his bedroom, trapped with crates of mead and other hard beverages. He was never a big drinker—but things can change. During nights sobbing could be heard through the walls it was unbearable for Ragnar but he had the right to mourn taken away from him by his father.
One night the crying was the loudest it had ever been, until it stopped and the sound of shattered glass resonated through out the house. Ragnar who had almost drifted into a light slumber jolted awake and flung himself out of bed. By the time he had rushed himself out of his pyjamas and slid his boots on the door of his fathers room was wide open. But it wasn't the only open door. Cold night air blew in through the front door, his father was gone, maybe for more beer. But the full crates still left in his room unopened said otherwise.
Ragnar chased after his father down the path. By the time he had reached the front gate he could see his drunken father hobbling along the roads. He had hung the same robe he wore on that day over his back, only it was unkempt and held many stains from late night drinking. His father walked with intent, almost like he knew where he was going, turn after turn they got closer to the darker parts of the towns, butchers selling strange exotic meats, jewellers selling a trinkets from questionable origins. He stood still and his ears perked, through the silence of the night his father heard chattering and laughing coming from one of the alleyways of which he then followed. Ragnar started to follow him closer through the winding alleys.
They approached on a group of 6 huddled around a small fire sitting on the stumps of some trees that had been stripped of their bark to sell. His father hid behind a building, just watching the group, waiting for something. One of them cracked a bad joke and a girl off to the side started laughing, then the laughing turned to cackling, the same that was heard on that day.
As soon as the laughing was heard his father gripped onto the edge of the wall and ripped a chunk of stone off. He leaned back and launched the stone at the woman, but due to his intoxication he miscalculated and it spun to the left, colliding with one of the bystanders shoulder, the speed of the stone tore through the man's shoulder leaving a gap in his back. His screams radiated through the alley and all of the other people who were sitting now faced Ragnar's father.
His father stepped into view, the firelight catching the frayed edges of his robe—and the fury in his eyes. They all got into a defensive position, some rummaging into there pockets for runes. One of them chanted Thorn Shot and little protrusions began to sprout from their hands, when they pierced the skin they were launched towards Ragnar father. The thorn projectiles struck him from every angle. They didn't sink deep, but there were too many to ignore. After the attack Ragnar's father looked like a dog after picking a fight with a porcupine. His father just stood there, he cracked his wrist and in the next moment blue flames burst from the ground and his own body. A raging inferno formed in a mere instant, as the fire burnt on you could see his silhouette standing there and through the flames his piercing gaze was locked onto the woman.
One of the women fished out a rune from her thick pockets and pointed it at the raging fire. She channelled her mana through the stone and the engravings glowed a faint white, a breeze began to pick up and soon gusts of wind were propelled by the stone towards the fire. The blue flame slowly died down and out of the smoke Ragnar's father emerged barely singed, all of the thorns previously embedded into his entire body has been scorched and turned to ash. His father spread his arms out to the side, he just barely could reach one of the wall of the alley, when his finger made contact with the wall his flicked his wrist towards the group, from where he was standing the wall he was just touching began to branch off into spikes. They grew faster and faster toward the direction of the group, some of them began to run out of the way but for the man who yelled Thorn shot he stood there watching the stone grow closer. When they got to around 2 feet from him they sprung forward and pierced the man's stomach, punctured his leg and trapped his arms in the stone. As he groaned and began coughing blood Ragnar's father simply picked up a stone off the ground and threw it at the man's face, while in the air the stones edges splintered off creating a point, it began to rotate, picking up more speed.
The trapped man looked up, blood trickling down his mouth and just as he saw what was coming towards him, the stone had began to drill itself through the man's head. He didn't even have time to scream. Once the stone made its way through his head, the wall that had trapped him crumbed to piles of gravel and pebbles. The man's body slumped over on the ground as a pool of his blood began to gather on the floor.
The rest of the group all looked at what was one of their colleagues, their faces mortified, none of them had even seen magic like that. They turned to Ragnar's fathers direction but he wasn't there, they all began to look around to try and find where he had gone. When the woman who use the rune previously turned around she found the man towering over her, she clutched onto another rune in her pocket, but not before he had placed both hands on her ears and started to channel mana. The woman's hair began to stand on end and he eyes pricked with tears, she pulled out a rune, but something was different about it, it was not just one rune but multiple chained together, as she pulled it out of her back pocket the chain still grew longer, 4 runes, 7, 9, there didn't seem to be an end. Chaining together so many unstable runes would have completely unknown effects. When she finally pulled it all out, sparks flicked off of her and Ragnar's father, then his father after channelling a large cluster of mana he released countless stream of electricity into the woman's head, she began screaming, her mouth frothing and her voice becoming a gargled mess. Before she took her last breath she hooked the chain of runes of Ragnar's father and all of the mana he had been channelling for the attack activated all of them.
