Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

A Territory of Silence

The art of creation, of coaxing raw ice into vessels worthy of returning souls, was the finest work I had ever guided into being. My mist could slaughter by the legion, yet the Frostkin granted something sharper than triumph, a glimmer of purpose that death alone could never yield.

Each of the twelve guardians who now patrolled my mist carried its own quiet signature. One kept a ragged line where a human brow might crease in thought, another bore ridges that suggested braided hair frozen in mid‑swerve. Heights varied by a shoulder here, a knuckle there. Their helms hinted at cheekbones or dimpled chins, small flourishes without function, yet I let them stand. They had belonged to living minds once, and some remnant of that uniqueness deserved to survive.

None possessed tongues, for words were needless. Neither did they house lungs; the cold within their chests pulsed in rhythm with the crimson cores, drawing mana through etched channels the way a heart would draw blood. When a Frostkin exhaled, vapor drifted from slitted vents along its collar, pale and silent, like a sigh held beneath glaciers. But still, each one bore lips and a nose, even if neither served a purpose.

With the legion complete, rest inside the Abyss became conceivable. My mist would continue to wrap the five‑kilometer span, but I no longer needed to lie with one eye cracked like a hawk. The Frostkin would hear the tremor of approaching beasts and meet it with sculpted spears of ice. They would fight until their cores dimmed or the foe lay shattered.

I searched the frozen ground for a hollow between two fractured pillars where ice had grown into seats of quartz‑clear glass. There I swept a spill of frost into a pillow and let my cloak settle. Faint tremors still rolled through the stone, far‑off titans grappling in the darkness beyond my perimeter. Their roars rose as jagged booms, then faded, absorbed by the weight of the mist.

Sleep had rarely been gentle since I first dared the fog. I had learned the art of drifting with a blade poised, slipping in and out of awareness as easily as breath. Today I sought more, the deeper currents that carried dreams of light filtering through emerald leaves. Memories of a forest untarnished by haze waited somewhere within those currents, and I longed for them. To feel the sun again—not just the endless dark of the Abyss.

I spared a last glance at the nearest sentinel. Frostkin Seven stood motionless, shoulders hunched against invisible wind, blue‑gray veins flickering as mana cycled. Its helm tilted, as if acknowledging my trust. That was enough.

I closed my eyes.

At first the Abyss intruded, low rumblings and iron‑rich scents stalking across the edges of thought. Then my mist thickened, muffling every sound until even the distant clashes felt like pebbles striking deep snow. Coolth seeped through bone, gentling the ache of battle, and awareness drifted outward into a world painted in pale greens and golds, a canopy breathing overhead.

There, sunlight filtered through trembling leaves. Branches arched above a carpet of moss. I could almost taste sap on the air, feel warmth settle on skin long denied it. Meris had never seen such brilliance, yet I had promised her she would. Even if the promise lay beyond the next thousand climbs, it remained a star for my compass.

Somewhere behind me, the Frostkin shifted, ice creaking. The sound reached the dream and framed it, a reminder that guardians watched while their maker wandered paths of memory. I let the weight of vigilance pass from my shoulders to theirs, breathing once, twice, then sinking fully into the forest light.

If titans howled in the distance, they howled at stone. Twelve giants of winter would answer them long before their claws disturbed my rest.

***

Upon waking I drew one long breath of air so cold it needled the lungs, and realized at once that this had been the deepest, truest sleep I had claimed since the bridge's ruin. Strength hummed in my limbs; even my ­will felt rewoven.

The moment of renewal cracked when I noticed two Frostkin lying in pieces a dozen strides away. Gleaming torsos were split like felled trunks, limbs strewn in frozen petals. Through the bond their hurt bled across my thoughts, a dull, constant pressure, more sorrow than alarm. They stared, unblinking, mask‑faces fixed on me as if to confess failure.

Scars marked the ground around them: gouges deep enough to swallow a man, lightning burns still smoldering faintly. Two crimson beasts had ventured into the mist while I dreamed, and both now lay farther off, hulking cadavers half‑encased in rime, cores already wrenched free by my sentinels. Victory, but a costly one.

The surviving Frostkin stood ringed about me, armor chipped, shoulders notched, yet they projected a collective steadiness—an emotion like hushed relief. Their minds were simple lanterns, broadcasting shapes of feeling rather than words. "We endured. We watched. Fix us, Maker."

