"So… where exactly is this place?" I asked.
The moment the words left my mouth, Nox's gaze shifted away.
Suspicious.
He never looks away ever. So why now?
"Tell me where it is," I said, voice growing cold. "Now!"
He hesitated. "…It's up north. And it's somewhere you're familiar with."
I frowned somewhere I'm familiar with? Nox never avoids eye contact unless it's….No.
And then it hit me like ice water down my spine.
My voice dropped. "No. No—you're joking."
He stayed silent.
"Nox," I growled, "tell me you're not talking about that place."
He pressed his lips together.
He was talking about it.
"It's a hard pill to swallow," he said quietly, "but try to see it from my perspective."
"Out of all places why would your core be there?!"
He stepped closer. "Can't you do it? Just this once. For my sake."
I let out a long, angry sigh half resignation, half dread. "…Fine. But if anything goes wrong…"
"It'll be all my responsibility," he finished, giving me a small smile.
"Tch."
I turned away, clenching my fist. "You'd better pray it's worth it."
The air was already cold here. And in the far north, it would be freezing to the point of bone. I needed supplies, proper gear and rations. It would take us several days to reach it.
"We'll leave tonight," I said, pulling on my coat. "I'm heading out."
Nox raised an eyebrow. "Where?"
"Oh." I waved a hand. "To the Headmaster's office. I should at least tell him I'm going to freeze myself to death while visiting an ice dungeon."
Nox actually looked surprised for a second.
Honestly, I was a little surprised too. I've somehow… started trusting Damian. I never intended for it, it just happened. With Vivian, it had taken real time and effort. But with him… it came naturally. Too naturally, almost unsettlingly so.
I can't even tell when that started. But I'm about to tell him I'll be gone for a few days without any real explanation.
That realization made me pause then sigh.
"Whatever." I pushed that thought down, "I'll be back soon."
I pushed open the office door without knocking.
He glanced up from a stack of paperwork, surprise flickering across his face for only a second before he set his pen down. "Cecilia. You're here early."
I stepped in, hands in my pockets. "I need to tell you something."
That immediately caught his full attention. "Alright."
"I… won't be at the academy for a few days," I said flatly, trying not to sound like I was reporting to a parent. "I'm travelling north."
His brows knit slightly. "North? In the middle of winter?"
"Mm."
"How long?"
I shrugged. "Two weeks. Maybe less."
There was a long pause as he studied me, not demanding answers, just concerned.
"Will you be in danger?" he asked quietly.
"I'll be fine."
He didn't look convinced, but he didn't push the issue. "Are you going alone?"
I hesitated. He noticed but didn't press further.
After a moment, he let out the smallest sigh, as if the answer was obvious. "Of course."
I half expected a lecture Instead, he stood up, opened a drawer, and pulled out a silver amulet with a protective rune carved into the center.
He gently placed it in my hand. It was warm.
"This has a layered heat ward and an emergency teleportation spell," he said. "If something goes wrong, use it it'll bring you back here instantly. No matter where you are."
I stared down at it, momentarily stunned, then looked up at him. "Why are you giving me this?"
"Because," Damian said quietly, "I'd rather not spend my winter wondering if one of my students froze to death in blizzard country… especially not you, Cecilia." He reached forward and gently pinched the bridge of my nose the way a parent does when they're annoyed and fond at the same time.
My jaw tensed but I closed my fingers around the amulet.
"I'll hold on to it."
"Good. Come back safely."
I didn't answer. I only turned toward the door but paused halfway out.
"Thank you," I muttered under my breath.
He gave a small nod, as if he had expected nothing less.
Night shrouded the academy grounds, and snow had already started drifting down from a starless sky. I tightened the fur-lined cloak and slipped the amulet under my collar.
"You ready?" he asked.
I nodded once. Lux peeked from inside my hood, bundled in a tiny scarf Vivian had knitted him before she left. I refused to admit it was cute.
The iron gates creaked open. The academy's wards let us pass and seconds later, we stepped out into the world beyond the barrier.
White.
That's all there was for miles. Endless white and blinding wind.
My boots crunched over hard, frozen earth as the wind howled around us, vicious and unforgiving. Snow whipped across my cloak like shards of glass, and every breath left my lips as a plume of white frost. I had stopped flying entirely—the blizzard was too ruthless, the wind slamming against my wings and making it impossible to stay airborne. Visibility had shrunk to almost nothing. Lux was curled deep in my coat for warmth, barely peeking out, while Nox walked ahead of me through the storm, his black hair whipping wildly in the wind as he led us toward a jagged cliffside that loomed through the white haze.
He suddenly stopped. Dead still.
We had arrived at our destination.
"Nox," I said flatly, "if this is a trap, I'm killing you first."
