Lord Dagan Varn shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. The ice walls of Fort Abercrombie loomed before him.

  Impressive, yes. Undeniably so. But cold. Very, very cold.

  He pulled his thick wool cloak tighter. Beside him, Lord Arctus Flint snorted derisively. His own mount, a heavy-bred destrier, stamped impatiently.

  "Ice walls, Varn? Pretty baubles, I'll grant you. But where's the stone? Where's the defence towers? Able fighting men? Where's the substance?"

  He gestured with a gauntleted hand towards the bustling, yet still visibly ramshackle courtyard.

  "Looks like a refugee camp with fancy decorations to me."

  Varn grunted in agreement. The ice structures were breathtaking in their way. Yet, surrounding these miracles were hundreds of weary people bundled against the cold.

  It felt... fragile.

  "Substance takes time, Flint," Varn rasped. "Time, coin, and blood. Stormcrow seems adept with the first part, thanks to his... tricks. But coin and blood? He asked me for men and you for talons. For what? More ice? To feed all these mouths?"

  He pointed towards the thin line of people already forming near what looked like a ration distribution point.

  "This place feels hollow, Flint." Other nobles surrounding them murmured their assent.

  "The woman promised much, Varn. 'A new center of Frost Mother faith'. All very stirring words. But faith doesn't fill bellies nor drive away Skarl warbands. Where are the granaries? Where are the training grounds? Where are the people who aren't just huddling and waiting?"

  Varn sighed.

  "Isolde Fenrir plays a deep game, Flint. She always did. Sending that missive to us... it was well-crafted. But I fear she's bet everything on this bastard's parlor tricks holding up."

  "They say he fought Grakk'Thor himself," a quieter voice offered from behind them. It was a knight. "He mounted the chieftain's head on the wall. That speaks to more than just ice tricks."

  "So they say," Flint countered dismissively. "Stories grow in the telling. We see no proof of such a battle, just a head on a spike."

  The real question is: what is he? A freak of nature? A demon? Or just a very clever fraud using superstition to build a power base? Isolde seems convinced he's touched by the Frost Mother. But Lord Varn sees no divine touch, just cold blue ice.

  He shivered dramatically to emphasize the lack of warmth.

  Their small group, perhaps twenty nobles and their retinues, had been ushered into a cleared area near the south wall, away from the main flow of activity. They watched as the fortress population gathered in a larger space before them.

  The crowd was immense, far larger than Varn had expected.

  Not just the Talons and the refugees Frostholme had contributed, but scores more. Word had spread, then. Isolde's call for the memorial had drawn people from miles around, seeking solace, or perhaps just a glimpse of the impossible.

  "Quite the congregation for a god made of ice. " Flint grunted.

  The murmur of the crowd began to hush as figures moved towards a makeshift platform erected before where the memorial stones lay.

  Isolde Fenrir ascended the simple wooden steps. Beside her stood a man in simple grey robes. A priest, Varn assumed. Behind them stood the cabinet he had interacted with– Leif Fenrir, Olaf, Yorick. But no Eirik.

  Isolde stepped forward.

  "People of Abercrombie," she began. "Here lie Talons who fell retaking the gate, whose names we must never forget."

  She gestured towards the neat rows of stones laid out before the wall.

  "The Frost Mother teaches us that even in the deepest winter, life endures. So too must the memory of the fallen endure within us."

  The priest stepped forward and began a resonant chant in the old tongue of the Frost rites.

  Flint looked bored out of his existence. Varn felt genuine respect for the sincerity of the ritual, but it didn't answer the gnawing questions in his gut.

  That's it? That's the miracle Isolde promised?

  The priest finished his invocation. He stepped back, bowing his head. Isolde took a step forward again.

  We have remembered the fallen," Isolde said. "We have honored their sacrifice. But their sacrifice demands more than tears and stones! It demands that we build! That we endure! That we create a future worthy of their blood!"

  She pointed a finger towards the gathering crowd.

  "But deep down, many still doubts! They see the miracles, yes. But they also see ruins! They see the ice, but they also see the desperation! They look upon this place and see only the struggle being patched up with fragile magic!"

