The silence of the lobby didn't just break; it shattered. Sergeant Mike let out a jagged, hysterical scream as he fumbled for the button. The alarm followed—a rhythmic howl bathing the room in strobe-lit, bloody red.
Zain didn't flinch. He stood perfectly still, his frame possessing a startling fragility. His shoulders were narrow, his chest slender and flat. Every line of his body was soft and undeniably feminine, from his throat to the dainty feet peeking from tattered trousers. His shoulder-length white hair was held back by a thin, matte-metal headband.
"So much noise," he whispered. "You'll wake the neighbors, Sergeant Mike."
"Shut up! Don't move!" Mike shrieked, his weapon shaking.
Six tactical officers swarmed Zain, forming a terrified semi-circle. They saw the blood, the frost, and the doll-like beauty of his porcelain face. The violet circles under his eyes added a tragic, eerie grace to his appearance.
"Move him to the sub-level!" Mike barked.
They herded him with electrified poles toward the elevators. The ride down felt like a descent into a cold, mechanical throat. When the doors hissed open to the "Preparation Ward," Mike ordered him onto a reinforced steel bed.
Zain complied with slow, agonizing grace. He lay back, his white hair spilling around the metal headband like a halo of ice. Mike cinched leather straps over Zain's dainty ankles and small, girl-like wrists. The leather bit into his skin, highlighting how tiny his waist and shoulders truly were.
Mike leaned in close. "Give me a name, kid. Who the hell are you before the Spell takes what's left?"
Zain lay still, his platinum eyes fixed on the flickering light. He thought of the ruler he once was and the rat he had become. Neither fit this vessel. He needed something that sounded like winter and felt like a blade.
He breathed out a cloud of mist that crystallized into jagged, frozen letters in the air before shattering into diamond dust.
"The wind calls it Zayden," he murmured, his eyes glowing with a chilling spark of genius. "The winter calls it Whitethorne. But since we're in such an... intimate setting, Sergeant... You may call me Zain."
Mike scrambled back from the sheer cold in Zain's voice. The heavy reinforced door hissed shut, locking with a thud. Zain lay in the dark, his small body still as the world began to warp.
[Aspirant Zayden Whitethorne...]
[Your trial begins now.]