He smirked, but his eyes were serious. "Fair. But no, that's it. That's where my core is."
I clenched my jaw, wind biting at my face.
"Then let's end this."
We moved forward through the snow, toward the source of that dark heartbeat toward the place only I was foolish enough to return to.
The fortress wasn't just made of ice. It was ice. A colossal citadel formed from ancient glaciers and divine frost, rising from the tundra like the crystallized spine of a dead god. Its towers were jagged spires, twisting toward the heavens, glimmering with spectral blue runes that crawled beneath the surface like veins of frozen lightning.
The main gate stood over twenty meters high, carved with the image of a crowned woman with eyes of frost and a smile colder than death the Ice Queen. Everywhere you looked, the architecture shimmered with a dangerous sort of elegance: haunting, regal, and utterly merciless. Banners of frozen silk hung motionless in the air, bearing symbols of an empire long gone, preserved perfectly in glacial stillness.
Resting coiled like a mountain against the front wall was the Ice Dragon its scales like jagged shards of sapphire and white ice, each one razor-sharp and glistening in the dim winter light. Its breath seeped out in clouds of freezing mist, frost spreading across the ground wherever it exhaled. Massive wings, more like razor-edged glaciers than flesh, lay folded against its broad, armoured back, each movement sending shards of snow spiralling across the winds.
He opened his golden eyes as we approached, slitted and ancient, filled with territorial malice and intelligence. The air seemed to freeze solid around us as mana froze. This was no ordinary guardian; this creature was bound to the Queen's aura itself. It wasn't a beast you simply fought and won. It was a trial. A warning.
The castle didn't welcome visitors. It tested them.
You didn't stand before it as a guest. You were judged simply for daring to arrive.
The wind shrieked louder as we crossed the threshold. The walls of ice towered on either side like jagged fangs, colder and heavier than I remembered. The last time I stepped into this ruin, it hadn't been this suffocating, this kind of cold that crawls into your bones and freezes you from the inside out if you're not careful.
"Let's find your core and leave," I muttered, pulling my hood tighter. "Preferably before that sadistic pervert realizes I'm here."
Every inch of this place had once belonged to that twisted lunatic who riddled her own fortress with traps, cursed creatures, and things that weren't even human anymore.
I could dodge them in my sleep… or so I thought. But it's been years since I've come here.
As soon as we stepped deeper into the corridor, the first trap clicked. A volley of ice spikes shot out from the walls.
I didn't even flinch.
A flick of my wrist and fire shattered the spikes midair.
We kept walking.
The ground gave way beneath our feet a pit tearing open like a hungry mouth seeking to swallow us whole. Time seemed to slow. Without exchanging a word, we pushed off the crumbling ice in the same breath, leaping forward as the void roared beneath us. We landed side by side, not a step lost, as the cavern below closed like a trap behind us.
Further in, spectral blades materialized overhead and swung down in a deadly arc. I ducked, spun, snapped my fingers, boom, gone.
Basic. Predictable.
But they just kept coming.
Trigger plate.
Falling icicles.
Mana bolts from the ceiling.
Thorned vines that shot out like whips from the floor.
At first, it was almost laughable. I knew the patterns, the placements. My instincts moved faster than thought: slide, deflect, shield, duck, counter.
But the deeper we pushed, the more crowded the traps became. They overlapped, evolved, and hit harder.
"Dammit," I hissed, lunging sideways as three rows of cursed arrows sliced past my ear. The next moment I was already blocking it with my dagger.
Nox glanced over. "You alright?"
"I'm fine." My breathing was getting uneven. I hated that I was out of breath.
These traps weren't here last time; that bastard rebuilt everything. Even updated some of them.
"Hold on," I snapped and caught another arrow. "Why am I doing all the work? Shouldn't you at least try helping?"
Nox shrugged, completely unfazed. "I considered it. But in this tiny human body, I'd only get in your way. Besides—" he tilted his head with a grin— "I wouldn't want to hinder your growth."
I glared at him and muttered a string of curses under my breath.
His smile widened. "I heard that."
"Good," I smirked back. "I don't care."
We hadn't walked more than twenty steps before the ground cracked again.
A spear of ice shot from the floor at an angle meant to skewer me clean through. I dodged sideways without breaking rhythm.
A second one snapped upward near my shoulder. I parried it with a quick flame spear.
"Someone's having fun," Nox commented behind me, hands still lazily in his pockets.
"Funny," I muttered.
The ground rumbled again. This time, a cascade of frozen spikes erupted in a tight ring around me, forming a cage of glistening spears. Before I could slice them apart, a black spear passed beside me.
Nox's hand moved once.
