I pick my way across a sheet that seems stable, testing each step before committing my weight. The cold seeps throughmy boots, through every layer, burrowing into bone with the patience of a curse.
Kaster moves differently. His heat radiates outward, melting thin ice beneath his feet, creating shallow puddles that steam in the frigid air. He doesn’t test his footing. He knows instinctively where the ground will hold.
Dragon senses. Predator awareness. The advantage of being built for environments that would kill lesser creatures.
I’m not lesser. But I’m also not designed for this.
We’ve been walkingfor three hours when I see the first structure emerging from the retreating ice.
A watchtower. Stone foundation, wooden upper levels long since rotted away. The ice preserved the base like amber preserving insects—a perfect snapshot of the moment the freeze arrived. Whoever was stationed here didn’t have time to evacuate. The bones are still inside.
Beyond the tower, more structures emerge. A cluster of buildings that might have been barracks. A water well, frozen solid, the bucket still suspended above it. The remnants of a fence line marking property boundaries that no longer matter.
The Glacial Flight’s enforcement didn’t discriminate. Soldiers, civilians, livestock—everything caught in its path became ice sculpture. Preservation through destruction.
Kaster doesn’t pause to investigate. He tracks the perimeter with those eyes, mapping angles and defensive positions, then continues moving southeast.
I follow.
Not because he told me to. Because the space beside him has become the only territory in this broken landscape where survival feels possible.
The dreams have been different lately.
Not the usual visions of death—claws and blood and the silence that comes after. These new dreams carry a different quality. Pressure instead of warning. An insistence that builds behind my eyes like a headache that won’t break.
They push me toward a point I can’t see yet. A convergence that feels inevitable.
I don’t tell Kaster about the change. He has enough concerns without adding my nighttime torment to the list.
The magic here is wrong.
I notice it first as a sensation at the edge of my awareness—my power responding to the environment in ways it shouldn’t. Spells that would normally flow smoothly catch and stutter. My intuition, usually reliable, gives contradictory signals.
The shimmer is visible if I look for it. Distortion in the air. Ripples in reality where the magical field can’t quite maintain coherence. The ice held this territory in stasis for years—and when it shattered, it left behind a wound that hasn’t healed.
I test it by reaching for a small working. A simple ward. The kind of magic I could do in my sleep.
The power slips through my mental grasp like water through a sieve. Reforms incorrectly. The ward flickers into existence—too weak, too unstable, lasting only seconds before collapsing into nothing.
“Magic’s unreliable here.”
Kaster glances back at my words. His expression doesn’t change, but I see him absorbing the information, adjusting his calculations.
“How unreliable?”
“Enough to matter.” The ward failure is answer enough. “The divine enforcement that held this place together—when it collapsed, it left the magical field destabilized. Possibly for decades. Maybe longer.”
“Can you fight?”
The question is direct. No judgment. No concern about my limitations—only calculation of our combined capabilities.
“My body still works. My magic...” I let the sentence trail off. We both understand the implications. “If I have enough time to force a working through the interference, I can anchor. But it won’t be clean. Won’t be easy.”
He nods once. Brief. Decisive.
We keep moving.
Midday arriveswith a temperature shift that makes my head spin.
