Elara's POV
The ice creature's body lay frozen at my feet, killed by magic I didn't know I had.
I stared at my hands. They were covered in frost, glowing with blue light. The ice had exploded from me like a weapon, piercing the creature's chest before it could reach me.
I'd killed something.
My stomach twisted, and I vomited in the snow.
That was six months ago. Now, killing was easy.
I crouched at the entrance to my cave, watching another ice wraith drift through the storm outside. They were everywhere in the Frost Wastes—ghostly things made of frozen souls, always hungry, always hunting.
This one hadn't spotted me yet.
I raised my hand and sent a spike of ice through its head. The wraith shrieked and dissolved into snow.
"Three today," I muttered to myself. "That's a new record."
I was talking to myself a lot lately. It was better than the silence.
I dragged the frozen rabbit I'd caught earlier into the cave. Hunting was getting harder. The animals were fleeing deeper into the Wastes, running from something even they feared.
Running from the growing darkness.
I could feel it sometimes—a presence pushing at the edge of my mind, whispering things I couldn't quite hear. The same voice from the black ice room. It was getting stronger.
And so was my magic.
I held out my hand and created a small fire made entirely of ice. It didn't burn, but it gave off a cold light that pushed back the shadows. A month ago, I couldn't have done that. Two months ago, I couldn't have killed the wraith so easily.
My power was growing faster every day.
Too fast.
I looked down at my arms. Blue veins showed through my skin now, like cracks in ice. Sometimes my fingers froze things without me meaning to. Yesterday, I'd touched the cave wall and it had shattered.
I was turning into something that wasn't quite human anymore.
"Stop it," I told myself firmly. "You're still you. Still Elara."
But was I? The girl who'd stood in the palace, waiting for her crown—she felt like a stranger now. That girl had believed in justice and truth. That girl had been soft.
I wasn't soft anymore.
I skinned the rabbit with a knife I'd made from ice, then cooked it over my magic fire. The meat was tough and tasteless, but I forced it down. Food was fuel. Fuel kept me alive. And I needed to stay alive.
For revenge.
Every night, I thought about Varius and Morgana sitting in the warm palace while I froze out here. I imagined walking back through those gates, ice following in my wake, making them feel even a fraction of what I'd suffered.
The fantasy kept me warm when nothing else would.
After eating, I pulled out my most precious possession—a piece of charcoal I'd found in an abandoned campsite. I used it to mark another line on the cave wall.
One hundred and eighty-three lines.
Six months exactly.
Six months of hell.
I curled up in the corner of the cave, wrapping myself in the ragged furs I'd taken from dead creatures. Sleep came hard in the Wastes. The cold never stopped, and neither did the dreams.
Tonight, I dreamed of the voice again.
"You're ready," it whispered. "Come to me. Come home."
"Where?" I asked in the dream.
"North. Always north. Follow the cold. Follow the death. I'm waiting."
I woke with a gasp.
The cave was darker than before. My ice fire had gone out. And standing in the entrance, blocking the moonlight, was a figure.
Human-shaped, but wrong. Too tall. Too still.
My heart hammered. I grabbed my ice knife and jumped to my feet. "Who's there?"
The figure stepped forward into a shaft of moonlight.
It was a man—or had been once. His skin was blue-white, his eyes completely frozen over. Ice grew from his shoulders like armor. When he spoke, frost fell from his lips.
"You... survived," he said, sounding surprised. "Six months. Impossible."
"Get out of my cave," I growled, raising the knife.
He laughed—a horrible sound like cracking glaciers. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to warn you."
"Warn me about what?"
"The Sorcerer," he said. "Caelan Frost. You're thinking about finding him, aren't you? I can see it in your eyes. You want answers. You want help."
How did he know that? I'd barely admitted it to myself.
"What's it to you?" I asked.
"I was like you once," the frozen man said. "Desperate. Alone. I thought the Ice Sorcerer could help me too." He gestured to his ruined body. "This is what his help looks like."
"You're lying."
"Am I?" He stepped closer. "Everyone who seeks Caelan Frost either dies or wishes they had. He doesn't save people. He uses them. He's more monster than man now."
"Then why are you here?" I demanded. "If he's so dangerous, why warn me?"
The frozen man smiled sadly. "Because you remind me of my daughter. She'd be about your age now. If she'd lived." He turned to leave, then paused. "Go north if you want. Die if you must. But don't say I didn't warn you."
He walked out into the storm and vanished.
I stood there shaking—not from cold, but from decision.
I could stay here. Keep surviving. Maybe last another six months. Maybe a year.
But eventually, the magic would consume me. Or the creatures would kill me. Or the loneliness would drive me completely mad.
I had one other option. One desperate, insane option.
Find Caelan Frost. The Ice Sorcerer everyone feared. The man who'd been exiled for trying to kill my father.
He was dangerous. Probably evil. Definitely would try to kill me on sight since I was a Winterborne.
But he was also the only person in the entire world who might understand what was happening to me.
The only person who might know how to control this magic before it destroyed me.
I looked down at my glowing hands and made my choice.
"North," I whispered.
I gathered my few possessions—the ice knife, some dried meat, the furs. Then I walked out of the cave that had been my prison for six months.
The storm hit me immediately, but I barely felt it anymore. The cold was part of me now.
I started walking north, following an instinct I didn't understand.
After an hour, I saw something that made me stop.
Footprints in the snow. Fresh ones. Leading north.
But they weren't normal footprints.
They were burned into the ice, each step leaving a mark that glowed with blue light. And they were massive—made by something far larger than any human.
The frozen man's footprints had been normal.
These belonged to something else.
Something that had been watching me. Following me.
And now it was leading me north.
Directly toward Caelan Frost's territory.