The Capital of Oakhaven was a city built on the arrogance of eternal light. Its spires were capped with Sun-Glass that had glowed for a century, casting a warm, golden hue over the marble streets even at midnight. But as the Great Bell continued to toll for King Alaric, the glow didn't just fade—it curdled. The light turned a sickly, bruised amber before flickering out entirely.
For the first time in living memory, the citizens of the greatest empire on earth saw the stars. They were not beautiful; they were cold, distant, and indifferent to the screaming that began to rise from the slums.
Inside the Royal Palace, Princess Elara Valerius ignored the chaos outside. She stood in the center of the Council Chamber, her reflection caught in the polished obsidian floor. She was dressed in mourning black, yet her throat was cinched by a collar of rubies that looked like fresh droplets of blood.
"The Bastard of Frost-Gait has crossed the Wall of Roots," a voice rasped from the shadows.
Elara did not turn. She knew the voice of Lord Vane, the Master of Whispers for House Nyros. Vane was a man who traded in secrets the way others traded in grain, and currently, his stock was at an all-time high.
"He didn't just cross it, Vane. He fled into the Dead-Barrens," Elara said, her voice cutting through the gloom. "My scouts lost his trail an hour ago. The storm in the North is unnatural. Even the griffins refused to fly into that gale."
"The Dead-Barrens are a graveyard, Highness," Vane murmured, stepping into the dim light of a single tallow candle. His face was pale, his eyes hooded. "If the boy has the Pure Light vial, he won't last a night. The Echoes will smell the warmth. They will hunt him until there is nothing left but splinters of bone and frozen glass."
"I cannot bet the crown on 'if,' Vane." Elara turned, her eyes flashing with a predatory intelligence. "My father is dead. The High Sentinel sits in the Iron-Well, silent as a tomb. The other Houses—the Thornes, the Emberfells, even your own kin in House Nyros—are already counting their swords. If I do not produce the Pure Light within seven days, the Sun-Shields over the grain-valleys will fail. If the crops freeze, the city starves. If the city starves, they will tear me off this throne before the coronation oil is dry."
Vane bowed his head. "Then we must send someone who does not fear the Echoes. Someone whose blood is already cold."
Elara's lips thinned into a hard line. she knew exactly who he meant. "The Silver Masque? You want me to unleash a Kingslayer to find a thief?"
"I want you to unleash a tool, Highness. The Masque does not care for crowns or light. He cares for the hunt. Give him the Bastard's name, and he will bring you the vial. Or, at the very least, the Bastard's hand still gripping it."
***
Five hundred leagues to the North, Caspian Thorne was learning the true meaning of silence.
In the Dead-Barrens, there was no wind—only the sound of your own heart trying to beat its way out of your chest. The air was so thin it felt like breathing needles. Behind him, the Wall of Roots was a titan's shadow, blocking out whatever remained of the civilized world. Ahead lay a wasteland of white dunes and jagged, crystalline trees that hummed in the dark.
Caspian stumbled, his boots sinking deep into the frost-crust. He reached out to steady himself against a rock, but his hand recoiled. The stone was vibrating.
*The Echoes.*
He reached into his tunic and felt the warmth of the amber vial. It was pulsing in rhythm with his pulse, a rhythmic *thump-thump* that felt terrifyingly alive. To the spirits of this place—the remnants of those who had died during the last Long Night—this vial was a bonfire in a dark room.
"Keep moving," Caspian whispered to himself, his breath freezing into ice-dust on his beard. "Don't look back. Don't listen to the voices."
But the voices were already there. They didn't speak in words; they spoke in memories. He heard his mother's laugh—a woman he had never known, a shadow from the South who had died giving birth to a 'shameful' reminder of his father's indiscretion. He heard the sneer of his half-brother, Boros, mocking his dull training sword.
*"A bastard has no House,"* Boros had said. *"You are just a weed growing in the shadow of a Thorne."*
Caspian tightened his grip on the hilt of *Shard*. The obsidian blade was dark, absorbing what little starlight filtered through the clouds. Suddenly, the ground beneath him groaned.
A shape began to rise from the snow twenty paces ahead. It wasn't a man, and it wasn't a beast. It was a shimmering distortion in the air, a silhouette made of frost and hunger. An Echo. It had no face, only two pits of flickering blue light where eyes should have been.
Caspian froze. He remembered Maester Kael's warning: *The Echoes feed on heat. If you run, your blood pumps faster, and they see you clearer. If you fight, your rage burns hot, and they find your heart.*
The Echo drifted closer, its feet leaving no marks in the snow. It hissed, a sound like a blade scraping across a whetstone.
"I am not your prey," Caspian gritted out, though his knees felt weak.
