The massive ice statue of the Frost Mother dominated the space.

  Twin rivulets of vibrant crimson wept from the statue’s eyes, tracing blood paths down the ice cheeks. From the open palms held in blessing, more blood dripped steadily, staining the pristine ice around its base in grotesque blooms.

  It wasn't a trickle.

  Pilgrims wailed, tearing at their clothes, beating their chests. Others knelt, hands outstretched towards the dripping blood, chanting prayers.

  A group near the base fought viciously – some trying to shove others away to cup the falling blood in crude bowls or strips of cloth, shouting about "holy ichor," while others screamed accusations of "defilement!" and "curse!" and clawed at them.

  Talons struggled to form a ragged cordon around the statue's base, shoving back the surging, hysterical crowd with shield walls and shouts that were swallowed by the cacophony.

  "BY THE MOTHER!" Olaf bellowed. "She bleeds!"

  Eirik saw the disaster unfolding in brutal clarity. This wasn't an attack on the walls; this was an attack on the idea of Abercrombie. On him.

  His eyes scanned the base of the statue.

  The blood hit the trampled snow, melting it slightly before congealing into dark patches. His gaze snapped upward, tracing the paths of the blood. He found no cracks.

  The blood seemed to be weeping directly from the ice itself.

  "Source," Eirik snarled. "Find the source! Olaf, Leif, clear a path! Talons! HOLD THAT CORDON!"

  Olaf shoved aside a pilgrim who lunged for a bloody patch of snow. The man sprawled, wailing about lost blessings. Leif was suddenly beside him, Frost Realm aura subtly radiating, an intangible pressure that made the crowd instinctively recoil a step from their path.

  Olaf used his sheer bulk, bellowing threats and shoving with controlled brutality.

  "BACK! GET BACK, YE SODDING IDIOTS! GIVE THE COMMANDER ROOM!"

  They fought their way to the base of the statue.

  Eirik reached out and dipped a finger into the dark fluid pooling at the Frost Mother's feet. He brought it to his nose. The coppery scent was overpowering. Not animal. Human blood.

  He looked up again, following the crimson trails upwards. How? The scale was immense. The blood flowed too consistently, too freely, to be stored in some small bladder hidden near the surface. It had to come from within the ice itself. But how do you trap that much liquid inside solid ice without it freezing? How do you release it on command?

  His eyes narrowed, focusing on the statue's head, on the weeping eyes. The angle... the way the blood flowed... it wasn't just seeping. It looked... channeled.

  He threw his perception outward at the ice itself. He felt the structure, the flow of inherent Frost Mana within the statue he'd crafted. Normally, it was a tranquil, deep current, a reservoir. Now... there was turbulence. A sickeningly warm thread woven through the deep cold.

  He placed his hand flat against the blood-slicked ice at the statue's ankle. Not to absorb, but to feel. To trace the contamination. The ice yielded slightly to his touch, communicating its distress. He focused, pushing his awareness upwards, following the unnatural, pulsing warmth against the grain of the ice's own structure. It snaked upwards through the torso, branching towards the arms and the head.

  [INCOME SOURCE: 91.3% → 88.7%]

  The notification flickered. Pilgrims were already turning away, fleeing towards the gates.

  "Talons!" Eirik roared. "SEAL THE GATES!"

  The heavy timber gates began to grind shut.

  "Silence!" Eirik commanded. "Talons! Search the crowd! Look for anyone carrying containers! Skins! Bladders! Anyone whose hands are stained red!"

  He turned back to the statue, pressing both hands against the ice near the weeping wounds.

  He focused on pushing the invasive warmth out. It was delicate work, far more nuanced than building walls. He couldn't simply drain the area; that would visibly damage the statue, confirming the desecration in the worst way. He had to force it out.

  500 Mana Fragments vanished, then another 500.

  Slowly, the flow from the Frost Mother's left eye diminished to a stop.

  But as Eirik shifted his focus to her right eye, he felt it again.

  It pushed back. Viciously. His carefully directed Mana flow faltered. The channel feeding the right eye pulsed, resisting his freezing touch. The trickle thickened, becoming a steady stream again. The crowd's tentative hope curdled back into fear again.

  [INCOME SOURCE: 88.7% → 78.2%]

  "Commander?" Leif's voice was tight with alarm.

