The air in the Second Level of the Glacier was a tomb, but for Rayn, it had become a vortex of fracturing consciousness. One moment, he was standing before the broken, betrayed shell of a man who once ruled Ashburg; the next, he was drifting in a sea of his own blood, the crimson droplets hitting the ice with a rhythmic, hypnotic drip... drip... drip...
Suddenly, the cold was gone.
A hand shoved him. Hard.
Rayn's boots skidded on the frozen slick, and he slammed into the jagged, ice-covered wall. The impact sent a jolt of raw, agonizing electricity through his spine. He fell to the ground, his face scraping against a jagged spire of frozen runoff. A searing, white-hot line of pain carved across his cheek. The skin parted, and the metallic, coppery tang of his own blood filled his nostrils.
"What the fuck, Vespera!" Rayn roared, his voice cracking with a mix of fury and disorientation. He scrambled to his feet, hand flying to his face. His fingers came away slick with warm, viscous blood. "Are you trying to kill me, you crazy bitch?!"
Vespera stood over him, her eyes burning with an irritation that masked a deeper, primal concern. Her dragon-hybrid features were sharp, dangerous. "I called your name for five fucking minutes, you dead-eyed bastard! You were standing there like a statue with a lobotomy, staring into the void while I was literally screaming at you. You didn't even twitch. I had to knock you back into reality before you lost your fucking mind entirely."
Rayn opened his mouth to retort, but the blood dripping from his forehead touched his eye, and the world tilted.
The headache hit him like a warhammer to the base of his skull. His vision shattered. The cavern walls dissolved into a swirling, chaotic mist.
He saw a field—a vast, endless field of golden wheat, stained black by shadow. A woman, her hair like midnight, her eyes glowing with the intensity of dying stars, sat in the center, weeping. Her face was obscured, a blur of impossible sorrow. Beside her stood a man—himself? No, a version of himself, older, scarred, holding a sword of liquid crimson. He looked up at the sky. A legion of beings in robes of blinding white descended like a plague of locusts.
The man with the crimson sword tilted his head. His eyes met Rayn's across time and space. He smiled—a sad, broken smile that tasted of a thousand lost battles. "It's already over, Rayn," the man whispered. "Stop looking back. The future is where the blood is spilled. Just do what you have to do."
The vision detonated.
Rayn collapsed, gasping for air, the ice beneath him trembling. He felt Vespera's hands hauling him up, her lap a cold, hard anchor against his back. Dawinton hovered nearby, his face etched with a mix of curiosity and dread.
"Did you see me, kid?" Dawinton whispered, his voice trembling. "Did you see who she was?"
Rayn blinked, his vision slowly returning to the bleak, gray reality of the glacier. His mind was a frantic mess of phantom memories. Was that me? Or was that a ghost haunting my future?
"RAYN!" Vespera's voice was a whip-crack, dragging him from the abyss.
He tilted his head, his face slick with sweat, the wound on his forehead throbbing rhythmically. The bleeding had stopped, leaving a jagged, stinging scar. "What... what the hell just happened?"
Dawinton didn't let Vespera speak. "That's the fucking question, isn't it? Suddenly, you lock up, your eyes glaze over, and you start radiating energy that shouldn't exist. Is your brain getting smashed to pieces because you awakened that pathetic, cursed Void Scribe power?"
Vespera glared at the old man. "Does that power actually do that? Does it break a person's mind?"
"It's not just a power, it's a death sentence," Dawinton spat, his eyes dark. "I read about it in the Forbidden Archives before I was betrayed by my own flesh and blood. Three hundred years ago, the King of the Four Kingdoms—the man who literally willed the world into his current shape—awakened the Void Scribe. Everyone mocked him for having the 'weakest' power. But he didn't give up. He was a monster of intellect. He was the only one in history to awaken secondary powers after the first. He built the trains, he forged the industries, he created the law.
He mentioned losing his mind because a voice constantly urged him to change the future and 'correct' the world. When I've arrived here, I want to ensure I'm not subjected to that same negative influence or any unnecessary discomfort."
