Ice formed in the horses' nostrils like frozen tears. Their breath came out in desperate puffs that crystallized before touching ground, and the beasts themselves moved with the careful steps of creatures who knew one wrong placement meant shattered bones.

By the fifth day north, conversation died in soldiers' throats—words cost too much warmth. By the sixth, men walked like ghosts through their own nightmares, wrapped in so many layers they'd forgotten the shape of their own bodies. By the seventh, when Ardleby Keep's black stones emerged from morning mist thick as grave cloth, the coalition moved in silence broken only by the crack of frozen leather and the whimper of those whose fingers had gone past numb into that dangerous absence of feeling.

Ember exhaled and nothing clouded the air. Around her, Kindle and the others breathed the same invisible warmth—no white plumes, no frost-bitten lips. Snow hissed and melted on their bare leather, vanishing before it could cling.

The wrongness of it crawled through the ranks faster than frostbite. Soldiers wrapped in wool until they looked like walking burial shrouds watched the five women stride through snow in simple leathers. No scarves wrapped their throats. No thick gloves protected their fingers. Their flame-bright hair caught snowflakes that hissed into steam the instant they touched.

"Demons," came the whisper from a man whose lips had cracked into bloody lines.

"Blessed," another corrected through chattering teeth, though the word held no comfort.

Both wrong. Both right. The separation between them and everyone else had never felt sharper—their bodies hummed with inner fire while others died by degrees.

Kindle's fingers flexed, and Ember caught the gesture, knew the thought behind it. We could warm them. Just a little. Just enough.

But warming one meant revealing exactly how hot they burned, and that truth would spread through the ranks like wildfire. Better to let them wonder than know for certain they walked beside women who could immolate a keep in minutes.

Ardleby Keep squatted against the mountainside like something that had grown from the stone rather than been built upon it. The walls bore marks that looked wet in the weak light—old burns that had turned rock into glass, frozen in the moment of their making. Whatever battle had raged here had burned hot enough to change the fundamental nature of stone.

"Used to mark the edge of the world." The voice came from a lean man in worn ranger gear who appeared at their side like an afterthought. "Back when the northern tribes were enemies instead of allies."

The man's accent rolled thick as honey left too long in cold—Erebosian, from the way he swallowed certain sounds and let others linger. His eyes never stopped moving, tracking shadows and spaces between shadows with the constant vigilance of prey that had learned to survive among predators.

"Jorin Karska. Scout commander." No hand offered, no gesture of greeting. Just the acknowledgment of existence. "Now it marks the edge of safety. Such as it is."

The keep's gates yawned wide, and the courtyard beyond writhed with bodies and purpose. Engineers hammered supports into walls that had stood for centuries, trying to make ancient stone bear modern weight.

The smell hit like a physical thing—too many people crammed together, fear-sweat mixing with horse dung, and the peculiar sharpness that came from magic held too close for too long. All of it cut through with woodsmoke, as if those tending campfires could deny the snow-buried cold through desperate act of belief.

"The Guild has secured a section for command and logistics," Jorin continued. "Men on watch need the walls more than you do."

Ember surveyed the fortifications. Men stomped slush from their boots and cupped hands over braziers glowing with feeble coals. Even here, inside weathered stone walls and under slate roofs, the cold pressed down. Already, long icicles clung to the eaves like jagged teeth.

"Fragmented Flame." The bark came from a man built like a siege engine, all weathered wood and iron bands. Modified Erebosian armor hung on him like an old sin—too familiar for comfort, too necessary to abandon. Weathered face like leather left in the sun, beard more iron than flesh, and movements that favored his left side where something had taken a piece of him and never given it back. "Captain Roderic Thale. Command briefing. Now."

His eyes were gray. Not the color—the quality. Like ash after everything worth burning had gone.

They followed him into the heart of Ardleby Keep. More men huddled around guttering lanterns. Those who slept did so on scavenged blankets or hung like discarded meat from whatever nook offered a moment's comfort.

The war room had been a great hall once. Ember could see it in the proportions, the faded suggestions of tapestry hooks, the fireplace large enough to roast a whole ox that now held only cold ash and older shadows. Someone had cleared the feast tables, the benches, every sign that people had once gathered here for any reason but death.

In their place: a sand table that dominated the space like an altar to coming grief.

