Chapter 12

  The battle to stop a second death came sooner than expected. Much sooner.

  In fact, it began that very night.

  I awoke to a sound—soft and distant. A melody. Whispered singing, as if it floated on the wind, barely there… and yet unmistakably real. The room, which had already been cold, now felt like it was carved from ice. The air stung my lungs. My bones ached with frostbite that hadn’t even touched the skin yet.

  And then I remembered.

  The ritual.

  The stable boy.

  The Ice Wraith.

  The melody, that Malrik had mentioned.

  I bolted upright, adrenaline surging through my chest like fire through dry grass. No time to waste. My hands reached instinctively for my armor, grabbing the greaves first and pulling them on with practiced speed. Before I could secure the straps, I heard motion—Simon and Vin had stirred as well.

  Simon didn’t say a word. He grabbed his wand and a heavy leather-bound tome that had probably been under his pillow the whole time. His fingers glowed faintly as he flipped it open mid-step. He was already muttering under his breath—formulas, runes, arcane pathways forming before our eyes.

  Vin, on the other hand… did nothing.

  Well—not nothing. She stood upright in one smooth motion, her posture tense, body low and ready. She didn’t reach for a weapon, didn’t summon flame or frost to her palms. But the way she stood—motionless but poised—told me everything I needed to know. She had tricks. And she didn’t need to wave a sword to use them.

  I hoped to every god above that I was right.

  And Maira?

  Maira slept.

  I stared in disbelief. The cold hadn’t touched her? The song hadn’t stirred her?

  She lay curled under her blanket like it was any other night—like we weren’t seconds from facing a possible death spirit.

  Fine. We had a Paladin, a storm mage, and an elf with quiet confidence. We could work with that.

  None of us charged out into the corridor like brainless heroes screaming for blood. No. I drew my sword slowly, silently, letting the runes along its fuller shimmer faintly in the dim room. The metal felt colder than usual. Or maybe that was just the room.

  I moved toward the door and placed a hand gently on the handle.

  Behind me, a quiet voice:

  “Can you actually use that sword?”

  I paused.

  Vin. It was Vin.

  I turned halfway, giving her a look. That had to be a joke. A spark of sarcasm, a jab to break the tension—right?

  But as I locked eyes with her, I saw no humor there. No smile. No raised brow. Just focus. Quiet, steady focus. Tense. Alert. And not the slightest trace of fear.

  It wasn’t a joke. She was genuinely asking.

  I almost laughed—but I didn’t. Instead, I answered her calmly. Quietly.

  “I may be a judgmental leader,” I said, sheathing my sarcasm as best I could, “and I’ve made my share of mistakes—” especially recently “—but I’m still a Paladin.”

  My voice hardened slightly.

  “A vengeful one, perhaps… but a Paladin all the same.”

  I didn’t know why I added that last part. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was the truth surfacing when I didn’t expect it. But it felt… honest. And tonight, that felt important.

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  Vin simply nodded. She didn’t question further. That, too, was an answer.

  I turned the handle slowly.

  I eased the door open just a crack and pressed my eye to the narrow slit.

  Nothing.

  The hallway was empty. No shadow gliding across the floor. No trace of frost-touched air swirling unnaturally before me. The Ice Wraith wasn’t out here—not yet. But I could still hear it.

  The song.

  It drifted through the hallway like a mist, soft but unnervingly clear. A slow, sorrowful melody, almost lullaby-like—except it didn’t soothe. It pierced. It crept into the corners of my mind like fingers made of ice. It came from deeper within the inn. From the direction of the storage room.

  I could feel it now more keenly than ever: the cold wasn’t localized. It wasn’t just the song, nor just the path ahead. The Wraith’s presence was pressing in from every wall, every board beneath our feet. The very bones of the inn were freezing.

  Crouching low, I slipped into the hallway and signaled the others to follow. Quiet hand gestures. No words.

  Foot by foot, we crept down the corridor, every step calculated, every breath silent.

  Then—movement.

  One of the doors to our left creaked open. Slowly. Hesitantly.

  I froze mid-step, hand gripping my sword hilt. A figure emerged—one of the traveling merchants. He looked terrified, wrapped in a blanket, his teeth chattering as he peered out into the hallway, drawn by the unnatural cold and the haunting melody.