I stepped toward the nearest ruin. At barely 1.68 meters, I was a swallow beside a cathedral; still, the giant lowered what remained of its bulk, making the climb easier. I vaulted onto a shattered thigh, pressed both palms to a ragged edge. Frost flowed at my command, its hardness softening to pliant, glass‑cool clay. I shaped, pressing, sealing, reinforcing, letting ice trickle just enough to knit the lattice without melting the whole limb. Cracks hissed shut. Veins of blue‑gray rekindled their pulse.

Pain ebbed in the bond, replaced by quiet gratitude. I moved to the second ruin, repeating the craft. Each mend demanded precise pressure, for a core could not be jostled once seated; one mis‑stroke would undo hours of labor. I worked until sweat iced on my lashes, until both titans flexed newly formed joints and rose, steady once more.

Around us the others watched, cores glowing faint approval. We shared a moment of stillness with twelve vast silhouettes and one diminutive sculptor before fresh purpose tugged at me.

I crossed to the fallen crimson beasts. Their bodies were warped and monstrous, yet the cores plucked from their chests gleamed, flawless and dense with unused power. Holding one aloft, I felt anticipation ripple through the Frostkin. They understood: more brothers were coming.

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I chose a clearing where the mist curled thickest, raised both hands, and coaxed twin pillars of ice out of the ground. They rose meter by meter, expanding into rough silhouettes eight meters high. Carving channels, shaping chest‑cavities, I lost track of time; the giants watched in reverent silence, radiating eagerness, an almost childlike thrill at the prospect of new kin.

By the time the first rough contours resembled ribcages, fatigue tugged at my shoulders, yet satisfaction anchored me. The vessels were not finished, the souls not yet summoned, but the seedwork was laid. And in the hush of my frost‑ruled enclave, surrounded by guardians who felt, however simply, the same fierce belonging, I sensed the Abyss itself pause, uncertain now who was predator and who was architect.

But all that kindness vanished in a wisp each time a challenger pressed into our territory—our mist, our home. The moment the mist edge shivered with foreign aura, I deepened the chill until every flake of vapor became a scalpel. The Frostkin drew strength from that cruelty as if the cold were blood in their veins. From my vantage near the half‑finished giants, I tracked the clash by sensation alone; every disturbance in the mist rippled across my skin like vibrations through web‑strands.

Giant spears of condensed frost sprouted from their forearms—weapons hidden within armored cavities until the instant of need. The release was a glacial flash: white blades longer than siege towers, swung with deceptive grace. Though my guardians moved slower than many horrors, they were synchronized, a dozen tides converging on one rock. And the mist, saturating every gap, slowed intruders unless their own aura could wrestle mine aside, an uncommon feat even here. When such juggernauts appeared, I joined the fray from afar.

Truth remained absolute: the mist was mine. Inside that domain I needed neither eyes nor ears. Intention alone could sculpt ice from empty air, raising spears behind a predator's blind spot, driving them forward with invisible impetus. A crimson monstrosity, a mass of rolling armor plates and needle limbs, charged my line once. It never reached striking distance: three lances sprang through its thorax in rapid succession, and the Frostkin hacked the corpse apart before its shriek finished echoing.

After each battle, they returned as towering alabaster forms splashed crimson, hauling carcasses that made me feel an ant. They knelt in turn, offering trophies for inspection. I traced gloved fingers along cracked plates, coaxing ice to flow like clay until seams fused, until runic veins flickered evenly once more. I wondered if these beings could endure beyond the mist's reach; perhaps not. Yet within my realm they would not fall easily.

Their proficiency grew daily. They were not machines but souls wearing new flesh, each with subtle quirks: One favored sweeping strikes, another lunged with feral directness, two always fought flank to flank like siblings joined at thought. They learned, adapted, even erred—imperfections that proved their humanity beneath the frost.

If strength of mana alone dictated possibility, I would birth a legion; but blessing a vessel drained something fundamental, a sliver of the same force that let me warp ice and sense the world through vapor. After my long sleep and the defense that followed, I felt that reservoir deeper yet still finite. Whether it was rest, the act of creation, or simply the fact that I had endured another day in the Abyss that deepened the well, I could not say.

