Golden lightning tore the darkness as Kidora's breath split the horde. Wights convulsed and fell, limbs scattering in showers of sparks. For the first time since the blizzard fell, Rayder's chest eased."One man and three dragons," he murmured. "We will not die here."With flame and storm, they carved a circle of emptiness into the tide. Yigen and Im, newly freed from the ice, stretched their colossal wings and vented their fury in torrents of fire. Black and red flame scoured the field, carving swaths through the dead like meteors falling across the night.The Night King himself was gone, vanished into the storm, but his army fought on, endless as the sea.Rayder bent low on Kidora's back, eyes sharp as a hawk's. He scooped the severed arm and the fallen ice sword into his system space—spoils of a battle unfinished. Proof he can bleed, he thought grimly.High above, the dragons climbed once more. Bolts and spears whistled upward, but most fell short; the mystic spears that could harm them never found their mark. From the air, Rayder's beasts became executioners, their flames sweeping the horde in deadly arcs.Yet as the Frostsnow Tooth Mountains fell away beneath them, the wights dwindled. The further north they flew, the thinner the tide became, until at last the land stretched empty and silent beneath.And then he saw it.A shape rose from the eternal white—vast, gleaming, unnatural.The altar.Seven-sided, its surface carved from pure ice-blue crystal, it rose like a crown of frost from the plain. Cold radiated from it in waves so sharp Rayder's breath turned painful, his blood sluggish in his veins. Even from the saddle he felt it—an ancient wrongness, a call from the deep of the world."Fall back," he ordered, voice tight. The dragons wheeled, reluctant to approach further, their scales rimed with hoarfrost simply from the altar's breath.Rayder hovered at its edge, studying. Curiosity tugged at him, sharper even than fear. He edged forward until, at a hundred paces, his progress halted.An unseen wall.He pressed a palm against it. The surface was nothing—air, and yet not air. The sensation crawled up his arm, alien, indescribable."Barrier." His eyes narrowed.To test it, he commanded the dragons. Fire and lightning roared past him, striking the altar itself. The flames licked its surface, sparks leaping, thunder rolling—and yet the barrier did not stir. The energy passed through as though it were smoke.Rayder tried again. This time he hurled a steel sword from his storage. It spun end over end, slicing cleanly through the air, and clattered harmlessly to the altar's base.So it blocked the living. Not the dead. Not the unliving. Only the living.His jaw tightened. "So that's your game."He could not break it. He could not cross. Not yet.Reluctantly, he pulled back, retreating with the dragons to the Frostsnow Tooth peaks. The cold gnawed at his bones, but his mind burned with questions. He knew where to seek answers.The altar was no work of men. It reeked of the old magic, of the Children's hand. And if the Night King had been born of their craft, then so too was this place. Only the Green Prophets could explain its purpose.Rayder clenched his fists. "Then I'll drag the truth from them."---Far away, in the deep shade of the Ghostwood Forest, the Children of the Forest stirred. In the cavern of the Three-Eyed Raven, their voices murmured like leaves in the wind.One Green Prophet lifted his gaze, sightless eyes clouded with visions. His chestnut skin paled, his expression stricken."He has touched the altar," the seer whispered. "The weave of fate… has shifted."Around him, the others fell silent, their ancient hearts heavy. For the first time in centuries, the balance of ice and fire trembled.--
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