The Duchy of Erebos rendered in painful miniature. Every valley, every ridge, every town that had been home to breathing people who'd believed tomorrow would come. Colored sand for elevation—white for peaks, brown for valleys, blue for rivers that Ember already knew had frozen solid. Tiny flags marked settlements. Red for fallen. Black for contested. No green anywhere.

"Gather round." Thale's hands gripped the table's edges until his knuckles went white as old bone. Other officers filed in—Darius Kaine with his missing eye that seemed to see more than most people's two, Viktor Grehm still radiating fury from whatever incompetence he'd just crushed, nobles trying not to look like they'd rather be anywhere else.

Lysander Moreth glowed in armor that could have ransomed a small town. Eighty pounds of useless beauty that rang like bells when he moved.

"For those who weren't present at initial briefings." Thale's eyes found the five women, held them. "This is what we're walking into."

He picked up a wooden pointer. The tip trembled—rage or grief or simple cold, impossible to say.

"Eight months ago, the dragon woke." The pointer touched the Kallas Mountains. "Here. Beneath the Ghelyn Glacier. The mining town of Kharis had reported tremors for weeks. The Duke—"

His voice cracked like ice under weight. He breathed deep, tried again.

"Duke Casric sent investigators."

Small wooden figures placed on the map. Each one carved with unnecessary detail.

"They found claw marks in the ice. Ancient. Deep as mine shafts." The pointer traced the glacier's edge. "Going down farther than light could reach. The Duke ordered full excavation. Wanted to know what lay beneath."

"They found it." A laugh that could have cut glass. "Or it found them."

He placed a new piece on the board. Dragon-shaped, carved from wood so dark it seemed to eat the lamplight rather than reflect it. The carver had understood something about the creature—the piece radiated wrongness just sitting there.

"Nethysara the Inexorable. White death. Older than memory." His hands moved faster now, placing smaller dragon figures around the larger one. "Thirteen lesser wyrms. Her brood, her court, her claws made manifest."

The pointer moved faster now, tracing paths of destruction with the efficiency of someone who'd memorized every death.

"First attack on Kharis. We thought—I thought we could hold. The walls had stood since the First Founding. The guard knew their business. Good steel, strong hearts."

He swept the Kharis pieces off the board. They clattered on stone, the sound sharp as breaking bones.

"Three hours. Maybe four. Then nothing but ice and silence."

"Captain," Viktor said, voice gentle as his manner allowed. "Perhaps—"

"They need to know." Thale's knuckles had gone past white to gray. "Not the reports. Not the sanitized version written by people who weren't there. The truth."

He placed more pieces. Rank after rank, until the board crowded with tiny lives.

"The Duke mobilized everything. Eight thousand soldiers who'd trained since they could hold a blade. Two hundred mages, each one worth a dozen men in normal battle. Every warm body that could march and fight and die for Erebos." His hand hovered over the pieces like a blessing or a curse. "I led the left flank. Brightest day I'd ever seen. Sun on snow like diamonds, banners snapping in the wind. We sang as we marched. The 'Ballad of Northern Stars.' You know it?"

A few nobles nodded. Most found other places to look.

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"Eight thousand voices. Strong. Sure. Ready." Thale's hand trembled worse now. "Then the cold hit. Not like winter coming—like winter was all there'd ever been. Breath froze in our lungs. Metal burned through gauntlets. And then—"

He stopped. Eyes closed. When they opened, Ember saw reflections there—not of this room but of fields of ice and endings.

"She spoke. Not with sound. In our heads. Like thought becoming ice." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "'Children of summer,' she called us. 'So brief. So fragile. Let me make you eternal.'"

His hand swept across the board. Pieces scattered like bones thrown by a mad prophet.

"The front ranks just... stopped. Mid-step. Mid-breath. Mid-word to the man beside them. Ice covered them faster than blinking. But they weren't dead." A piece placed back on the board. Different now—he'd turned it to show another face carved on the reverse. "Their eyes moved. Tracked us as we stood there trying to understand. Trying to believe."

"Gods," Lysander whispered. The word fogged in the air despite the room's relative warmth.

"No gods in that place." Thale placed more converted pieces. "Our own brothers. Fathers. Sons. Moving perfect, unified. Drawing swords we'd sharpened for them. Turning shields we'd painted with their honors." His voice had gone flat as beaten metal. "No fear. No hesitation. Just purpose."

"How did you escape?" Ash asked. The question dropped into silence like a stone into deep water.