  A ripple of shock went through the noble ranks. This was far from the diplomatic plea for funds he'd expected.

  "But I say to you, look closer!" Isolde cried, turning to face the sea of people. "Look into the soul of the fighter who stands watch because this place gave us a purpose beyond despair!"

  She lifted her arms and opened her palms upwards towards the grey sky.

  "Behold! For today, the Frost Mother’s grace is truly with you! For today, Eirik Stormcrow, Her chosen vessel in this frozen land, will manifest Her enduring presence! He will show you that Her power flows through him, and through this fortress! He will give you a symbol! A symbol of hope! A symbol of defiance! A symbol that Abercrombie stands under Her divine protection!"

  She lowered her arms slowly as she scanned the stunned crowd.

  "Look upon your Lord! Look upon his faith! And believe!"

  A profound silence descended.

  It wasn’t the respectful quiet of the memorial. Hundreds of eyes swung towards the entrance of the central keep.

  Lord Varn sat frozen. Chosen vessel? Manifest Her presence? This was insanity! Blasphemy! The ice walls were just some magic trickery. But this? Claiming the Frost Mother herself backed Stormcrow?

  It was the boldest, most dangerous gamble he’d ever witnessed. It would either galvanize this rabble into fanatics… or see them all branded heretics.

  She’s lost her mind. Borin will have her head for this.

  Then, Eirik appeared.

  He emerged from the keep’s shattered main doorway. He ignored the staring crowd and walked past Isolde without a glance, until he reached a point in the center of the courtyard, about twenty paces from the dais.

  He stopped.

  What was he going to do? Build another wall? Conjure a loaf of bread?

  Eirik knelt slowly, deliberately, on one knee in the snow. He placed his hand flat on the frozen ground.

  Isolde swept her arm wide immediately.

  "Behold! For today, the Frost Mother's grace is not merely present... it is made manifest! Today, Eirik Stormcrow... will show you the substance you seek! He will show you the true foundation upon which this fortress, this hope, is built!"

  Varn sputtered, "What in the frozen hells is she talking about? Made manifest? What trickery is this?"

  Eirik summoned the Construction Interface.

  At Isolde' urging, with the scraps of parchment showing the Frost Mother from her personal collection, he studied the famous images for hours: the calm face, the flowing robes layered like glaciers, the hands held in a gesture of blessing or warding.

  He'd learned the lines, the curves, the sizes. He needed this to be perfect. Not just impressive, but divine.

  [Custom Structure: Feet & Legs ]

  [Estimated Cost: 1000 Mana Fragments]

  [Confirm Construction? Y/N]

  Stolen story; please report.

  Yes.

  He poured his will into the command. The Core answered with a surge of power that made his teeth ache. A deep, deep hum shook through the ground beneath his knees. Before him, the snow-covered dirt glowed.

  Then, ice burst out.

  Frost spread outwards from his palms. Where it touched the earth, the snow vanished, turned to steam into vapor. The ground itself seemed to turn to liquid for a moment before freezing again into a solid blue mass, roughly ten feet across.

  From the ankles, the forms rose higher.

  Tube-shaped shapes became defined lower legs, covered in the beginnings of heavy robes. The ice flowed upwards, thickening at the calves, then spreading out greatly. Robes.

  Lord Dagan Varn found his bloodshot eyes narrowed.The sheer scale and detail were clear, even at this early stage.

  Now came the torso and upper body. More complex curves, the suggestion of form beneath the robes, the shoulders. The robes here needed to flow upwards, getting smaller at the waist before spreading out again at the hips and chest.

  He focused on the feeling of hanging fabric frozen in time.

  [Custom Structure: Torso, Shoulders & Upper Robes]

  [Estimated Cost: 1000 Mana Fragments]

  [Confirm Construction? Y/N]

  Yes.

  Ice surged upwards from the waist. The torso swelled into existence. Shoulders broadened, sloping downwards gracefully. From the shoulders, thick arms began to extend, bent at the elbows, the hands starting to form, fingers beginning to unfurl.