The Echo lunged. It moved with terrifying fluidity, a blur of white and blue. Caspian rolled to the left, the freezing air of the spirit's passage burning his skin like dry ice. He swung *Shard* in a desperate arc.
The obsidian blade sliced through the Echo's midsection. Instead of blood, a spray of frozen mist erupted. The spirit shrieked—a sound that shattered the silence of the Barrens—and dissipated into a cloud of sparkling dust.
Caspian gasped for air, his lungs screaming. He had won, but he knew it was a hollow victory. Looking out across the dunes, he saw a dozen more blue flickers igniting in the darkness. The scent of the Pure Light was out, and the Barrens were waking up.
He began to run. He didn't head deeper into the wastes; he headed for the *Broken Ribs*—a series of ancient, fossilized ruins that predated the Empire. If he could find cover, if he could mask the heat of the vial...
Behind him, a new sound joined the chorus of the Echoes. It wasn't a hiss or a shriek. It was the rhythmic, heavy beat of wings. Large wings.
Caspian looked up. Cutting through the purple twilight was a silhouette that made his blood run colder than the Barrens. It was a Moon-Drake—a creature of the high peaks, rarely seen so far North. And on its back sat a rider in silver armor, reflecting the distant, dying stars.
The Silver Masque.
The rider didn't descend. He circled above like a vulture, watching the Bastard struggle through the snow. He was waiting for the Echoes to do the work for him.
Caspian reached the first of the ruins—a collapsed archway covered in glowing moss. He dove behind a fallen pillar, pressing his back against the cold stone. His breath was coming in ragged gasps. He pulled the vial out, looking at the pulsing amber liquid inside.
"You're going to get me killed," he whispered to the glass.
The vial glowed brighter in response. Suddenly, a voice drifted down from the sky, amplified by some unseen magic. It was a cold, melodic voice that sounded like wind through a flute.
"Caspian Thorne," the Silver Masque called out. "The Princess offers a mercy. Give me the Sun-Glass, and I will give you a quick death. The Echoes will not be so kind. They will tear the warmth from your body inch by inch, starting with your fingers and ending with your soul."
Caspian looked at his obsidian sword, then at the vial, then at the blue lights closing in on his position. He was trapped between a ghost, a Kingslayer, and a dying world.
"A Thorne is the root," he muttered, repeating his father's words. "And roots grow in the dark."
He didn't surrender. Instead, he did something that would have made Maester Kael scream in horror. He uncorked the vial.
A blinding flash of pure, unadulterated solar energy erupted from the ruins. For a few seconds, the Dead-Barrens were bathed in the light of a noon-day sun. The Echoes near him vanished instantly, incinerated by the raw heat. The Silver Masque's drake shrieked, its sensitive eyes blinded by the sudden flare, and veered away into the clouds.
But the cost was immediate. Caspian felt a searing pain crawl up his arm. The golden veins that had appeared on the messenger's corpse began to etch themselves into his own skin, starting at his wrist.
The Sun-Sickness. He was holding a star in his hand, and it was burning him alive.
He shoved the cork back in, but the damage was done. His hand was trembling, and a faint amber glow now pulsed beneath his skin. He had bought himself a few minutes of safety, but he had marked himself forever.
He scrambled deeper into the ruins, finding a narrow crevice that led down into the earth. As he slid into the darkness, he heard the Silver Masque's drake landing on the plains above.
The hunt had changed. It was no longer just a chase; it was a race against the poison in his own blood.
***
Back in the Capital, Princess Elara entered the Iron-Well.
The prison was a vertical shaft, three hundred feet deep, carved into the bedrock beneath the palace. At the very bottom, chained to a chair of cold iron, sat Malachai Thorne. The High Sentinel looked aged, his grey hair matted with grime, but his eyes remained as sharp as the day he had commanded the King's armies.
Elara stood on the observation platform, looking down at him.
"Your son has used the Light, Malachai," she shouted into the abyss. "He uncorked the vial in the Barrens. He is dying of the Sickness as we speak."
Malachai didn't look up. His voice drifted up the shaft, hollow and echoing. "Then the world still has a chance."
"A chance for what? To freeze more slowly?" Elara spat. "I will have that vial, and I will use it to seal my rule. I will be the Sun-Queen, and your name will be erased from history."
"The sun doesn't belong to a throne, Elara," Malachai whispered. "It belongs to the one who can carry the fire without being consumed by it. My son was born in the cold. He was forged in the shadow. Your fire will only burn you."
Elara turned to the guards. "Double the watch. If he speaks again, cut out his tongue."
She walked out of the prison, but her hands were shaking. She could feel the temperature dropping in the palace. The first frost was forming on the gold-leafed walls.
The Great Winter was no longer a prophecy. It was the ceiling, and it was falling.