Selithrae POV
"Hello, thieves."
The knight in front stilled.
No helmet now—frost in his dark hair, old scars along his jaw. Frosted Rose sigil on his pauldron. Behind him: the taller shield-bearer; the priestess with a moon-silver clasp at her belt; the mage with the stolen crescent of the moon goddess hanging easy at her throat.
Relics that had once warmed border shrines and sickbeds.
Now worn like trophies.
In front of her army and her general, Selithrae felt almost underdressed.
Ten thousand wights waited behind her in perfect ranks, shields grounded, spears planted, soul-fire banked low. To her left, Aevyrion stood on his floating slab of ice like it was a balcony seat at the theatre, helm tucked under his arm, grin sharp and hopeful.
Under all of them, the Land of Eternal Winter pulsed.
Slow. Deep. Hungry.
The knight—Sir Darius Valek, if the scar matched—swallowed once.
"Duchess Selithrae," he said. "We—"
"No," Selithrae said. "We're past words."
She rolled the worry beads in her fingers once and let the next surge rise early.
The ice under everyone's feet swelled. Fine cracks spidered out from where the four Northerners stood, glowing faintly as the light of the curse bled up through the fractures.
The mage's eyes flicked down, fast and hungry. Her magic stretched, a thin, invisible probe.
Selithrae felt it brush Tloew's surface.
"Don't," she said.
The probe kept going.
She slammed her staff down.
The surge that had been building under them snapped sideways. The basin floor bucked like a struck drum. The mage snatched her hand back with a hiss, fingers numbing as her delicate thread was torn away and burned.
Around Selithrae, a few wights shuddered as the redirected pressure rattled through their bindings. They steadied themselves without complaint.
The mage sucked in a breath through her teeth.
"You could have just said no," she said.
"I did," Selithrae said. She didn't raise her voice. "You kept touching."
Aevyrion shifted, armour clinking softly.
"Duchess," he murmured. "If we're not going to talk, we could… stop not killing them."
Selithrae considered the four Northerners: bright, stubborn little fires against her grey horizon. The spell loved them. The curse always noticed the living first.
She felt Tloew's pulse leaning toward them.
"Very well," she said.
She glanced at Aevyrion. "Here is an appetizer."
His grin widened like something breaking.
Selithrae flicked her beads.
"Front two ranks," she said. "Test their footing."
The command flowed through the dead like water.
The first two ranks of wights stepped forward as one, shields lifting, spears lowering. No roar, no drumbeat. Just the soft, terrifying sound of ten thousand boots on glass-hard ice.
Darius' shield came up. The bigger man—Brynjar—shifted to cover his flank, tower shield overlapping. The priestess slid in behind them, one hand rising to the clasp at her belt. The mage's fingers were already sketching sigils in the air, lines of power wrapping her wrists like cuff-bracelets.
"Hold tight!" Darius called. "Don't give them angles!"
Selithrae rolled the next surge back down, letting the field quiet just enough that she could watch properly.
The first spear volley came in.
Not wild throws. Each thrust aimed for a joint. A throat. A hip. Habits from life surviving well into death.
Darius knocked one aside with his shield. Brynjar twisted, catching another on the rim and wrenching the wight's arm out of its socket. The priestess's light flared once, nudging a third spear a handspan off course before it could punch through the mage's ribs.
The mage thrust a palm out.
Ice leapt from the ground in a low ridge, tripping three advancing wights and breaking the timing of the ranks behind. They flowed around the obstacle without complaint, formation rippling and smoothing like water.
Aevyrion laughed, dropped from his slab, and strode forward, sword in hand.
"Frosted Rose!" he called. "Come see what you turned us into!"
Darius met him with a grunt and a slammed shield. Their blades rang; frost sprayed. Brynjar shifted to the side, catching a spear meant for Darius and battering its owner away with a shoulder slam.
They were good, Selithrae thought.
For living.
She lifted her staff.