  Isolde Fenrir stood perfectly still on the dais. It was more than she'd dared hope. The sheer presence of the figure, even unfinished, was overpowering. She risked a glance at the nobles.

  Flint now looked shocked. Varn was leaning so far forward he nearly fell off his horse. She saw the shift in the common folk too – the wonder deepening into something approaching veneration.

  Eirik felt the drain. 2000 fragments in one go with 1232 left. He pictured the face.

  '[Custom Structure: Head, Face, Hair & Hands]

  [Estimated Cost: 1200 Mana Fragments]

  [Confirm Construction? Y/N?]

  Yes.

  Ice flowed upwards from the neck. The head began to take shape – the oval curve, the sweep of the jawline. The features emerged with stunning clarity: the calm brow, the straight nose, the gentle lips. Then the hair.

  A soft blue light began to come from the statue's eye sockets. They gazed out over the silent courtyard, over the stunned nobles, the amazed refugees, the frozen mountains beyond.

  [Custom Structure: Frost Mother Statue - COMPLETE]

  [Mana Fragments Spent: 3200]

  [Current Mana Fragments: 32/10,000]

  The reaction exploded. It wasn't cheers yet, but a collective intake of pure wonder.

  A woman near the front dropped to her knees, tears freezing on her cheeks.

  "She… She's here," she whispered. "The Frost Mother… She looks at us."

  Hundreds of breaths stopped. Before them, stood the Frost Mother. Not a crude ice carving, not a symbolic representation, but Her, as shown in the oldest, most sacred scrolls. Done in impeccable details and a massive scale that none had seen before — in merely minutes.

  Lord Dagan Varn felt his jaw go slack. Beside him, Lord Arctus Flint looked less like a proud lord and more like a man who'd been clubbed over the head. His heavy horse snorted, tossing its head, unnerved by the sudden being and the unsettling crowd.

  Ice walls were one thing… But this…

  Varn's mind raced back to the tales of the Frost Mother's help in the scriptures. Could it be? Could the faith be… real? Here? Now? Through him? A cold sweat formed beneath his furs.

  The stillness broke with the sound of a body hitting the snow.

  A woman near the front, the one who had whispered moments before, had fallen fully to her knees.

  "She sees us!" she cried. "She blesses us!"

  Isolde seized the moment immediately.

  "PEOPLE OF ABERCROMBIE! BEHOLD!" She gestured sweepingly at the huge figure of ice, its light bathing the courtyard. "LOOK UPON THE FACE OF OUR SALVATION! THIS DIVINE MONUMENT WILL BECOME THE CENTERPIECE OF A GRAND CATHEDRAL THAT WE SHALL ERECT HERE, THE GREATEST TEMPLE THE FROST MOTHER HAS EVER KNOWN!"

  Cries of agreement erupted.

  "THE MOTHER! SHE'S HERE!" "PRAISE HER! PRAISE STORMCROW!" "TOUCHED! HE'S TRULY TOUCHED!"

  Isolde pressed on.

  "The Frost Mother walks among us! Her chosen vessel has proven Her grace beyond any shadow! Let no tongue speak of weakness! Let no heart harbor fear! For we stand under Her gaze! We are protected! We are CHOSEN!"

  The response was thunderous.

  "CHOSEN! CHOSEN! CHOSEN!"

  The woman who had first knelt scrambled forward, and brushed the smooth surface of the Frost Mother statue with her hands. A choked sob ripped from her throat.

  "She blesses us! She blesses Abercrombie!"

  That small touch ignited a wildfire. Like logs tumbling down a slope, people surged forward. Hands reached out, not just to touch the statue, but to brush against Eirik himself, still kneeling at its base.

  Frostbite. This is… too much.

  He’d expected awe. Respect, perhaps. A strengthening of faith and allegiance. Not… this. The manic energy of the crowd was now literally fighting for a touch on his skin.

