The Royal Dungeons of Lostwartz were not designed for humans; they were carved deep into the permafrost to break spirits. Eira was thrown into the deepest cell, a stone box where the air was stagnant and the walls wept condensation that froze into black ice patterns, like veins of a dead god.
She sat in the corner, her knees pulled to her chest, her once-pristine dress torn and dirty. The cold didn't bother her—she was a Frostheart—but the darkness did.
She hadn't slept since the plaza. Sleep was a punishment. When she closed her eyes, she didn't see darkness; she saw the blue flash. She saw the frost creeping over his eyes, extinguishing the light in them. She felt the snap of his soul leaving the world under her fingertips, a vibration that traveled up her arm and lodged in her heart.
I killed him. I saved him. I killed him. I saved him.
The thoughts warred in her mind, tearing her sanity apart.
"Why?"
The voice was broken, sharp as a shard of glass. Eira looked up. Queen Isabella stood on the other side of the iron bars. She wasn't the Queen Eira knew. The woman who stitched tapestries and scolded Alaric gently was gone. In her place stood a hollow shell, her face pale as parchment, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from endless weeping. She held a handkerchief that she twisted violently in her hands.
"Mother..." Eira scrambled to the bars, the heavy iron chains on her wrists rattling against the floor. She reached out a hand, desperate for warmth, for understanding.
"Please. Listen to me. Malakor... he was controlling him. He was going to kill us all. I had to—"
"Silence!"
The sound echoed through the dungeon, terrifying in its raw agony.
"I saw you!" Isabella gripped the bars, her knuckles white, her face pressed against the cold metal.
"I stood right there! He smiled at you. He smiled at his daughter, his heart, and you struck him down! You turned his blood to ice!"
"He asked me to! He couldn't move! He was trapped inside his own body! He begged me to stop it! Look at his face, Mother! He was smiling because he was free!"
"He begged?" Isabella laughed, a manic, humorless sound that chilled Eira more than the dungeon air. "My Alaric would never beg for death. He loved life. He loved you."
Isabella reached through the bars. For a second, Eira thought she might touch her cheek, offering the comfort she so desperately needed.
Instead, the Queen struck her.
Slap.
It was a sharp, stinging blow across the face. Eira fell back, clutching her cheek, stunned. The physical pain was nothing. It was the look in her mother's eyes that destroyed her.
It wasn't just anger. It wasn't just grief. It was disgust. It was the look one gave to a rabid dog that needed to be put down. It was the realization that the woman who gave her life now wished she could take it back.
"What did I do wrong?" Isabella whispered, sliding down to her knees, weeping into her hands. "I raised you with love. I gave you everything. And you... you are a curse. You are a monster born from my womb."
"Mother, please... don't say that..."
"The execution is at dawn," Isabella said, her voice turning cold and dead. She stood up, wiping her face, composing herself into a mask of stone. "If you have any dignity left, die quietly. Do not speak my name again. You are no longer my daughter."
She turned and walked away, her footsteps echoing into silence.
Eira slumped against the damp wall. She looked at her hands. They felt alien. They felt covered in invisible blood that no water could ever wash away.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the darkness, curling into a ball. "Father, I'm sorry. Mother, I'm sorry."
Dawn arrived grey and joyless, the sun hidden behind a thick shroud of storm clouds.
Eira was dragged from her cell by guards who wouldn't look her in the eye. Men she had known since childhood, men she had played tag with in the courtyard, now treated her like a contagant. They marched her through the corridors she used to run through as a child, past the portraits of her ancestors who seemed to glare down in judgment.
The execution block was a slab of black iron in the center of the courtyard. A massive crowd had gathered. These were the same people who had cheered for her birth, who had thrown flowers at her carriage during the festivals.
Now, they threw stones. Rotten vegetables. Spittle.
"Patricide!"
"Witch!"
"Traitor!"
Eira didn't look at them. She kept her head down, her silver hair shielding her face like a veil of mourning. She deserved this. In her mind, she deserved worse. She had committed the ultimate sin.
She was forced down onto the block. The cold iron pressed against her cheek, smelling of old blood. She stared at a crack in the stone floor, tracing its jagged path, waiting for the end.
The executioner, a massive man in a black hood, tested the edge of his axe. It gleamed in the pale light, hungry.
On the balcony, Queen Isabella sat on a throne that looked too big for her now. She raised a trembling hand.
"If you have no last words," the magistrate announced, his voice booming over the jeering crowd. "Then let justice be done for the murder of King Alaric Frosht."
Eira closed her eyes. A single tear escaped.
"Begin."
The executioner grunted, muscles bunching as he swung the heavy axe upward. Gravity took over. The blade whistled as it descended, a song of death.
WHOOOOSH.
Eira flinched, her breath hitching, waiting for the bite of steel.
CLANG.
The sound wasn't flesh tearing. It was metal hitting something harder than steel. It rang out like a temple bell, vibrating in everyone's teeth.