The curse was already building the next surge, drawn by heat and motion. This time she didn't try to smooth it. She shaped it—compressed it into a narrow wedge and hurled it low, skimming just above the ice toward the four.
"Down!" the mage barked.
They dropped as one.
The surge hammered into shields and overlapping wards instead of knees. For a heartbeat, everything was white and pressure; then the wave broke around them, past them, out into the wight ranks beyond.
Several wights staggered. One went down on one knee. Soul-fire flared, then steadied.
Elayne Rosgaard straightened slowly, breath steaming.
"Is this your test?" she called. "See which of us breaks first, you or the spell?"
Selithrae didn't answer.
She gestured with her staff, and the ice behind the Northerners cracked open in a long, clean line. A wall of jagged frost rose up there, cutting off the direction they'd come from.
Darius glanced back once, jaw tightening.
"We're not turning our backs on ten thousand spears," he said.
"Correct," Selithrae said. "You aren't."
She let Tloew's next pulse roll up, neck-deep and eager. Even the dead felt it this time; soul-fire guttered, then flared. The mage visibly swayed, as if the pressure had fingers.
Good, Selithrae thought.
Let her feel what she's clawing at.
"Darius!" Brynjar snarled, batting Aevyrion's blade aside. "We can't hold this ground forever."
"I know," Darius snapped. "Elayne—options!"
Elayne's eyes were on the ice, on the faultlines, on the way the glow under their feet shifted with each pulse.
"Inwards," she said. "Never back. If we move, we move along the grain."
Darius didn't hesitate.
"Left break!" he shouted. "Stay locked!"
The four Northerners began to edge sideways, shields still interlocked, moving not away from Selithrae but at an angle—following some invisible slope only the mage could see.
Selithrae frowned.
They weren't trying to punch through her front line. They weren't trying to flee.
They were trying to slip.
She shifted her grip on the staff.
"Aevyrion," she said. "Cut them off."
"With pleasure."
He disengaged from Darius with a brutal shield slam and stepped sideways, drawing a line of wights with him, turning the front ranks to block the Northerners' path.
The basin narrowed around the Frosted Rose. Wights pressed in on three sides now, not at a rush but in a steady, crushing curve.
The priestess threw up a wide flare of light, forcing the nearest wights to squint back from the glare. It bought them a breath. No more.
"Elayne," Darius said. One word, full of years.
"Working on it," the mage snapped.
Her hands were moving again, faster now, tracing a more complex shape. She wasn't flinging raw force this time. She was building something structured, woven—Selithrae could feel the geometry of it as it took shape in the air between the four Northerners like a faint, glowing lattice.
A portable circle, Selithrae realised. Crude, but clever. An escape she couldn't quite see yet.
Tloew hummed, displeased.
Selithrae narrowed her eyes.
Another surge built. The crack she'd been ignoring at the edge of the basin tugged at the flow, hungry.
"Forwards!" Aevyrion roared. "Box them!"
The wights obeyed.
Spears crossed. Shields locked. The dead advanced in a slow, horrible ring.
"Here," Selithrae called to her general, without taking her eyes off the growing spell in Elayne's hands. "Your appetizer is trying to run."
"I prefer my food moving," Aevyrion said cheerfully. "It makes the chase fun."
He raised his sword, ready to give the kill command.
Selithrae lifted her staff first.
---
Elayne licked dry lips.
"Darius," she said quietly. "Get them close. I'll need all three of you touching the circle when I say."
"And the dead surrounding us?" Brynjar asked. "Ignore them?"
"Don't die to them," she said. "Dying to them breaks the circle."
"That's not how we were taught to prioritise," Brynjar muttered. But he lifted his shield.
Darius took one long breath. His eyes were on the bright knot ahead, then on the lines of wights above.
"Frosted Rose!" he shouted, voice cracking across the basin. "We go forwards. We stay together. We live long enough to make this hurt!"
The anchor hummed under their feet.
Selithrae lifted her staff.
The first volley from the wight artillery dropped like hail.
Elayne pulled her magic in until it screamed.
There was no going sideways now.
Only through.