The wind at the summit was razor-sharp, like teeth gnawing through silence. Snow didn't fall here—it drifted like ash from forgotten pyres, quiet and constant, blanketing the high crags of Aetherion's Spine. There, standing alone before the vast, rune-etched gates of the academy, was a boy no older than seventeen.
His name was Sharo Velcryn.
He didn't speak. Not at first. His frost-blue eyes traced the colossal stone archway of the academy ahead, its spires wrapped in glowing sigils, its banners flapping like wounded wings.
Other initiates had arrived hours ago, laughing or trembling, gaping in awe or whispering ambitions. But Sharo remained still. His hair, like a rift in twilight, jet black streaked with veins of white, fell across his face. He exhaled, and his breath curled in the air like silver mist, unnaturally cold.
"So this is where they hide," he murmured, his voice low, like an unspoken threat.
There was no one nearby to hear it. Just the wind, and the stars, and the slow burn of something ancient beneath his ribs. Not hatred, no, hatred was too human. This was colder. Sharper. A promise left unfulfilled.
He closed his eyes, and the world fell away.
~ ~ ~Flashback: The Night the Frost Screamed~ ~ ~
The flames painted the snow crimson, each flicker of fire a painful stroke on the canvas of their lives.
Screams echoed across the Velcryn estate, high in the glacial peaks of Veylaar. Servants turned to ash, guardians shattered into icy statues mid-battle. The runed towers collapsed under the roar of black wyverns, each one wearing the seal of the Dominion—their betrayal sharp enough to slice through his family's legacy.
Sharo had only been ten.
His father stood at the forefront, sword drawn, every movement a defiant prayer against the darkness that was swallowing them whole. But even he, the last of the old guard, could not stand against the storm that had arrived on the wings of destruction.
His mother's hand gripped his shoulder with a force that sent chills straight to his spine. It was cold—colder than the snow underfoot, colder than the winds that howled through the ruins. Her fingers dug into him, shaking as though she, too, felt the abyss closing in.
"Sharo," she gasped, her voice trembling with fear he'd never heard from her. "Don't look."
His chest constricted, and for the first time, he felt the terror emanating from her. It burned, sharper than any blade, more suffocating than the smoke that churned in the air.
"Don't look?" His voice was barely a whisper, confusion and panic threading through the words. "Why? What's—"
"Please." Her grip tightened, pulling him closer, forcing his eyes to meet hers. She wasn't looking at him—not truly. Her gaze was fixed on something far beyond him, something even worse than the chaos swirling around them. "You have to promise me—promise me, you won't look."
He didn't understand. The flames were eating away at their home, the wail of the wyverns piercing through the sounds of destruction. But he knew this moment was different. Her desperation was thick—tangible.
"Mom, please, don't—"
"Don't look. You can't—"
And then, in an instant, the air was filled with the sickening crack of steel.
Sharo's world stopped.
He didn't see the blow. He couldn't. But the moment his mother's grip loosened, he knew. He didn't want to look. He tried to turn his head, tried to shut his eyes, but the sound, the sound of her body slumping—shattered his will to look away.
He forced his eyes open, and his heart slammed against his chest as he saw her. His mother's body, once so strong, so filled with warmth and life, now crumpled at his feet. The blood, redder than the flames, soaked the snow beneath her.
Her headless body was still twitching. It was unnatural, grotesque.
And then, he saw it.
Her head, her beautiful face now forever frozen in a look of terror, a single drop of blood hanging from her neck. Her eyes were wide open, staring, unblinking. The look of panic, the pleading in her gaze—as though even in death she was still begging him to forget. Begging him to look away.
But he couldn't. The world stopped. His throat constricted, and every breath was too thick to take. His mother, the only person who had ever shielded him from this cold world, had been torn from him in the blink of an eye.
He fell to his knees, his hands slick with her blood as he reached for her severed head, his fingers trembling violently. It was warm. Too warm. Her warmth was slipping away, the fire of life evaporating with every passing second.
"MUUUUUUM!" His voice tore from him, raw and unfiltered, a scream that rattled the heavens themselves. His heart was an inferno—rage so deep, so all-consuming, it made the fires around him seem like a distant warmth. He wanted to scream until his lungs gave out. He wanted to tear apart every single person who had dared to do this to her.
His body shook violently, as if the very world was quaking under the weight of his fury. His fists clenched so tightly, his nails bit into his palms, but it did nothing to stop the tremors that racked his body. His eyes—his eyes were no longer his. They were burning with something far colder, something darker than he could comprehend. His vision blurred, but he didn't care. He couldn't care.
The rage inside him began to shift, deepening, turning inward. It was the kind of rage that twisted the soul, the kind of fury that didn't just burn, it froze. His breath was visible in the air around him, but it wasn't the cold of winter. No. It was colder. It was the chill of death itself, creeping up his spine, twisting its fingers into his heart.
His mother's words, her final plea, echoed in his mind. Don't look.
But it was too late. He had looked, and what he saw would never leave him. The price of that one moment of weakness, the price of caring, had stolen everything from him. His heart was a glacier now. Cold, distant, unreachable.
His voice was low, devoid of humanity, his words slipping into a murmur as cold and empty as the ice now spreading across the world around him. "I will make them all pay. No mercy. No pity. I'll crush every last one of them until nothing remains but the screams of those who dare cross me."
And then, something snapped within him. The black ice inside of him, the power of Vael'Zeryx's curse, surged to life, burning with the fury of a thousand dying stars.
The world around him began to freeze.
Time slowed, the air thickened with the cold, and the very ground beneath his feet began to crack and splinter. It wasn't just cold—it was annihilation. Everything in its path was turned to ice, encased in a shell of frost that would never thaw.
But then, something caught his attention. A hand.
His grandmother, Lady Sereth, appeared out of the chaos, her form moving through the snow with frightening speed. She was old—frail, even—but there was a fire in her eyes that defied age. She didn't hesitate. She yanked him away from his mother's body, from the destruction, from everything he wanted to tear apart.
"Sharo!" Her voice cut through the haze of his fury, raw with desperation. "We need to go. Now!"
She was dragging him toward the secret frost-pass, the hidden tunnel beneath the family shrine. Sharo barely registered the ground they covered, the walls of snow and stone blurring as they ran. His grandmother's grip on him was the only thing anchoring him to reality. He wanted to fight, to scream, to do anything but leave.
But Lady Sereth's voice, shaking but firm, didn't allow for argument.
"Your father…" she gasped as they ran, "he's gone."
Sharo didn't need to ask. He knew. He had seen it. His father, standing tall in the face of death, had taken his final breath as the black wyvern tore through him. The sword that once protected them had been ripped away, leaving nothing behind but the shattered remnants of a hero's resolve.
But Sharo could only feel the ice now—the black, numbing ice creeping into his veins. It was consuming him, turning everything to cold.
They reached the frost-pass, and Sharo's world narrowed down to a single thought.
They're all dead.
And he was the last.
His rage, his grief, his confusion—they all froze. Only the cold remained.
A part of him wanted to burn it all down, but the cold had already taken root. And it would never let go.
~ ~ ~Back to the Present~ ~ ~
Aetherion Academy loomed ahead, gate to the stars, forge of legends. They called it a place of rebirth. A place of honor.
But Sharo didn't come here for honor.
He came because the people who destroyed his house trained here. Because they wore its sigils. Because they'd forgotten the name Velcryn.
He would remind them.
The wind howled behind him like an old god waking. He stepped forward, past the runes, past the whispering wards. His foot crossed the threshold.
The frost followed him in.