He let go of the woman but it was too late for her, she too keeled over dead. There were only three more people left in the group.
Remnants of electricity rippled over the man coursing through the runes that all started to glow a variety of colours. He tried to yank the linked runes off but the chain tightened over his body, trapping him. The chain sank deeper and deeper into his skin and the runes glowed more intensely. He groaned in pain and tried to stop the flow of mana in his body, but it was to no avail.
Young Ragnar stood peeking past the wall in horror at what was happening to his father. Before his very eyes his father began to change. Light beamed out of some runes, some hissed with magical energy while gases seeped out of others. This many different runes together could do anything, it was completely unpredictable.
His father began to grow, His skin stretched—translucent, trembling—until it tore. Black spines erupted from his back like spears. Feathers, slick and iridescent, burst from his legs, trailing blood. He screamed, not in pain, but defiance. Rage. Madness.
Uncurling from behind him was a three-pronged tail, on the end of each one a stinger, as they extended outwards they coiled around themselves. The chain of runes wrapped around his back like a sash. His hands now turned to claws gripped onto his face and ripped his skin off from the sides, emerging from his face came the snout of a beast, the closest thing it could be compared to was a mix between a bear and a wolf. This amalgamation of flesh, spikes and feathers couldn't even be compared to Ragnar's father anymore.
Only one thing remained.
Those bright green eyes.
After he clawed the rest of his face away revealing his whole figure he screeched into the night. The sound was like a bat as it is being eaten alive.
The two remaining men looked towards the woman, motioning if they should run or not. She just stood there in awe.
"What a beautiful display of magic!"
One of the men spoke up "Nyx what should we do?"
She beamed her teeth and with a wave of her hands, spectral chains formed from thin air and bound themselves to the beast. He screamed relentlessly, his voice becoming more feral with every second.
With a grin she began to speak "I believe I may have a business idea"
Ragnar seeing his father transformed into this thing and then seeing him being imprisoned was just too much for him. He couldn't bare it anymore, he turned and fled, helpless to save his father. What could he do? He wasn't as brave as his mother or strong as his father. He was just. Useless.
He ran through the narrow streets, bawling his eyes out, but he couldn't stop he needed to get someone to help, someone who could do something. As he ran his foot clipped against a cobble that had been lifted out of the path and fell flat on his face into a puddle. Blood dripped from his nose and blurred his vision, he tried scrambling to his feet. In the puddle, a reflection. Not a boy. A man. The man he'd become. The ground shook.
Silence.
He looked up.
The Dream Spinner stood above him, its many eyes glinting like obsidian marbles, clicking mandibles twitching with glee.
This was no memory.
This was the trap.
Before it could lunge towards Ragnar he had already bolted away in fear. It was only as he ran that he began to remember. He was in a dream, more appropriately a nightmare. The Dream spinner had caught him off guard and trapped him in this induced night terror. He needed to think of something and fast. How long had he been in this dream? All he was capable of doing was running. Through desperate breaths he turned his head to look behind him. As he started backwards, he saw it staring back. The spider just started at him, watching him run away. It became smaller as the distance between them grew and yet it remained still. It was only when Ragnar turned his head back that it was directly in front of him.
Ragnar stumbled back as the spider appeared before him, impossibly sudden, as if the world itself had folded to place it in his path. He crashed to the ground, the breath torn from his lungs, paralyzed as the nightmare loomed closer. Its legs moved with a terrible patience, each one touching the earth in silence, no sound but the faint click of its joints and the rhythmic twitch of its mandibles. Then, it stopped—towering above him, its body blotting out the dream's sky. Slowly, it lowered its head. Its eyes, vast and blank, stared into him, hollow and depthless, like glass orbs filled with the memory of every nightmare ever dreamt. There was no soul in them, only an unblinking, eternal hunger. Ragnar could feel the weight of that gaze pressing into his mind, stripping it bare. The spider's mandibles clicked faster now, a chittering whisper that sounded almost like laughter. And then, with no warning, it lunged. Ragnar's scream barely left his throat before the jaws closed around his skull, the sound of bone splintering echoing into the void as darkness claimed him.