  Eirik staggered back a step, breaking contact with the ice. He stared up at the weeping visage. The disapproval lingered, a crushing weight on his spirit.

  He realized now the enemy's plan.

  The timing, the spectacle, the way it made his touch seem to worsen the bleeding - it was all designed to frame him as someone who displeased the Mother. To make the pilgrims believe their new Lord had angered their deity.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The message was horrifyingly clear to him: He built this. He profaned this form. This is his doing.

  "The blood... it renewed," a woman near the front shrieked, pointing a trembling finger. "He touched her, and she bleeds worse!"

  Murmurs rose again. They just saw the Mother rejecting Eirik's touch. What hope remained?

  Olaf slammed his axe-haft onto the ice, the sharp crack momentarily silencing the rising tide of panic near him. "SHUT YER TRAPS! The Commander's fixin' it! He stopped one already! It's bloody sabotage! Can't ye see?!"

  But his roar seemed diminished against the tide of superstitious dread. Pilgrims were pressing harder against the Talon cordon, their eyes fixed on the weeping statue, fear overriding reason. Some still chanted, clutching bloody rags like talismans. Others wailed, tearing at their hair.

  Leif stepped closer to Eirik.

  "Commander, we need to contain the spectacle. Now."

  Contain it. How? The statue was Abercrombie. Shroud it? Melt it? Both would scream guilt, confirming the pilgrims’ worst fears that Eirik had something to hide. He needed the bleeding to stop, visibly and permanently. He needed to show dominance over the desecration, and overcome the Mother’s perceived disapproval.

  Wait.

  He took a deep breath.

  The enemy hadn't just wanted to desecrate the statue—they'd wanted him to try to fix it. They knew him, perhaps better than he knew himself. They'd counted on his nature, his need to act, to take control with his own hands.

  The problem-solving instinct that made him a leader had been weaponized against him. They'd dangled the problem before him like bait, knowing he'd lunge for it, knowing he'd expose himself in the attempt. And when the statue rejected his touch before hundreds of witnesses, his very attempts to solve the crisis became proof of his inadequacy.

  Whoever did this wasn’t just powerful in some esoteric sabotage magic. They were a master manipulator.

  Touching the statue had been foolish. So was the order for shutting the gate. He’d taken the bait, confirming the narrative of his guilt in the eyes of hundreds. Now, any further attempt to visibly stop the bleeding would likely be met with the same divine rebuff, or worse, escalate the sabotage into something catastrophic. Whatever force was behind this, he couldn’t fight it head-on. Not now.

  So, he wouldn’t fight it. He’d use it.

  "SILENCE!"

  A glacial calm descended over him. He stepped back from the weeping statue, drawing every terrified eye in the courtyard. The panic, the hysteria – it was fuel. He just had to ignite it correctly.

  "PEOPLE OF ABERCROMBIE!" Eirik’s voice was amplified by the cavernous courtyard walls and sheer willpower. "LOOK UPON OUR MOTHER!"

  A fresh wave of sobs answered him. Fingers pointed accusingly, not just at the statue, but at him.

  He held their gaze.

  With a sudden motion, he grabbed the neckline of his tunic and ripped.

  The coarse fabric tore apart down to his waist, exposing his skin. The act was shocking in that it stripped away any semblance of lordly composure.

  He slammed his fist against his chest.

  "THEY THINK THEY CAN BREAK OUR FAITH BY MAKING HER BLEED!" He lifted his face. "BUT LOOK! Even wounded, she STANDS! Even bleeding, she does not abandon us!"

  The blood of the statue was still on his finger. He raised it high.

  "THIS IS HER SACRIFICE! HER PAIN REVEALED BY THE TREACHERY OF OUR ENEMIES!"

  He pointed the bloodied finger outwards, sweeping it across the terrified faces.

  "They hide among us! Poisoners! Serpents slithering in the sanctuary SHE allowed us to build! They seek to shatter us! To turn brother against brother! To make us flee back into the darkness because they fear the light we’ve kindled here!"

  He took a step forward, his bare chest radiating heat in the cold.

  "I SAY LET THEM FEAR!" He roared. "Let them see her blood! Let it stain the snow as a testament to their cowardice! Let it harden our resolve!"

  He slammed his bloodied fist over his heart.