  When he saw me, I raised a single finger to my lips, right over the mouthpiece of my helm.

  Psst.

  Then I pointed firmly toward the inside of his room.

  To his credit, he didn’t ask questions. With wide eyes, he nodded and slipped back inside, gently shutting the door.

  The song continued, its rhythm steady, almost like a chant now. Not louder, not softer—just closer. Each step toward the source made the sound ring clearer in my ears, like it was resonating inside my skull.

  We moved forward again, low and silent.

  And something strange began to happen.

  Now that I was alert—hyperaware, even—I started noticing things I never had before. The threadbare rug beneath our feet revealed faded, meaningless patterns I’d never bothered to study. I spotted long-dried wine stains and soot marks along the baseboards. On the walls, the portraits of old kings and long-forgotten warriors stared down at us in silence. They were crude—decorative, almost cartoonish caricatures compared to the epic stone murals we’d seen in the tunnel. These were meant to impress drunk travelers, not inspire reverence.

  They didn’t. Not tonight.

  At last, we reached the end of the corridor. The staircase leading down creaked ominously before us. I hesitated, eyeing each step, expecting every groan of wood to give us away. But as we descended, the house held its breath.

  The song grew louder—but only because we were drawing closer to it. The Wraith itself remained consistent. Unchanging. Focused.

  When we reached the bottom of the steps, the icy air had become almost unbearable. It wrapped around my armor like a second skin, making each breath sharp and ragged. Ahead of us was the storage room door—shut, but humming with unnatural chill. The melody seeped through the gap beneath the door like vapor escaping a sealed tomb.

  And then, I saw them.

  Frostprints. Clear, unmistakable—an ethereal trail of pale blue footprints leading up to the door and vanishing within. The Ice Wraith had passed this way. Likely still inside.

  We would follow those prints. Later.

  Crouched low behind the half-open door to the storage room, I listened—really listened—for the first time.

  Beyond the haunting, bone-deep melody that had lured us down here, something new reached my ears.

  A crack. Then a heavy scraping sound. Wood creaking. Something was being dragged—rummaged through.

  The Ice Wraith was searching for something.

  My breath caught in my throat. Was it looking for its next victim? Had someone hidden themselves among the crates? Or… was it looking for something else entirely?

  No time for theories. We’d figure that out—just like the trail of frozen footprints—later.

  I slowly leaned forward and peeked through the gap in the door.

  There it was.

  Its back was to me, hunched over a wooden crate, long, jagged fingers digging through the contents with unnatural precision. Bits of vegetable matter were strewn across the floor—onions rolling across the flagstones, potatoes split in half by claws of pure ice. A few sausages and cuts of cured meat had been torn from their hooks and lay forgotten in the mess. Several crates sat half-empty, their lids carelessly torn away like parchment.

  And then I saw it.

  An upended barrel in the far corner, its contents—thick, frothy beer—spilled in a dark puddle across the floor, now partially frozen. A crime against all that is holy.

  An entire keg, ruined. I bit down the irrational surge of anger, though it added just the tiniest ember to the growing fire of resentment already burning from the stableboy’s murder.

  And the creature itself?

  Its back looked as though it had been carved from ancient glacial ice—deep navy-blue in color, smooth like polished stone, with pale white veins spiderwebbing across its surface. The entire structure shimmered faintly, as if catching light that wasn’t there. Every few inches, jagged icicles jutted outward like frozen spines, catching shadows in their razor-sharp edges.

  The arms, or what passed for arms, marked a sharp contrast: below the shoulders, the deep blue gave way to a blinding, translucent white—a color like freshly frozen water, so pure and cold it seemed to glow. The liquid within those limbs was frozen mid-motion, captured in swirling patterns beneath a glassy surface.

  Its legs were the same—carved ice from the waist down, but no less lethal. Each step it took left patches of frost in its wake, creeping across the floorboards like hungry tendrils.

  I gave the signal to the others to get ready. Simon conjured a magical projectile, I stood up and shifted into a ready stance with my sword, and Vin... did nothing. But she looked focused—and that counted.

  I raised my hand, counted down slowly from three, and then dropped it.

  Then we charged.