The sky darkened.
Clouds curled low above the mountains, heavy with snow that never fell. Serin stood at the edge of the Mirrorchasm, where jagged cliffs dropped into an abyss so deep that even light hesitated.
Her boots crunched on frost-laced stone. Her wind shard pulsed faintly at her side — not strong, but uneasy. It kept circling her, like a bird refusing to land.
She whispered, "You feel it too, don't you?"
The wind didn't answer.
It only pulled away.
Below, she spotted a single set of footprints — Corren's — leading into the shadows of the glacier.
The stone around the path was strange.
No dust. No cracks. Just smooth, glass-like ice that reflected her face in warped, silent stillness.
She walked.
With every step, the wind behind her grew fainter.
Until…
There was nothing.
Not even the sound of her own breath.
She paused beside a broken pillar.
Then the air snapped cold.
And a voice echoed — but not aloud.
"Why do you follow the wind… when even the wind flees from here?"
Serin turned.
A woman stood behind her, dressed in robes of pale gray and silver, her eyes hidden beneath a veil of frost. Her skin shimmered like snowlight.
"Who are you?" Serin asked, lifting her staff.
The woman did not blink. Her voice came like a breath across a frozen lake.
"I am what came before the shards. Before the flame. Before the crown."
"I am silence."
"I am VYRN."
The air cracked.
Wind burst around Serin in a wild spiral — not by her command, but from fear.
The figure stepped forward, her presence not loud, but crushing.
"The fire burns. The water flows. The earth stands. The wind listens. The shadow watches…"
"…but the ice remembers."
Serin's shard flashed — silver and white — then dimmed.
She fell to one knee.
"Why are you here?" she managed to ask.
Vyrn lifted a hand, and the chasm trembled.
"Because the Crown was never complete."
"Because the sixth was forgotten."
"And now… the cold will return to claim what was taken."
Suddenly — a blast of wind exploded outward.
Serin's power fought back, spinning around her like a shield.
Vyrn vanished.
But her voice lingered.
"Bring the others, Wind-Bearer. Let them remember the truth."
"Let them feel what it means to freeze from the inside out."
Serin collapsed.
Snow fell for the first time in years.
And the wind, finally, began to scream.