A hand like carved marble caught Caelum's wrist before the masked figure could reach them.
Mourne stood above Caelum, eyes like frozen stars, robes billowing with snow swirling around them. The shadows recoiled, squealing like dying animals. Frost spread across the ground in a spiderweb of crystal.
"You have two choices," Mourne said, voice low and calm. "Let your sorrow freeze you until you are nothing — or wield it, and carve your own fate."
In his other hand floated a shard of pure ice, refracting moonlight in rainbow sparks. The masked figure hesitated, his mask's hollow eyes fixed on Mourne with what almost looked like recognition — or fear.
Caelum's heart thundered. They looked at their unconscious sibling, then at the ruined village, then at the shard. Reaching out, their fingers closed around it.
Cold unlike anything they'd known coursed through their veins. Every raindrop hung in the air like crystal. The katana rose to their hand, wreathed in pale frost. Each breath exhaled mist.
Caelum stepped forward, sweeping their blade in a wide arc. A freezing gust exploded outward, tearing through the shadows, solidifying them into statues of black ice that shattered seconds later.
The masked figure retreated, cloak swirling around him, voice carrying over the blizzard: "This will change nothing."
As dawn bled across the storm-torn sky, Caelum stood alone in a village of ice and silence. Mourne stood beside them, expression unreadable.
"The Shrine has waited long for one like you," he said. "But you are not the only one."
Caelum looked at their reflection in the katana's icy steel and swore, "I will find the one who did this. Even if I must cut through the storm itself."