Now the two new vessels stood complete, eight‑meter statues awaiting heartfire. Azure channels wound through chest and spine, ready to cycle mana the moment a soul took residence. Beneath the hush of the mist the finished Frostkin formed a loose semicircle, emotions pulsing along our link, anticipation, warmth, an almost parental eagerness.

I centered myself, lifted the whispering lens to my eye, and inhaled frost‑sharp air. "A willing soul," I invited, voice low yet ringing across unseen distances. The dead answered with a hush like wind through hollow stone. Two presences glided forward, curious and resolute. Pain pricked as I wove strands of will into twin conduits, guiding each spirit through the monocle's aperture and into waiting cores. Cold lightning flared behind frosted ribcages; the new giants convulsed once, then straightened, life settling into fresh circuits.

The bond brightened, twelve voices becoming fourteen, a choir of emotion blooming so swiftly it blurred. Relief, wonder, belonging rolled through the link like overlapping tides. The older Frostkin stepped aside to make room, tips of their spear‑blades tapping together in a gesture I had come to recognize as welcome.

Exhaustion tugged at my eyelids, but a deeper satisfaction overrode it. The Abyss would send more horrors; the frost would answer. For now, within this circle of ice and hush, creation had triumphed again, and the mist itself seemed to resonate with quiet approval.

Yet joy never lingered long in the Abyss. The day the first Frostkin perished began with three crimson monsters breaching the mist at once. One, lean as a skinned bladefish, brandished scythe‑long forearm sabres of living chitin; its wind aura roared hard enough to shove my mist aside, challenging the very breath of my dominion.

I felt the breach like a claw scraped across nerves. While I wrestled the other two horrors, pinning them with unseen spears that jutted from the ground and roofed sky alike—six Frostkin chased the wind‑blade beyond the edge of the mist. Out there their forms dulled; frost plates dimmed, movements lagged. They were durable, but the beast was lightning in sinew.

A single whirl sent the creature vanishing and reappearing behind Frostkin Eight. A silver slash cleaved armor, core, and spine in one impossible heartbeat. The sound that followed was not a scream but a cavernous crack, as though thunder had been caught and snapped in two. Through the bond I felt the cord tighten, then snap. Empty silence filled the space where that soul's quiet lantern had glowed. It did not drift back to the realm of the dead; the whispers confirmed it simply… ceased.

Rage chilled the mist to knives. Another Frostkin fell before the sabre‑limbed horror finally mis‑stepped. I drove three lances from three angles, pinning each arm to its torso while the remaining guardians pierced the heart with synchronized spear thrusts. When the monster collapsed, the wind aura died like a candle overturned in snow.

Back within the perimeter the surviving twelve lumbered home, dented and dripping blood that steamed against their ice. Sorrow pulsed across the bond, distinct from pain: a tightening of presence, a hush, a tremor—instruments stilled because two voices would never rejoin the chord. I had built them strong, but I had never promised invincibility.

Kneeling beside the broken husks, I sifted what remained. Nothing of the cores—only powdered ruby. Yet something bright coiled through the link and slipped into me: the will I had poured during their blessing. It flowed back unfettered, a current seeking its source. Not diminished but deepened, tempered by their final stand.

I would not squander that gift.

Three fresh crimson cores waited in my ring, prizes from the slain invaders. I chose a clearing unmarred by blood and raised foundations of ice as wide as watchtowers. The twelve surviving Frostkin formed a silent crescent, their emotions a mixed tide of ache and anticipation.

I sculpted two replacement shells first, eight meters tall, shoulders braced to endure severing wind, then a third, slimmer, designed for speed within the mist. Channels etched, ribs locked, cores seated. When all lay ready, I lifted the whispering lens, breath frosting its rim.

"A willing soul," I invited.

Three presences, steady and resolute, answered, gliding across the boundary. The conduit of will reopened; power spilled through, filling the vessels with sharp white radiance until their plates rang like distant bells. New consciousness flickered to life, and the arc of the bond brightened: twelve became fifteen.

A hush settled. The older Frostkin touched spear to spear in salute. The newborns replied with a slow inclination of helmed heads, an echo of ceremony they had never witnessed yet somehow understood.