You do not remember warmth-not the easy, casual heat of the sun, anyway. Your first conscious memory, the baseline for all sensory experience, is the magnificent, unforgiving cold of the Veridian Citadel.
This fortress, carved directly into the permanent northern ice shelf, was your entire world from ages one to five. To you, it wasn't a prison or a seat of terrible power; it was simply home. It was a labyrinth of sculpted ice walls that shimmered blue and green in the diffused arctic light, crossed by walkways of polished black obsidian, and always protected by the Empress's deep magic.
You were a toddler running through halls where every droplet of condensation froze instantly. You learned to walk on frost.
The Ice Queen, to you 'Kate', kept you in the deepest, most shielded section of the Citadel, an area she called The Inner Preserve. The only other living creature you encountered regularly was a massive, silent Ice Golem she had animated solely to guard the perimeter. Its name was Krov-a hulking, patient giant of animated glacial fragments. Krov never spoke, never moved unless ordered, and only ever acknowledged your presence with a slight, almost imperceptible shift in its posture, a silent nod of recognition.
Life in the Preserve was simple, defined by the stark routine of its mistress. Lessons in discipline, lessons in language (always precise, never flowery), and hours spent watching her work. You were her silent shadow, her only confidant.
During these years, the Netherworld Fire inside you was less a weapon and more a strange, persistent hum-a physical constant. It taught you how to regulate your own internal temperature with uncanny precision. When you were one or two, you would curl up on the cold floor, and your internal heat would create a small, circular patch of slightly-less-cold stone beneath you. You instinctively hid this effect, letting a film of ice cover the spot quickly, as if concealing a priceless treasure.
You realized quickly that the external world was lethal, but the external world ceased to matter the moment you were in your mother's presence. When Kate was near, the biting, aggressive nature of the arctic cold was tempered, subtly pushed back by the sheer force of her protective aura. Her cold was controlled; the world's cold was chaos.
But the most critical part of your early development was understanding the nature of her heart. You learned that her emotions were physical: she could not smile. If she felt joy, a new layer of flawless ice would form on her windowsill. If she felt stress, the air pressure would drop, making it difficult to breathe. Her love for you, that fierce, protective warmth you were the only one who could feel, was never expressed in a hug, a gentle word, or a soft touch. It was expressed in the thickness of the ice warding off the cold, in the perfectly calculated nutrition of your meals, and in the simple, terrifying fact that she never let you leave her sight for long.
You were her secret hearth in the heart of her glacier. And you knew, even at this early age, that if that fire ever truly showed itself, the fragile, isolated peace of your world would shatter. You would guard her secret as fiercely as she guarded yours.
It was an isolating life, but you never felt lonely. You had her, and in the silence, her love was deafening.