  "STAY BACK!" Olaf’s thunderous bellow cut through the initial wave of cries. Talons scrambled to form a ragged line beside him, shoving and pushing against the tide of bodies. "FORM A LINE! NO PUSHING! RESPECT THE MOTHER!"

  But the warning was lost in the rising chant.

  "STORMCROW! STORMCROW! STORMCROW!"

  "FROST MOTHER’S HAND!"

  It wasn’t adoration aimed at him alone. It was aimed at the miracle, the tangible proof of the divine they’d been told lived only in temples and old wives’ tales. He was the conduit. And in their desperation, they needed to touch that conduit, so that they also become part of this impossible light themselves.

  "Isolde! Control this!" Eirik snapped. His command jolted her into action.

  Isolde stepped forward again. "PEOPLE! PEOPLE OF ABERCROMBIE! THE MOTHER SEES YOUR FAITH! SHE FEELS YOUR DEVOTION! BUT SHOW RESPECT!" Her voice carried.

  "DO NOT OVERWHELM HER CHOSEN VESSEL! SHE HAS GIVEN US A SIGN! A BEACON! LET US HONOR IT WITH ORDER, NOT CHAOS! FORM A LINE! APPROACH THE STATUE WITH REVERENCE!"

  Some near the front heeded her. They stumbled back, pulling others with them, creating a slight buffer zone between Olaf’s straining line and the statue.

  But further back, the frenzy only intensified.

  People climbed onto each other’s shoulders to get closer to the glowing ice figure, to see Eirik. A stampede now became a very likely outcome if he doesn't control it.

  "Leif!" Eirik barked. "Deploy all reserves! Form cordons! Funnel them! Slow flow! NOW!"

  More Talons poured from barracks and guard posts, adding their muscle to Olaf’s line, beginning to physically herd the crowd, forcing them into a spiraling queue that snaked away from the statue, buying space.

  Lord Flint flinched at the raw volume. The eager passion was terrifying. Fanatics. They've become fanatics in an instant. His eyes darted from the joyful crowd to the still face of the ice goddess.

  What have we walked into?

  Lord Varn, however, was thinking furiously. If this power is real… if it shields this place… then Abercrombie isn't just a refugee camp. It's a holy site. The holy site. Isolde and the bastard are playing with the highest stakes possible.

  Borin… the High Priest will hear of this. It will shake the foundations of the faith itself.

  He was interrupted by the roar of the crowd.

  The amazed respect had turned into a wildfire. Hands stretched past Olaf's straining Talons. Fingers grabbed at Eirik's cloak, his sleeves, scratched towards his face.

  "TALONS! WEDGE FORMATION! ON THE COMMANDER!" Olaf yelled. He slammed his huge shoulder into the press of bodies, pushing people aside like sacks of grain. "MOVE OR BE MOVED!"

  Leif drew his sword.

  "BACK! GIVE HIM SPACE! BACK, I SAID!"

  More Talons rushed forward from the sides, adding their weight to the effort. They locked shields, forming a rough, bending half-circle around Eirik, facing outward, pushing with all their might. The sheer crush was amazing. The line bent and bowed.

  A child squeezed under Leif's guard and wrapped thin arms around Eirik's leg. "Please, Lord! Touch me! Heal my Ma!"

  Eirik pulled the child loose, passing him gently but firmly to a nearby Talon.

  His every next step was a battle. The crowd flowed around the shield wall like water around rocks, flowing in behind them, reaching, begging, crying out his name.

  "Just a touch, Lord Stormcrow!" "She sent you! She sent you for us!" "Bless my unborn child!"

  He'd faced Grakk'Thor's berserkers, felt his life hang on a thread under the spells of a Trol shaman. That had been a clean fight. This? This… was smothering else entirely.

  A bony hand shot through the gap between shields, grabbing his hair and pulling sharply.

  "GET OFF!" Olaf's fist smashed down on the offending arm. The cry of pain was lost in the roar. Eirik wrestled his hair free as pain shot across his scalp.

  They were making progress, inch by brutal inch, to wards the broken central keep. Fifty paces felt like fifty miles.