Rayn's heart hammered against his ribs. A man who built everything 300 years ago... a king... trains, industries... The suspicion settled in his gut like lead. He wasn't from here. He was like me. A traveler. But how did he build engines on a planet that didn't have the blueprints? Maybe he was a technician, an engineer from another timeline, another Earth, trying to play god in a world of mud and magic.
"Enough about the dead king," Rayn said, his voice raspy. He stood up, shaking off the residual dizziness. "Dawinton, is there treasure here? Any hidden legacy, any stash of power?"
"No," Dawinton replied bluntly. "Nothing but ice, death, and ghosts."
"Fine," Rayn turned to Vespera. "We're leaving. But we aren't leaving him."
Vespera arched an eyebrow. "What the hell do you want to do with him? He's a broken, betrayed king with a target on his back the size of a mountain."
"We heal him," Rayn stated. "We disguise him. We make him look like a piece-of-shit beggar on the street. When we get back, I'll 'discover' him, take him in as my servant, and keep him hidden in plain sight. He knows the secrets of the Sterling faction. He knows how the Clockmaker thinks. I'm not letting that intel rot."
Dawinton's eyes narrowed. "You're talking about me like I'm a dog you're rescuing from the gutter. If you want my loyalty, you'd better be able to protect me. I won't follow a child playing at being a king if he's going to get me killed before I have my revenge."
"Old man," Rayn's eyes flashed with a lethal, crimson hunger. "I could kill you right now. I'm only giving you a choice because I appreciate the irony of your situation. Don't push your luck."
"Kid, if someone told you they were going to 'take care of you,' would you just say yes? No. You'd test them. I need to know if your blade is as sharp as your mouth."
Rayn let out a dark, guttural chuckle. "You're half-dead, Dawinton. If you want a fight, I'll give you one. But I won't hold back."
"Good," Dawinton stood, his back straightening with royal pride. "Vespera, heal me. If I'm going to die, I'll die standing up against a worthy opponent."
Vespera sighed, her hands glowing with a soft, iridescent light. She stepped forward, pressing her palms against Dawinton's chest. The air crackled. The broken ribs knit together with a sickening, wet crunch of bone and magic. The deep lacerations from the betrayal sealed, leaving only pale, angry scars.
Dawinton inhaled deeply, the air whistling through his lungs. He felt the rush of restored Gnosis. He reached to his hip and drew a blade of pure, blinding gold. Floating coins—orbs of solidified energy—began to orbit his sword, clinking with a rhythmic, metallic hum. The Merchant's Gnosis. A power that turned raw capital into raw destruction.
Rayn drew his Ice Age sword. The air grew brittle and cold, the temperature dropping until the very moisture in the air turned to needle-like ice.
"Don't worry about me, Rayn," Vespera murmured, stepping back. "Just try not to break the ceiling. I'd rather not be buried under five tons of glacier."
They lunged.
The collision was seismic. Rayn didn't fight like a student; he fought like a starving beast. He swung his blade, a flurry of ice-infused strikes that shattered the golden coins orbiting Dawinton's sword. Dawinton parried, his golden blade glowing with the weight of absolute wealth, every strike feeling like he was swinging a literal fortune.
CLANG!
The shockwave blasted the remaining ice from the walls. Rocks groaned and buckled. Rayn was forced back, his boots carving deep furrows into the ground, but he didn't stop. He pushed into the vortex of their power, his own energy bleeding out, creating a swirling maelstrom of blue frost and liquid gold.
"You're fast, kid!" Dawinton roared, parrying a strike that would have decapitated a lesser man. "But speed isn't power!"
"Then let's see how you handle the void!" Rayn screamed, his sword glowing with a dark, inky light. He channeled the Void Scribe, the scent of burning ink filling the cavern, suffocating the golden aura.
The entire glacier screamed. The rocks above them began to fracture, massive chunks of ice plummeting down, but neither man moved. They were locked in a dance of slaughter, the new king and the old, fighting for the right to decide the fate of a town that was in brink of death.