Kaien emerged from the portal face-first into snow.
A wind screamed across a vast, endless plain of white. It wasn't just cold—it was a cold that cut like a knife, that seeped into the bones and clawed at the lungs with every breath. His clothes, suited for a temperate mountain forest and a floating realm in the sky, were no match for this.
He rolled over, coughing, arms shaking from the chill. Icy needles stung his face. Snow coated his eyelashes. Somewhere nearby, a beast howled—low and mournful.
"Lyra," he murmured, teeth clattering. "You better not have stayed here long."
As he tried to push himself up, he saw them.
Four-legged creatures with thick fur and glowing blue eyes. They looked like wolves—but larger, more ancient, with antler-like horns and long, saber-toothed fangs. They circled him warily. One stepped closer and sniffed.
Kaien didn't flinch. "Do what you want," he muttered. "But I'm not dying until I find her."
One of the creatures growled—and then yipped.
Behind it, a figure appeared, cloaked in furs, face hidden behind a bone mask. With a single sharp whistle, the wolves dispersed like mist.
"You do not belong here," the masked figure said.
"I've heard that a lot lately," Kaien rasped, staggering to his feet. "I'm looking for someone. A girl—human like me. Her name is Lyra."
The figure was silent for a moment. Then: "Come. Before the cold eats you alive."
Kaien stumbled after them, into the blizzard.
---
The underground city of Varnhold was carved from a glacial mountain, lit by firestones and glowing moss. Smoke drifted through long tunnels. The people were quiet, strong, their eyes reflecting the ice above.
They weren't human—not exactly.
Tall, pale-skinned, with glowing patterns under their skin, like veins of light. Kaien guessed they were some kind of frostborn people, shaped by this brutal world.
The masked figure removed her hood—it was a woman, older than he expected, with white hair braided tightly and scars across her cheeks.
"I am Kaerna," she said. "Elder of the Hearth."
Kaien nodded gratefully. "I'm Kaien. From... far away."
"We know," she said. "We've had another like you."
His heart skipped. "Lyra."
"She came through seasons ago. She was sick from the cold. But she healed one of our wounded—she touched the Windbeast."
Kaien blinked. "Windbeast?"
Kaerna stood and gestured for him to follow.
They passed chambers of sleeping children, long halls of carved ice, and deeper still into the mountain's heart—into the Beast Chamber.
There, beneath an ice dome, lay a creature the size of a house. Its wings were torn and frozen, its breath shallow and misting. Massive and draconic, it looked like it had been half-dead for decades.
"She placed her hand on it," Kaerna whispered. "And it calmed. No outsider has ever done that."
Kaien stepped forward slowly. The creature's eye cracked open and looked at him. It didn't attack.
"She left soon after," Kaerna said. "Said she had to reach the Temple. But she feared the guardian."
Kaien's stomach tightened. "Guardian?"
"The Frozen God. The one who seals the way forward."
---
That night, Kaien dreamed.
He stood on the cliffs again, back home. Lyra was there, her hair caught in the wind, her hand in his.
"I want to go further," she said. "Don't you?"
And then he let go—and she fell.
He woke in a cold sweat.
---
The journey to the Temple of Ice took three days across the tundra, with Kaerna and two frostborn warriors guiding him. They rode sleds pulled by frostwolves. Along the way, they passed frozen ruins, old battlefields, and strange ice structures that hummed with quiet voices.
"The Temple is old," Kaerna explained. "It holds memories. It tests the heart."
By the fourth night, Kaien stood before it.
A tower of mirrored ice pierced the sky, glowing with internal light. The wind howled with voices. The frost itself shimmered with memories.
Kaerna handed him a spear made of black ice.
"You won't need this to fight," she said. "Only to hold on."
Kaien took a deep breath and stepped inside.
---
Inside the temple, time unraveled.
He walked through his memories—his childhood with Lyra, the day their parents died, the nights they spent under blankets reading fantasy books by flashlight. He saw the day she vanished, again and again.
"Why didn't you follow?" she asked, her image standing across the mirrored floor.
"I was scared," Kaien admitted. "You jumped first. I froze."
"You didn't believe," her echo said. "But you do now."
He reached for her hand—but it passed through like smoke.
The hall changed. Now, he stood in a circle of mirrors, and in each one—his guilt.
Lyra falling. Lyra crying. Lyra alone.
Then, a voice that wasn't hers—ancient and deep—rumbled through the chamber.
"You seek beyond your place. What gives you the right?"
Kaien stood tall. "Because I love her. And because I'll tear through every world until I find her."
"Even if she does not wish to be found?"
He faltered. "She left something behind. Her drawings. Her journal. Her locket. She wants to be found. She just can't make the way back alone."
Silence followed. Then a crack. The mirror in front of him split—and light poured through.
A portal stood where it shattered, framed in ice and fire.
Kaien looked back at the illusion of Lyra.
"I'm coming," he said again.
---
Kaerna waited outside. She said nothing as he approached, only placed a warm hand on his shoulder.
"Your sister said you would make it," she said quietly. "She believed in you."
Kaien swallowed hard. "Thank you."
He turned toward the portal. It shimmered like water. Before stepping through, he reached into his pouch and placed the drawing Lyra had left—two kids beneath a sky full of stars—on the snow.
He looked back only once.
Then he vanished into the light.