  "ALMOST THERE! PUSH!" Leif yelled. He stumbled, and the line buckled. Bodies flowed into the gap. Hands clawed at Eirik's chest plate. A woman screamed as she was trampled by the press from behind. Panic flared, threatening to turn the fever into a deadly stampede.

  Eirik was out of options. "FISK!" Eirik roared, spotting the alchemist's wild grey hair bobbing near the keep entrance, wide-eyed in terror. "SMOKE! NOW!"

  Understanding flashed in Fisk's eyes. He fumbled frantically in his coat pockets, pulled out a clay sphere, and hurled it into the crowd.

  CRUMPH!

  A thick, sharp cloud of dark grey smoke erupted, it was intensely irritating. Coughs erupted instantly from the front ranks of the crowd. The surge faltered as people instinctively pulled back, blinded and choking.

  "GO! GO! GO!" Olaf yelled, seizing the moment. The Talons doubled their efforts, pushing the confused front line back. Eirik, Leif, Olaf, and the core guard stumbled through the choking cloud and into the relative darkness of the keep's lower levels.

  "Bar the damn doors!" Olaf gasped. Talons slammed the splintered doors shut. Immediately, the muffled roar of the crowd became a dull thudding against the wood.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Outside, Lord Dagan Varn and Lord Arctus Flint sat frozen on their mounts.

  Flint finally found his voice.

  "By all the frozen hells, Varn. What was that?"

  Varn didn't take his eyes off the giant ice statue. "Power, Flint. Raw, terrifying power. One of the most dangerous things I've ever witnessed."

  He gestured weakly towards the crowd. People knelt weeping before the statue. Others stood in dazed silence.

  "He looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole," Flint regained some of his bluster. "Did you see his face? Looks like a man who lit a fuse on a powder keg and didn't know where to run! Surely doesn't look like a divine vessel to me! "

  "Exactly!" Varn hissed. "That's what makes it more terrifying! He didn't plan that frenzy! He barely survived it! Yet... that proved it was more power than everyone of us had imagined! Isolde delivered a god, Flint. Or the next best thing. And we just saw its birth."

  They were interrupted as Lady Isolde Fenrir emerged.

  "My Lords," she'd shed the solemnity of the memorial speaker. "Lord Varn. Lord Flint. Welcome to Fort Abercrombie. An... eventful dedication, wouldn't you agree?"

  Flint snorted. "Eventful? That was a hairsbreadth from a massacre, Lady Fenrir! You unleashed a mob!"

  "A mob that saw proof of the Frost Mother's favor shown before their eyes. Faith, my lords, is a powerful force. Unruly at times, yes, but infinitely more potent than mere swords or stone." She gestured towards the glowing statue. "That is Abercrombie's true shield. And its greatest resource."

  Varn eyed her.

  "What is your game, Isolde? Truly? Borin will react. The Order will come."

  "They will," Isolde agreed calmly. "But they will come to investigate a miracle, Lord Varn, not crush a rebellion. They will come to a fortress under the Frost Mother's open gaze. To move against her Chosen Vessel here would be... complicated." A faint smile touched her lips. "Very complicated."

  She stepped closer. "I invited you here for a reason. Abercrombie is not just a reclaimed ruin. It is becoming the heart of a new faith. The destination for pilgrims. A place where coin will flow like meltwater in spring."

  Her gaze swept over the nobles.

  "Earl Borin, Lord Cedric... they cling to old power structures. They fear what they cannot control. They see Stormcrow as a threat." Her eyes locked onto Varn's, then Flint's. "I see him as an opportunity. The greatest the North has ever offered."

  She spread her hands slightly. "This is the foundation of something that will reshape the North. Wealth? Power? Influence? All will flow to those who helped build this." She paused. "Or you can ride back to your decaying halls and freezing villages. Watch this phenomenon from the sidelines. And wonder what might have been."

  She nodded towards the keep.

  "The Commander requires... space. When he recovers, he will be ready to discuss the future. Our future. If you choose to stay."

  Without waiting for an immediate reply, Isolde turned gracefully and walked back.