  "By her frozen tears staining this ground…" He locked eyes with Olaf, then Leif, then swept his gaze across the Talons, the miners, the mothers clutching children. "I SWEAR IT! I WILL FIND THE ONES WHO DID THIS! I WILL DRAG THEM INTO THE LIGHT OF THIS BLEEDING DAWN! AND I WILL MAKE THEM PAY!"

  Silence.

  He’d taken their terror, their superstitious dread, and forged it into something else: shared victimhood with the same purpose.

  Then, Olaf roared.

  "FOR HER! FOR ABERCROMBIE!"

  It was the spark. A Talon sergeant echoed it. Then another. Then a miner, his pickaxe raised, face contorted with rage. "FIND THE BASTARDS!" A mother, her face streaked with tears, clutched her child tighter and screamed, "MAKE THEM PAY!"

  The wave built, crashing over the courtyard. Chants replaced wails: "FOR THE MOTHER! FIND THEM! PAY! PAY! PAY!"

  Eirik rose. His gaze swept the crowd, then locked onto the Talon sergeant nearest the main gate.

  "TALONS!" His voice cut through the chanting. "OPEN THE GATES!"

  Leif, mid-roar, snapped his head around.

  "Commander? The saboteur—"

  "Is long gone, or hidden amongst hundreds!" Eirik snapped. "We shut the gates, we play their game! We show fear! We look guilty! We choke the lifeblood of this sanctuary – the pilgrims who bring their faith!"

  He gestured broadly, encompassing the sealed, timbered gates.

  "By locking them in, we whisper to the men outside that Abercrombie hides! That we fear the truth of this… this abomination!" He spat the word towards the base of the statue. "We do not hide! The Frost Mother weeps, yes! Wounded by cowards! But her sanctuary remains OPEN! Her people are SAFE! And her Chosen Vessel stands here, demanding justice, not cowering behind walls!"

  He met the eyes of the closest pilgrims – the mother clutching her child, the miner with his pickaxe.

  "Let them come! Let them see the blood spilled by traitors! Let them witness our defiance! Let them bring word to the farthest reaches – the enemy struck, but ABERCROMBIE STANDS!"

  He pointed a blood-stained finger towards the gatehouse. "OPEN THEM! NOW!"

  Olaf didn't question.

  "YOU HEARD THE COMMANDER! OPEN THE DAMN GATES! LET THE WHOLE FROZEN WORLD SEE THE BASTARDS' HANDIWORK!" His roar propelled the nearest Talons into action.

  The heavy timber gates groaned as they were slowly winched open. Snow swirled in from the purple twilight outside.

  A wave of pilgrims near the entrance surged towards the opening.

  "By the Frost..." breathed a wide-eyed merchant just entering. "She bleeds..."

  Pilgrims who had been clawing at the barrier moments before now hesitated, looking back at the statue, then at Eirik, standing bare-chested before it.

  And then it started.

  Near the front, an older woman let out a guttural cry. She grabbed the collar of her thick woolen dress and ripped downward with surprising strength.

  The coarse fabric tore with a loud shriiik, exposing a worn under-tunic.

  She pressed her forehead to the stained ground before the statue. "Forgive us, Mother!" she wailed. "Forgive our doubt! We bear witness! We share your pain!"

  Her act was a spark in dry tinder.

  Another pilgrim tore the sleeve from his tunic. "For the Mother! Find the poisoners!"

  Shriiik! A mother tore the hem of her skirt, wrapping the strip of cloth around her child’s wrist like a bloody bandage.

  Shriiik! Shriiik!

  Men tore sleeves, hems, collars. Women rent skirts and shawls. Strips of cloth, symbols of shared suffering, were tied around arms, woven into hair, pressed against the bloody ice at the statue's base.

  Instead of fleeing, pilgrims now reaffirmed their presence.

  Eirik watched it unfold. Then, he turned sharply and strode towards the main entrance tunnel.

  "Commander!" Leif caught up quickly. "Where are you going? The Talons are searching the crowd, but we don't have any lead yet!"

  Eirik didn’t break stride.

  "We do," he answered. "Who among our enemies revels in blood? Who had the sheer blasphemous gall to desecrate the Frost Mother Herself?"

  He didn't need to see Leif's face to sense the dawning horror.

  "Skarls..." Leif breathed.