Hundreds of pilgrims, refugees, Talons, and Flint's men packed the courtyard below the towering ice statue of the Frost Mother. Torchlight flickered against the serene ice, casting dancing shadows that felt like watching spirits.

  Eirik Stormcrow stood center stage.

  "People of Abercrombie!" Eirik voice boomed across the frozen courtyard. "Look around you! See who graces our frozen sanctuary this night!"

  He gestured towards the delegation.

  "We are honored by the presence of Chantress Varina of the Order of the Everwinter, the very voice of the Frost Mother's wisdom!" He inclined his head respectfully towards her.

  Varina’s pale eyes remained fixed on him, unblinking.

  "Earl Borin Ironhelm, whose lands we stand upon!" Borin managed a tight nod. "And my brother, Lord Rurik Stormcrow!" Rurik flashed that perfect, charming smile, waving a hand to the crowd. He preens like a rooster at dawn.

  "This place," Eirik continued, sweeping his arm to encompass the ice walls, the bustling courtyard, the looming statue, "was nothing but ruin and Skarl-infested rubble."

  He saw heads nod.

  "It rose," he stated simply, "because men like Olaf weren't afraid to infiltrate their camps as a prisoner!" A roar erupted from the Talons section near Olaf. "Because men like Leif Fenrir learned to command respect instead of just demanding it!" Leif stood straighter. "Because men like Yorick learned that ledgers can be as vital as steel!" Yorick flushed. "Because men like Harkin risked Skarl arrows for sacks of grain!" Harkin gave a gruff nod.

  "But most of all," Eirik’s voice dropped, "it rose because of you. The miners, the hunters, the farmers, the mothers clutching children. You came with nothing but frostbite and hollow bellies. You dug, you hauled, you built, you believed."

  He paused, seeing the flicker of fierce pride in countless eyes.

  "I wasn't a lord. I wasn't a knight. When I came here…" He let the silence stretch again. The memory was a familiar ache. "I was less than nothing. A bastard. Starved. Beaten. Broken. Nothing left in the whole wide world but a burning will. A will to claw my way out of that hole."

  He looked up at the statue.

  "And that was when She looked down. When the Frost Mother saw… not a lord, not a hero… just a ragged bastard clinging to life with bloody fingernails. And She had mercy. She saw the fire in the ash. She granted me a purpose. A way to channel the cold that had always been part of me."

  The crowd was utterly silent now.

  "That spirit – that desperate, burning will to build something from the wreckage, to defy the cold and the darkness – that’s what lives in Abercrombie. That’s what raised these walls. That’s what keeps you warm!"

  He slammed a fist into his palm.

  "That’s the spirit I share with you all tonight! It doesn’t need noble blood. Everyone can partake in it!"

  Murmurs rippled.

  "Why's he talking like this? Sounds like a farewell..."

  Varina’s glacial stare sharpened. Time’s up.

  Eirik took a deep breath.

  "Ah. But the Frost Mother’s will comes in many forms, doesn't it? Sometimes it builds. Sometimes… it tests. "

  He looked directly at Varina, then Rurik.

  "Building this sanctuary… that was my will, shaped by Hers. The Order’s decision …that too is the Frost Mother’s will."

  Confusion twisted into shock. Disbelief.

  "Decision? What decision?"

  "He’s leaving?"

  "I will be taken away," Eirik stated plainly. "Taken to the Everwinter Peaks, under the guidance of the Order. To study this gift… so it serves the North, not just Abercrombie."

  The reaction was instant and volcanic. Shouts erupted.

  "NO!"

  "You can't go!"

  The crowd surged forward against the Talon cordon.

  "SILENCE!" Eirik roared. The raw power in it cut through the tumult. Faces flinched back. "Listen! Frost Mother’s will!"

  He let the word 'will' resonate.

  "Now. Let me introduce you to the man who will stand where I stood. My brother, Lord Rurik Stormcrow!"

  Boos and cries of "Snake!" and "Traitor!" sliced through the air.

  Rurik’s smile vanished.

  "Listen! People!" Eirik raised his hand again to quell the outrage. "My brother is not as he might seem! He looks young, yes? Perhaps untried by Skarl axes? But do not mistake him! His achievements are… unique."

  He turned towards Rurik.

  "Where I claimed this fort with blood, Rurik claimed it with his silver tongue! A rare talent! He navigated halls of power where a misplaced word could break a man. He can weave plans and alliances with the skill of a master bard! He commands respect in courts where bloodline matters more than bone!"