"We didn't." Thale touched a scar on his neck, previously hidden by his collar. The flesh had turned the particular blue-black of frostbite that had gone too deep to ever truly heal. "Half the army converted in the first minute. The rest of us tried to fight. You ever tried to kill someone you trained beside? Shared your last wine with? Held while they wept for their firstborn?"

Silence thick as blood.

"The Duke saw it was hopeless. Ordered retreat. But she wasn't done." More pieces moving. Surrounding. Herding like sheep to slaughter. "Let us run. Let us carry the story. But took payment for our lives."

He placed a single figure at Belavar on the model. Duke's colors painted with a steady hand, face carved to show nobility in miniature.

"Duke Casric offered himself. If she'd spare the capital, let the people flee south, he'd serve." Thale's voice dropped to barely audible. "She agreed. Took him into the sky. When she landed..."

The piece turned, showing its other face. Same features, carved by the same hand. But something fundamental had changed in the expression.

"Our Duke, but not. Speaking her words. Thinking her thoughts. Making her will real with hands that had once blessed our marriages and named our children."

"The capital fell anyway," Darius observed, his single eye fixed on the frozen landscape rendered in miniature. "Erebos itself now stands silent."

"Different kind of falling." Thale rebuilt Belavar on the model with hands that shook like autumn leaves. "No violence. Just cold creeping in through stones that had never known winter. People had three days to run or accept conversion. Some fought it. Barricaded themselves in the Winterless Gardens, thinking the thermal springs would protect them."

He placed a crystalline dome over miniature gardens.

"The dragon froze them solid. But kept them aware. You can see them through the ice. Reaching. Always reaching." His hand dropped like a puppet with cut strings. "My daughter tended those gardens. Elena. Loved every flower like a friend."

The words settled into the room's bones. Ember felt Pyra shift beside her, Kindle's sharp intake of breath, Cinder's stillness that said more than words. Ash's fingers traced small patterns on her thigh—calculating, always calculating, even through grief.

"After Belavar, the other cities fell like counting." Thale moved through the rest mechanically. "Port Tycho surrendered. Obrin negotiated. Each hoping for better terms. Each receiving the same. Serve or freeze. Eternal purpose or eternal ice."

"But some escaped," Viktor prompted. "The refugees."

"Those who ran immediately. Who abandoned everything." Thale's judgment of himself rang clear as temple bells. "Three thousand out of two hundred thousand. The rest..."

He gestured at the transformed model. Every city marked with white sand now. Every road showing servitor patrols in perfect formation. Not a kingdom anymore—a single organism with tributary veins and an icy heart.

"Questions?" The word came out like he'd rather swallow glass.

"The servitors," Ember said. "Are they... do they remember?"

"Yes." Flat. Final. A door slamming on hope. "Part of her cruelty. They know who they were. What they've lost. Can probably name every person they've left behind." He looked at her directly, and in his eyes lived understanding sharp as winter. "But the cold makes it bearable. Makes everything bearable. That's why they don't resist. Not because they can't. Because the alternative—feeling all of it, burning with the loss—would be worse than slavery."

Ember nodded. Saw the same understanding reflected in the eyes of her sister-selves. They knew that particular survival instinct, or its variant at least. How much you'd accept if it meant not losing what remained.

"Right then." Viktor cleared his throat, breaking the moment like ice cracking underfoot. "That brings us to the plan."

"You're not sending us in alone?" Pyra's attempt at levity fell flat as week-old bread, but she tried anyway.

"Correct." The quartermaster eyed her with something almost like humor. "Command agreed that throwing you at the dragon without preparation would be wasteful. Your particular gifts notwithstanding."

He motioned to the sand table, redirecting attention to practical matters. "You'll be joining the forward reconnaissance team. Observation, intelligence gathering, testing the boundaries of her influence. If successful, you'll help prepare the way for the main assault."

"And if it all goes wrong?" Ember leaned forward, studying the terrain with new purpose.

"Then you're the only ones likely to survive long enough to report back." Darius said it matter-of-fact, like discussing weather. "Your immunity to cold, your ability to resurrect, your speed—all factors that make you ideal for this kind of operation."

There it was. Not thrown in their faces, not wrapped in pretty words. Just truth naked as a blade.

Kindle sighed, rubbing her temples. "Can't we just use magic to look ahead? Scry out what's waiting?"

"Tried that." The voice came from the doorway—Valerian Cross himself, looking like someone had aged him with a curse. His formal robes hung wrong, as if he'd lost weight between their tailoring and now. "The moment our sight crosses the border, this happens."