The ice shattered disintegrating into black shards that turned to dust before touching the ground. His eyes glowed dark red for a split second, then went back to their usual colour.
"There. I helped," he said casually.
"About time," I muttered.
"Don't get used to it," he said. "You said you wanted to grow, didn't you?"
Annoying bastard.
But then we stepped forward again, toward the looming fortress entrance and in the distance, I could feel it. The heartbeat of his core. Dark. Powerful. Closer now.
Nox took point, for once. His shadow aura spread across the ground like black mist, swallowing the trap mechanisms before they could even activate. Pressure plates fizzled. Frost runes cracked and died. Walls that were about to close in simply crumbled under a wave of his energy.
I kept walking behind him silently, catching my breath as quietly as I could though I was sure he already noticed.
For once he was Focused. Sharp. Dangerous. Not lazy or sarcastic. He said he was only going to help me once. Now he's the one taking charge.
"How much farther?" I asked.
"Not far," he said. "There's a chamber up ahead. The core is in there."
I nodded once.
We stepped through a massive arch into a circular hall, its ceiling high and covered in runes that glowed faintly like dying embers. In the center, on a pedestal of black stone, hovered a floating crystal dull, shattered in places, pulsing with a weak but unmistakable aura of corruption and power.
Nox stopped walking.
"That's it," he said. His voice was steady but I could feel something in it. Like he was looking at a part of himself he'd forgotten.
The crystal flickered faintly its aura not unlike his signature, but colder, darker. Like it had been tampered with.
I stepped forward beside him. "That's your core?"
"What's left of it," he muttered. "It's been trapped here.
I turned to Nox. "How do we break it free?"
He didn't answer immediately. Then he said quietly: "Don't know."
I tilted my head. "You don't know?"
Just as I stepped toward the pedestal, the ground trembled.
A massive ripple of dark energy shot out from beneath the stone floor as if the core itself had been waiting for us. Ice and dust cascaded from the ceiling as the runes overhead flared to life with jagged crimson light.
A grinding, monstrous sound echoed through the chamber.
Then… the wall behind the pedestal split open.
Out of the ice stepped a creature taller than any beast I'd fought here before. Bone-white armour wrapped its body, fused with black iron and arcane chains. Its torso twisted with dozens of glowing sigils carved deep into its ribs. Its head was like a metal skull, empty eyes filled only with a burning void. The thing towered over us, exhaling a phantom breath that turned the air into ice.
Nox's eyes narrowed. "He really went this far."
"That thing is guarding your core?"
"Looks like it."
The guardian raised a blade-like arm with five jagged edges twisting like serrated ice. The runes on its chest blazed red.
Then it lunged.
The ground heaved as its massive blade slammed down where I had been standing a second earlier a blur of motion as I moved, boots skidding across ice. The impact cracked the floor like thunder.
The instant that abomination stirred to life, I moved.
No hesitation. No emotion. Just pure killing instinct.
It lunged too slowly.
I was already past its guard. My sword sliced clean through its arm and half its chest like I was cutting through water. Black crystal and gore sprayed the chamber in a wide arc.
It tried to regenerate.
How tedious.
I unleashed a pulse of mana so cold the air crystallized around me, sealing its torso in frost before it could reform fully. Then I shattered it with a single kick. Ice, bone, and shadow ripped outwards in a violent blast.
Its head rotated toward me. I buried a spike of magic through its temple before the scream even left its throat. The skull cracked open. I ripped the spine apart and froze it from the inside out.
It tried to summon cursed flames. I answered by extending my mana, swallowing the flames and crushing them under sheer pressure.
Piece by piece, I tore it apart not because I had to, but because I refused to let it take another breath.
It swung with a bladed arm. I caught it with one hand and shattered it at the joint like snapping a twig. The other arm came forward; I severed it as I passed, never stopping, delving straight into its ribcage. My sword carved through its core like a surgeon's scalpel, precise, merciless until the entire torso collapsed into chunks.
It regenerated again, slower now.
Pathetic.
I grabbed the half-formed skull, lifted it off the ground, and slammed it into the ice till it cracked under the weight. God, was it satisfying. Then I stepped on its face and drove my blade straight down through its neck with enough force that the sound echoed like thunder.
The body spasmed.
I didn't bother watching it die.
I raised my hand and froze the entire mess of solid limbs, core fragments, and blood into one jagged, grotesque sculpture of frost.
Then I simply shattered it with a flick of my wrist.
The chamber went silent with nothing left but black ash and fractured ice. My breathing didn't even hitch.
In the center of the room, still hovering pulsing, was Nox's corrupted core.
Finally,
I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand, flicking blood and crystal shards to the ground.
No mercy. No hesitation.
Just efficiency.
To be continued.