  He hasn't built a damn thing. He hasn't killed a single threat. He just excels at the knife-fights in the shadows.

  "He understands the… intricate dance of lords and politics as few others do!"

  Snickers and outright laughter rippled through the crowd now. The tension shifted from outrage to bitter amusement.

  Rurik’s face flushed crimson. Varina took a half-step forward. A wave of intense cold rolled off her, silencing the laughter instantly.

  "Ah! Forgive me, brother," Eirik said smoothly. "I jest! Old habits, you know? Brothers tease. He will serve you well, guided by the Order’s wisdom."

  He stepped back, sweeping his arm towards Varina.

  "But wisdom walks among us! Chantress Varina! The Frost Mother’s chosen voice! Step forward, Chantress! Please! Grace us! Let the people at the back truly see the beacon of their faith!"

  The demand hung in the air.

  Varina’s lips thinned into a line of displeasure. She clearly hadn't anticipated being paraded before the rabble. But refusing publicly, after Eirik’s display of submission, would seem petty.

  She toyed with the thought for a momement, then glided forward with regal disdain. She took Eirik’s place at the very edge of the platform.

  Perfect positioning.

  "Chantress!" Eirik boomed, stepping subtly sideways and back, putting himself directly behind her.

  "These people… Many have never seen one so close to the Frost Mother! Before you take me… would you share Her light? A word? A gesture? Something to warm their hearts through the long winter nights?"

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He saw it in her eyes – utter contempt for the rabble, for him, for this entire spectacle. But he’d framed it. Refusal would seem denying the faithful a glimpse of the Order’s power after he, the untrained vessel, had just been lauding Her presence.

  The crowd leaned forward.

  Come on. Step up.

  Varina studied Eirik for a heartbeat. Then, with a barely perceptible sigh of disdain, she gave a curt nod.

  "Very well."

  Varina raised her slender hands.

  "KNEEL!" The command erupted from a dozen of throats simultaneously – the templars that she had brought.

  Like a wave crashing on a shore, the entire crowd dropped to their knees in genuflection.

  Eirik, already slightly crouched behind her in his own feigned kneel, slammed his right palm flat onto the ice platform directly beneath Varina's feet.

  "In the name of the Frost Mother, I—"

  [Absorb.]

  WHOOSH!

  Chantress Varina dropped like a stone into utter blackness. A shaft, just wider than her shoulders, plunged straight down into the bedrock.

  Absolute silence followed.

  Every single person in the courtyard stared at the sudden, gaping hole where the powerful priestess in the North had stood a heartbeat before. Shock froze them all – pilgrims, refugees, Talons, Borin, and Rurik. Especially Rurik.

  Eirik leaped back, putting distance between himself and the stupefied templars whose eyes were only now snapping towards him. He scrambled up onto the low stone base of the Frost Mother’s statue, towering above the crowd.

  "In a moment," Eirik roared, "SHE'D HAVE COME BACK UP! SHE WOULD SILENCE ME! AND DRAGGED ME AWAY!"

  He pointed a trembling finger at the pit.

  "Does she care about the Frost Mother? About any of you? NO!" His voice cracked with genuine rage now. "All she cares about is CONTROL! About putting a bastard like me back in the mud where I belong! Where THEY think I belong!"

  He swept his gaze over the crowd.

  "WHERE WAS THE ORDER WHEN I RISKED MY NECK AGAINST THE SKARLS? JUST ME AND MY MEN, OUTNUMBERED, BUILDING WALLS WHILE THEY SHIVERED BEHIND THEIR STONE PALACES!" He saw nods, grim faces remembering the terror. "WHERE WAS THE ORDER WHEN YOU STARVED? WHEN YOUR CHILDREN COUGHED THEIR LUNGS OUT IN THE SNOW? YOU CAME HERE! YOU BUILT THIS WITH ME!"

  His voice rose to a scream.

  "AND JUST WHEN WE STARTED TO MAKE THIS PLACE INTO SOMETHING! WHEN WE STARTED TO BUILD HOPE! THEY SHOW UP! TO REPLACE ME! TO TAKE IT ALL! TO PUT A SMOOTH-TALKING SNAKE IN CHARGE WHO’S NEVER SWUNG AN AXE AT A REAL ENEMY IN HIS LIFE!"

  Rurik found his voice. "Silence him! Seize the traitor!"