He produced a scrying mirror from his robes. Silver-backed glass that should show whatever the caster willed. Instead, it held only white—not the blank white of absence but something that moved, swirled, suggested shapes that never quite formed. Like trying to see through a blizzard made of light.

"Every method. Every technique." Valerian set the mirror down with excessive care, as if it might shatter from frustrated hopes. "The moment our sight crosses the border, this happens. The ice has become a wall. Not just physical. Informational. She controls what enters and what leaves."

"So you're flying blind," Lysander said, fingers worrying at his armor's edge like a child with a loose tooth.

"You're not helping, Lord Moreth," Viktor's growl could have curdled milk. "Command is fully aware of the risk. Which is why this team must succeed."

"Glad to know where the faith lies." Lysander's boredom rang false as lead coins.

"All of our faith lies with those who hold the most promise." Valerian's gaze found the five women and stayed there. Weight settled on their shoulders like a yoke. "And that is clearly the women before you. More than you know, but that is a matter for another day. This briefing is about what you need to do and how you are to do it."

The room's attention shifted, focused on them like sunlight through a lens. Half-hope that tasted of desperation. Half-dread that knew hoping meant hurting. Their presence had made real something these officers had been able to hold at distance. Now it breathed in the room with them.

"We can do it." She infused the words with the same steel she'd been honing since arriving. "What's the timeline?"

"Tomorrow. Dawn departure, with the forward team in support. We've selected five battlemages who are capable enough to last the journey." Thale had found his command voice again, pulled it on like armor. "Jorin will brief you on routes. Quick penetration, information gathering, no engagement unless unavoidable."

"And if we find survivors?"

"Mark locations. We organize extraction after intelligence assessment." The arithmetic of war—lives weighed against strategic value. "Your primary objective is understanding the dragon's disposition. Everything else is secondary."

"Including people." Pyra didn't hide the judgment in her voice.

"Yes." Thale met it without flinching. "Including my daughter, if you find her. Because without intelligence, we all die. And the dragon wins."

The briefing dissolved into smaller arguments. Nobles protesting delays. Mages debating detection theory. Quartermasters calculating how many would starve before they froze.

The five withdrew to a corner, forming their inevitable circle.

"Thoughts?" Ember asked quietly.

"It's fucked." Cinder's assessment cut clean. "But sitting here is worse."

"I'm worried about those five mages," Ash said, fingers still moving restlessly against her thigh. "Just because we can survive doesn't mean they can."

Kindle nodded. "We'll have to protect them. But this mission... we have to commit. No half-measures."

"And not just because we're the only ones who can do it," Pyra said, matching their quiet tone for once. "At least we're starting off with a scouting mission instead of going for the final boss right in the get-go. That's practically cautious for us."

"Don't jinx it," Kindle groaned. "Every time you say something's easy—"

"I said 'practically cautious,' not easy. Totally different thing."

Ember ignored their familiar back-and-forth, watching faces around the table. Thale's grief had carved new lines in his face. Viktor's worry sat in the bunch of his shoulders. Valerian kept rubbing his temples, trying to stave off headaches that came from more than just exhaustion.

"No clever solution," she said, certainty settling in her bones. "No trick to make it easy. We go in, we look, we learn."

"Should be simple. We could cover fifty miles before breakfast," Kindle added, optimism creeping back into her voice.

"Our mage support might have opinions about that pace," Ash observed.

"Then we go slow." Ember watched the sand table, all those fallen flags and silent towns. "Information first. Heroics if we can manage them. Staying alive above all."

Agreement rippled through their connection—that wordless understanding that came from sharing thoughts as well as bodies. Not happy. Never that simple. But unified in the way that mattered.

Cinder smiled without humor. "A frozen hellscape crawling with enslaved innocents, some ancient terror at its heart, and command expecting us to make miracles happen."

"Business as usual then," Kindle added, her attempt at cheer almost convincing.

"Yeah, it sounds bad." Pyra shrugged. "But, you know..."

"Remember the gnome life," all five said in unison, the invocation worn familiar in their mouths.

Ember looked past her sister-selves to the sand table, where wooden pieces marked the deaths of thousands and promised thousands more. "We haven't died for a while. Be a shame to break the streak now."

The joke fell flat as a punctured lung, but they chuckled anyway. Sometimes that's all you could do—smile at the dark and step toward it anyway, warmed by the only fire that mattered.

The fire of being together, even at the end of all things.

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