The morning after the Awakening was colder than any winter I'd known.
Frost clung to the walls of the Frost Hall like veins of glass, and silence filled the corridors where celebration should've been. There were no congratulations. No applause. Only the low hum of the crystal chandeliers and the echo of footsteps that didn't belong to me.
I'd stood before the Crystal of Origin as the priest chanted the sacred verses.
Aren's turn had come before mine. He was present only as a formality to legitimize his awakening status. The moment his hand touched the crystal, the air froze solid.
Flere pulsed through him like a living blizzard — the manifestation of pure Ice. The crowd gasped. Even Father's lips curved into something that could almost be called pride.
Then it had been my turn.
When my hand met the crystal, there was a reaction — a soft, uncertain glow, faintly red at its core, like the ember of dying coals beneath frost.
But no element took shape.
No wind, no flame, no frost.
Just heat — unstable and meaningless.
The priests whispered amongst themselves. My mother looked away. Father's jaw locked, his voice measured and cold as he announced before the gathered nobles:
"The second twin bears Flere but no form. His potential is… absent."
And just like that, I became something less than a mage.
Less than a son.
A shadow clinging to the name Frost.
---
The next few days passed in silence. The servants avoided eye contact. My tutors were reassigned. My meals, once taken in the family dining hall, were now left outside my chamber door.
Only one person still came to see me.
Aren.
He'd knock softly, wait for permission, then step inside carrying something warm — tea, or a fur cloak, or once even a plate of honeyed bread he'd stolen from the kitchens.
I wanted to hate him for it. I wanted to see arrogance or pity in his face, but there was none.
Only guilt.
"You shouldn't be here," I told him one evening, staring at the dying embers of flame in my room fireplace.
"Father will scold surely you again."
He smiled, that same quiet, steady smile that he used to give me whenever I'd pay his head.
"It's ok if he does. You're still my brother, Leo. Nothing's gonna change that, right?."
I laughed, bitter and hoarse.
"Everythings already changed, your just too young to understand. You carry the power Frost. I carry nothing. We both know what that means."
Aren's eyes softened.
He didn't argue — he never did. He simply sat beside me and shared the silence. The same silence we'd shared as children under the icicle trees of the estate gardens, before the weight of bloodlines had wedged us apart.
---
Two weeks after the Awakening, Father summoned me to the audience chamber.
He didn't look at me when I entered.
He never does.
"Leopoldo," he said, voice steady and formal. "Your results have been reviewed by the High Council of Frost. Without an element, you cannot inherit nor serve within House ranks. Your Flere will be studied at the Academy for the Unmanifested in Gaeya. You'll leave within the month."
"Studied."
That's what they called it.
Everyone knew what the Academy was — a gilded orphanage for failures. A place where children with broken bonds to Flere were examined, dissected, forgotten.
Mother's eyes flickered for a moment — something like sorrow beneath the veneer of composure — but she said nothing.
Aren took a half-step forward before Father's gaze froze him in place.
I bowed, numb.
"Yes, Father."
When I turned to leave, I caught the faintest hint of a smirk from our uncle, Lord Darrien, standing beside the throne. His eyes — pale like frost but sharp as razors — lingered on me uncomfortably. It felt predatory and measuring.
That was the first time I felt it — that quiet instinct in my gut that whispered, "you're already dead, you just don't know when."
---
That night, Aren came to me again.
He looked restless, pacing around my room while the wind howled outside.
"Leo," he said quietly. "There's a hunt tomorrow. The northern ridge. Father wants me to join the nobles of House Terra — they say it's just to 'test' my command of Ice."
I nodded absently. "So?"
"So you're coming with me, aren't you?."
I blinked. "What?"
"I told Father you needed to see what the Frost's domain looks like before you leave. He agreed."
That sounded wrong. Father hadn't agreed to anything that wasn't practical in years.
But Aren's tone left no room for debate.
He looked almost… desperate.
"Please, Leo. Just come. One last hunt, like when we were kids, pwetty pweeez."
I didn't have the strength to refuse him.
Maybe I just didn't care anymore.
---
The next morning, the world felt different.
Too quiet. Too still.
The hunting party gathered before dawn — six men, two Frost guards, and my uncle Darrien at their head. His smile was thin as the edge of a blade when he saw me approach.
"Ah, how nice of the spare twin to joins us. So very… unexpected."
Aren stepped between us before I could speak.
"He came with me, we hunt together."
Darrien's smile didn't fade.
"Of course. Family above all, how admirable of you."
The mountains rose before us like frozen titans. The wind there was merciless, scouring skin and breath alike. We moved deeper into the Frost Domain — the ancestral wilds our blood once claimed dominion over.
Aren kept close to me, guiding me over slick stone and jagged ice. His Flere glowed faintly in the air, the frost answering his every step.
Mine, on the other hand, stayed silent.
No whisper.
No spark.
Just the hollow ache of something missing inside me.
---
When the attack came, it was too precise to be chance.
The ice beneath our mounts split open, sending one guard plunging into the chasm below. The rest of the party scattered as a massive beast — a Frostmaw Wyrm — erupted from the ravine.
It shouldn't have been here. These creatures stayed far north, deep in the frozen wastes.
This one had been driven here.
Darrien's order cut through the storm:
"Protect the Aren! Pay the other no mind!"
Aren turned, eyes wide.
"No! He's—"
He never finished.
The ground split again. This time, I fell.
---
I remember the sensation of the world tilting, the scream of wind, the sound of my brother's voice fading into nothing. Then — impact.
Bone-shaking. Blinding impact.
I lay on a bed of ice so cold it burned. My vision swam, my breath ragged. Far above, the ridge loomed like a silver scar, and Aren's figure was nothing more than a flicker of movement.
And then… silence.
Just me and the abyss.
Somewhere deeper in the ice, I felt something pulsing.
It was as though it was alive and calling out to me.
I dragged myself toward it, half-conscious, bleeding, every breath carving pain into my chest. The warmth I'd felt all those years ago — that strange ember within me — began to stir again, faint but insistent.
There, buried beneath centuries of frost, I saw it:
A faint, crimson glow.
A heartbeat in the ice.
And as my blood seeped across the frozen ground, the glow pulsed back — answering in kind.
The last thing I remember before darkness claimed me again was the echo of my brother's voice calling my name.
And the distant, steady thrum of something ancient… waiting to be born.