  The templars snapped out of their shock. Four of them surged forward, blades hissing from scabbards. Olaf moved faster. With a bellow that shook snow from the walls, the huge lieutenant stepped directly into their path, his own massive war axe held low and ready. Leif, face pale but set, drew his sword, stepping beside him. A ripple went through the Talons – hesitation, then determination. Half a dozen more stepped forward, forming a ragged line between the templars and Eirik. Metal clashed as blades were met.

  The spark.

  "SHE'LL COME BACK UP!" Eirik shouted, pointing at the pit again. "AND SHE WILL KILL ME! RIGHT HERE! RIGHT NOW! FOR THE CRIME OF STANDING TALL WHEN THEY THOUGHT I SHOULD STAY ON MY KNEES!"

  He slammed a fist against his chest.

  "MEN OF ABERCROMBIE! WOMEN! FAITHFUL! DO NOT LET MY BLOOD FLOW WEAKLY! DO NOT LET THEM SILENCE THE TRUTH! REMEMBER ME!"

  He drew himself up even as his heart hammered against his ribs. Come on, bitch. Crawl back up. Make your entrance.

  Then it came.

  Chantress Varina rose from the void.

  She levitated upwards. Her white robes remained impossibly pristine, untouched by dust or water, but her face… Her flawless, impassive mask was gone.

  "Insect. You dare defile sacred ground? You dare lay hands upon the Voice?"

  Eirik met that burning gaze head-on.

  "I offered the Voice a platform. It was SHE who slipped."

  Varina didn’t dignify it with words. Her eyes narrowed. Her slender hand, pale as moonlight on snow, lifted palm-out towards Eirik.

  "Gelu... Poena."

  Eirik gasped.

  Agony exploded in his right arm. It felt like there was a million tiny needles of made of frost driving deep into the muscle and sinew. He stumbled back a half-step on the statue base, teeth grinding together to stifle a scream.

  "The Voice does not 'slip'," Varina stated. "You will confess your sacrilege. You will beg for the Frost Mother’s mercy you do not deserve."

  The crowd was horrified. The Chosen Vessel struck down by the true Voice of the Mother. Hope curdled into terror.

  Eirik dragged in a shuddering breath. He forced his voice out.

  "Mercy?" A ragged laugh escaped him. "Is… is this her mercy, Chantress? Freezing a man’s blood for daring to build shelter?" He gestured weakly with his frozen arm towards the towering ice walls. "For… for giving these people a wall between them and the Skarl axes? Is this what the Frost Mother demands?"

  The frozen needles in Eirik’s arm twisted viciously. He cried out, buckling at the knees but managing to stay upright by sheer will against the statue base.

  "You only deepens your guilt, apostate," Varina pronounced. "Your power is a blasphemy. A perversion of the True Cold. It ends tonight."

  Rurik stepped forward. "Hear the Voice, brother! Cast aside your pride! Perhaps the Order will grant you a swift end!"

  Eirik ignored him.

  "Ends?" he chuckled. "How? Like this? Frozen piece by piece in front of the people who trusted me? Is that the grand finale, Chantress? Torture and spectacle? Is this the wisdom of the Everwinter Peaks?"

  He threw his good arm wide, encompassing the terrified, silent crowd.

  "LOOK AT THEM! Look at their faces! They came for miracles! For comfort! For the touch of the Mother’s grace! And you show them this! Her ‘Voice’… dripping with malice… eager to inflict pain!" He spat the words. "Where is the Mother’s mercy in this? Where is Her compassion? When did SHE ever demand a man be broken?"

  A low murmur began to rise from the edges of the crowd. Pilgrims exchanged glances. Was this… the face of their faith? This cold, cruel vengeance?

  The needles of ice in Eirik’s arm intensified.

  He screamed and dropped to one knee, slamming his good hand onto the cold stone for support. His Frost began to spread visibly from his afflicted arm, creeping across his shoulder.

  "Is this…" he gasped, "...all you’ve got, Chantress? Little needles? Making a man kneel?" He tried for a mocking laugh, but it came out as a gurgling cough. "I’ve faced Skarl arrows. Troll claws. Cold deeper than your petty magic. You think… you think pain scares me?"

  He pushed himself back up, swaying dangerously. The frost was creeping up his neck now.

  "Go on! Kill me! Right here! Crush me like the insect you named me! Freeze my heart solid before their eyes!" He gestured wildly with his good hand towards the statue. "Do it! Prove to them all what the Order truly is! That it’s not about faith… it’s about CONTROL! About silencing anyone who dares build something they don’t own!"