Eira opened her eyes.
The axe was stopped inches from her neck. A thick, jagged pillar of diamond-hard ice had erupted from the ground, locking the executioner, unabling him to move another inch.
"Who dares?!" the executioner shouted, trying to pull his axe free. It was frozen solid to the pillar.
The wind picked up. It wasn't a breeze; it was a gale. The banners snapped violently. Snow began to swirl in a tight vortex in the center of the courtyard, blinding the guards. From the sky, a figure descended. She didn't fall; she floated, borne on currents of mana so dense they were visible to the naked eye as shimmering ribbons of white light.
She wore robes of pristine white that seemed woven from the clouds themselves. Her hair was braided like a crown of frost. In her hand, she held a staff of weirwood that pulsed with the terrifying, god-like power of the 10th Circle. Lydia. The Grand Court Mage. The protector of Lostwartz. In this world, there is only 2 living mage who achieved the 10th circle. She was the sole reason why Lostwartz was feared by other kingdom.
She landed between Eira and the executioner. The stone beneath her boots cracked under the pressure of her aura. She didn't look at Eira. She refused to. Her eyes were fixed on the balcony.
"Stop this!"
"Lydia!" Queen Isabella stood up, clutching the railing. "You have returned? Stand aside! She killed the King! She killed Alaric!"
"I know," Lydia said calmly. Her face was a mask of unreadable marble, but Eira, looking up from the block, saw the Grand Mage's hand trembling around her staff.
"But I refuses to watch my disciple die infront of me, even for the crimes she had committed."
Lydia turned to the crowd. Her gaze swept over them, cold as the void, silencing the jeers instantly.
"I swore an oath to Alaric, 'Protect the girl.' I would not break the sacret oath for anything, Isabella. Even for you. If you try to kill her, you will have to kill me first."
She raised her staff, pointing it at the royal guard.
"And you know... you cannot kill me. I would slaughter every knight in this castle before you could draw a breath."
The threat hung heavy in the freezing air. It wasn't a bluff. Lydia was a one-woman army, the only reason why the kingdom hasn't been in war for years, and right now, she looked ready to burn the world down to keep her promise.
Queen Isabella stared at her, defeat crumbling her posture. She slumped back into her throne, burying her face in her hands.
"However, she committed regicide, the blood of the King is on her hands. She cannot stay here. The people will not accept a Kingslayer on the throne. I will not accept her in this kingdom."
Lydia pointed her staff at the castle gates.
"Then she will be banished. She goes to Aethelgard. Tonight. She will never set foot in Lostwartz again."
"I accept, get her out of my sight. Get her out before I kill her myself."
-------------
The carriage ride to the border was suffocatingly silent. The only sound was the crunch of wheels on snow and the howling wind that seemed to mourn the dead King. Eira sat opposite Lydia. She was still in her prison rags, shivering uncontrollably. She looked at her mentor, her big sister, the woman who had taught her how to make snow angels and how to weave mana.
"Master, thank you. You came. You believed me."
Eira moved to sit next to Lydia. She reached out, desperate for a hug, for a touch of kindness after days of torture. She needed Lydia to tell her it was okay.
SNAP.
Eira froze.
A shard of ice, sharp as a needle and harder than steel, materialized in the air. It pressed against Eira's jugular, drawing a single bead of blood. Lydia hadn't moved. She was staring out the window at the passing frozen landscape, her jaw set tight. But her mana was coiled like a viper, poised to strike.
"Don't touch me,"
The voice was unrecognizable. It wasn't the warm voice of her mentor. It was a voice filled with jagged edges, a voice barely restraining a scream.
Eira blinked, confused and terrified. "Master?"
Lydia slowly turned her head.
The look in her eyes broke Eira more than the Queen's rejection. It wasn't just anger. It was a profound, agonizing mixture of love and loathing. Lydia's eyes were red, brimming with tears she refused to shed.
"Do you think I saved you because I care? You killed Alaric. You killed my King. The only person who accepted me. The only man I ever respected."
"I... I had to...He asked me to..."
"You were weak! Let's say that your little theory is right, that Malakar is from the demon cult controlling the king, why didn't you try to attack Malakar first, I remember I taught you to be better than this, to be stronger than this".
Lydia's voice rose to a shout, filled with the desperation of grief.
"Instead, you panicked. You chose the easy way out. You ended him."
"I didn't have a choice! He was going to sign the kingdom away!"
"There is always a choice!" Lydia slammed her fist against the carriage wall, shaking the vehicle.
Lydia leaned in, her face inches from Eira's. Eira could see the veins throbbing in Lydia's forehead.
"I only saved you because I made a promise" Lydia whispered, the words dripping with venom.
"You are the only remnant of what is last of him, it's my duty to protect it despite how filthy it is."
Lydia withdrew the ice shard with a flick of her mind. She brushed her robes where Eira had almost touched them, as if shaking off filth.
