It was a realm of endless desolation, a void colder than death itself. Below subzero temperatures, the land was shrouded in eternal darkness, battered by violent winds and engulfed in an unforgiving winter.
He sat in the eye of a vortex of shadows, shards of ice whirling around him like a tempest. His hair whipped wildly in the frigid storm, his body encased in frost. His skin had turned a deathly blue, his lips cracked and caked with frostbite. He was dead—but alive, suspended in a realm where even the dead feared to linger.
This was not hell. This was worse. The frozen abyss, a prison for those cursed beyond redemption.
Then, for the first time in what felt like centuries, he felt a spark. Lightning cleaved the void, and he became aware of a mortal presence. Someone had defied both heaven and hell to stand before him.
She appeared through the snowstorm, her figure trembling but upright. Her neck bore the blue hue of suffocation, blood trickling from where a noose had once tightened its grip. She was dressed in a tattered maid's attire, barefoot against the biting snow, her flesh already succumbing to the bitter cold.
This was no place for her; her presence defied the natural order. She was a fleeting spark in an eternal blizzard, destined to fade.
Tears froze on her cheeks as she whispered hoarsely, her voice cracking like ice under strain. "Help me..."
Her gaze pierced the storm, desperate and unyielding. "Take my soul and grant me vengeance!" she cried, her anguish echoing through the void.
He gazed at her, unmoving, his voice like a low rumble in the storm. "I do not need your soul. I am not the Grim Reaper."
Her lips trembled as her hands clenched into fists. "I wasn't sent here without purpose, my lord. I took your life, and now I've been sent to offer you mine."
Before his eyes, her body began to glow, the faint flicker of her eternal flame igniting in the darkness. He realized too late what was happening. Her essence—her very life force—was being drawn to him, feeding him, thawing his frozen body.
The shard of her soul was absorbed, trapped within one of the many icy fragments surrounding him. The light in her eyes dimmed as her sacrifice completed its purpose.
With a sharp gasp, his lungs filled with air for the first time in years. His body defrosted, the frostbite receding as warmth coursed through his veins. He opened his eyes, the void giving way to a blood-soaked ritual chamber.
His mother knelt in the center, chanting feverishly. Symbols of blood and tears surrounded him in a circle of power. Her flames of grief and anger danced around her naked form as she poured her essence into the incantation.
He glanced down at the lifeless bodies of the woman and child—the maid and her daughter—whose flames had been extinguished to fuel his rebirth. His chest tightened as he realized the depth of the curse now bound to him. The ice curse alone was damning enough, but if anyone discovered he could drain the essence of flames, he would be hunted to extinction.
"Mother!" he called, his voice strong but filled with urgency.
She froze mid-chant, her bloodshot eyes snapping open. The flames around her flickered as she took in the sight of him. "My son..." she breathed, her voice breaking.
"We must leave—now," he commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Outside, the cries of the servants and guards echoed through the halls.
"The duke is alive!"
"The duke is alive!"
"The duke is alive!"
The chant grew louder, spreading like wildfire through the palace, heralding his return to a world that had already buried him.