  His voice rose to a ragged shout.

  "KILL ME! Show them the Frost Mother’s true face – as YOU understand it! BLOOD ON THE ICE AT THE FEET OF HER STATUE! IS THAT YOUR DIVINE JUSTICE?"

  The murmur in the crowd grew louder.

  Varina’s icy composure finally cracked.

  "SILENCE! YOU VILE, TWISTED THING! YOU DARE SPEAK FOR HER? YOU DARE PROFANE HER MERCY WITH YOUR LIES?"

  She rose higher, hovering several feet above the pit.

  A spear condensed from the heart of winter, coalesced – a shaft of blindingly cold white light edged with crackling black void.

  "GELU... ANNIHILATIO!"

  She hurled the spear.

  But movement exploded from the crowd below.

  "NO!"

  A grizzled miner hurled himself upwards onto the statue base. He wasn't graceful, but he was directly in the spear's path.

  Light met flesh.

  For a horrific microsecond, his body seemed to shatter from within, then simply… dissolved. Not into gore, but into a million glittering motes of frozen dust, consumed utterly by the spell’s annihilating cold.

  A fine, chilling mist hung where he stood.

  "DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

  A mother shoved past the paralyzed Talons. She leaped, arms spread wide, planting herself between Eirik and oblivion.

  She caught the spear's trailing edge as it passed through the space the miner occupied. Her scream was cut off as the sheer cold ripped through her torso, turning her into dust.

  But the double sacrifice had bought Eirik the sliver of a second he needed.

  Instinct threw his entire weight sideways. The spear grazed his cloak as he collapsed onto the statue base, gasping, the world swimming. Alive, but barely.

  The courtyard held its breath for one more fractured second.

  Then the dam broke.

  The sight of their Chosen Vessel nearly obliterated, of two simple souls reduced to ice and dust defending him, ignited a raw, primal fury that no priestly authority could quell.

  "SHE KILLED THEM!" The scream ripped from a dozen throats simultaneously. "SHE MURDERED THEM!"

  "MONSTER!" A woman shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at Varina. "THAT'S NOT THE FROST MOTHER'S VOICE! THAT'S A DEMON!"

  The shock curdled into incandescent rage. The faith Varina represented had just openly murdered the devout in cold blood for protecting the man who’d built their sanctuary.

  "GET HER!" A burly refugee bellowed. He snatched up a chunk of broken ice and hurled it towards the hovering Chantress. It fell short, shattering on the ground, but the gesture was a spark in dry tinder.

  "FOR THE COMMANDER! FOR ABERCROMBIE!" Olaf’s roar shook the walls. The big man didn’t hesitate. He charged the nearest templar, his war axe a blur. The clang of steel on enchanted plate echoed like a war gong.

  The courtyard erupted.

  Pent-up desperation, shattered faith, and newfound, furious purpose, exploded at the same time. Pilgrims, refugees, miners wielding picks and shovels, even some of Flint’s guards swept up in the frenzy, surged forward.

  "COME ON THEN! KILL US ALL!" a woman screamed, flinging herself bodily at a templar, clawing at his visor. "SHOW YOUR TRUE FACE, WITCH! GO AND MURDER THE WHOLE CITY!"

  "YOU’RE NOTHING LIKE HER! NOTHING!" Another pilgrim swung a heavy walking staff at Varina’s palanquin bearers, scattering them.

  The templars hesitated but still flashed their blades. Pilgrims fell as their blood stained the trampled snow red.

  But for every one cut down, three more surged forward. They fought with rocks, sticks, sheer weight of numbers, dragging templars down and beating them with bare hands. The elegant palanquin was overturned and trampled underfoot.

  High above the chaos, Varina hovered, untouched but visibly shaken. Her perfect composure had shattered entirely. Rage radiated from her, a palpable wave of arctic fury that made the very air groan, but it was now mixed with a flicker of something else – disbelief?

  The sheer, chaotic ferocity of the mob, the rejection of her divine authority, was something utterly outside her experience. Her templars were being swamped by rabble.

  She raised her hand again, power coalescing, targeting the densest knot of attackers pressing Olaf and his Talons.

  "Enough! Gelu—"

  A ripple.

  The incantation died on Varina's lips. Her head snapped towards the source of the disruption.

  All eyes followed Varina’s shocked gaze.

  There, standing calmly near the edge of the trampled area before the statue, stood Mara.