"But that doesn't mean I accepts you for who you are and what you done, my duty as your mentor is over."
"Master... please...Don't leave me alone."
"Be quiet, before you have to regret it."
Eira shrank back into the corner of the carriage. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold her shattered pieces together.
----------
The office of Dean Cornelius in the Royal Academy of Aethelgard was warm, filled with the smell of old books and coffee. But when Lydia entered, the fire in the hearth flickered and died.
"Absolutely not, we are halfway through the semester. We do not accept transfer students without an entrance exam. Especially not... controversial ones. I have heard the rumors, Lydia. They say she killed her father."
Lydia stood in front of the desk. She looked exhausted. Her eyes were hollow, her skin pale. But her power was undiminished.
"Are you questioning me, Cornelius?" Are you questioning my ability to guide someone. This is my apprentice, I have taught her magic since she was 5 years old, I assure you her magic is more than competent for this academy of yours."
The ink in the Dean's pot start to freeze, shattering the glass with a sharp crack. The windows cracked with a spiderweb of frost. The Dean's hot coffee turned into a block of brown ice in his mug, steam trapped inside.
"Threatening the dean of the royal academy, looking down on the most prestige academy of Aethelgard, I see you have gotten more and more bolder, Lydia."
"Sir Florian, what occasions do I owe the honor."
"Save the honorifics dean Cornelius, I'm about your grandson age. You make me feel old you know?"
Florian enters the dean office as he stand besides Lydia, his aura matching with Lydia, if Lydia is considered the protector of Lostwartz then Florian is the sword of Aethelgard, he was her equal, a knight that never loss a battle. His demeanour half serious half joke, starts to question Lydia.
"Asking administration for a girl who killed her own father, don't you think it's too much to ask for? even for you Miss Grand Mage, If she killed her own father, how could you garuantee she wouldn't kill our student."
"I know she won't, she must've had some reason to kill her own father like that, I have trained her when she was young, she's a good kid!"
"Being a good kid doesn't mean killing their family member, don't they, Lydia?"
"I'll try to investigate why, but she needs a place to stay, the citizen, they won't accept a person who killed the king!" Lydia mana starts to overwhelm the room, the temperature starts to freeze the office.
"And you think our people will accept such sin?" Florian starts to match with Lydia freezing aura as well, though it was different from Lydia because Florian is a knight, so the two aura didn't clash, they combined, making dean Cornelius feels a both freezing cold and a heavy atmostphere. Cornelius swallowed hard, adjusting his glasses with trembling fingers, trying to end this situation as soon as possible.
"I... I think the school board can make an exception. For you, Grand Mage."
Florian was so shocked he almost lost his composure, Lydia let out a smirk enough for Florian to see make him annoyed.
"Good, I'll remember this favor, dean Cornelius."
"Where have you learn your Lydia, I'm impressed, you even know how to show gratitude now!"
"Tch."
"But, Lydia, if she ever caused anything, anything that threaten the kingdom, I'll handle it myself." This time Florian was serious, he wasn't talking or acting like this was a joke anymore. He was still the kingdom's divine swordsman, and he bear the responsibility of keeping the kingdom safe."
As Lydia turned to the door and leave, she paused.
"I assure you Lydia is a good kid, so please take good care of her, I'm asking this not as the grand mage, but as a friend, Florian."
"You always ask for too much, Lydia, but I'll see what I can do." Florian returned to his childish voice.
Lydia let out a faint smile. She hardened her heart. She clenched her fist. She left Eira without a word. She opened the door and vanished into a swirl of snow, leaving Eira behind in a foreign land, severing the last tie to her home.
Eira was admitted to Class D because she refused to demonstrate her magic during placement, and she gradually fall to the bottom of class D because she refused to attend to any class, take any test. Attending the academy was given as a second chance for her, but she refuses to think of it that way, the academy was only a prison, both keeping her safe and everyone safe, but until she is in this academy, she can't fully give up yet, there's still hope for her, hope that she could prove to her mother, her mentor what she said is the truth, so she wanted to give it all up, if she is expelled, everything will be over, there would be no more hope for her, she would get her deserving end, the ending of a girl who killed her father.
Students avoided her in the halls. They whispered when she passed. They feared her. Everyone looked at her like she was some kind of demon, even instructors showed her no sympathy, they would always settled to their fighting stance when she was near them. The only two person who treated her differently was a knight, who rarely came to the academy, but each time he came, he would visit her, each time he would let out a sad smile when he saw her, and leave without a word. The other was a boy, he was strange, he looked at her with 'Pity', the eyes when he said he understand her, they felt real, it gaves Eira hope, but she would always try to brush it away, nobody would ever understand her, he is just a hypocrite, acting like he understand her so that she would help him in the test, and when he got what he wants, he would just look at her with the same eyes people looked at her, but deep inside Eira, somewhere, she hoped it was real.