vaelora/Stories/Crown of Blood/C4.1S3 - Dreams beneath the ice.md

By evening Winter’s Edge did not grow warmer. The night came with a thick and waiting silence, as if the cold itself held its breath.

Telaryn lay on her cot wrapped in too many layers of cloth that did nothing against the marrow-deep chill. The hearth in the chamber had burned low, its embers dulled to ghost-light. Wind scraped against the shutters like a dull blade. Somewhere in the keep below, bells rang the hour of final rest—a hollow tone, iron on iron, the sound of worn faith.

She had meant to sleep sitting upright, sword laid across her lap, boots never removed. But exhaustion claimed her like a tide pulling stones out to sea.

And in sleep, the mountain found her.

She stood atop a **jagged peak**, alone, high above the world. The sky churned with a storm that did not touch her—**snow spiraled upwards**, slow as ash, catching fireless light from a moon that wasn’t there.

Beneath her, the summit formed into a plateau of ancient stone—cracked, cold, scorched in places with marks that might have been runes or claw-scars. At its center, **a throne** rose from the rock itself: no carving, no construction—just raw, fused matter that had grown into the shape of power.

It was made of **bone and basalt**, veined with faintly glowing seams like lava frozen in mid-flow. Its back was tall, crowned with antlers of pale metal. It breathed, faintly.

And seated upon it was **herself**—or something wearing her face.

The woman was older, far beyond the years Ryn had seen, but ageless too. She bore a crown of thorns twined with black ribbon, and her robes trailed into mist where they touched the stone. Her eyes were white as glacier-ice, her skin carved with fissures of dim red light, as though her very blood smoldered beneath her.

She said nothing.

But her lips moved.

The words were old, older than Talpis, than the clans. They were the **first language**, the one the world used before men gave it names. Telaryn could not understand it—but she _remembered_ it. Somewhere deep inside her, something ached in answer.

The figure raised a hand, beckoning downward.

And there, at the base of the throne, half-buried in black frost, **lay a sword**.

It had no hilt, no jewel, no ornament. Just shadow-forged steel etched with jagged sigils that pulsed faintly with their own rhythm. Chains lay across it, woven from bone and silver and old iron, holding it in place—but not tightly enough.

*Ashmire.*

The name crashed into her like a wave.

Not spoken. Not seen. Known.

As if she had always known it, and only forgotten.

She stepped forward, drawn toward it. But movement in the snow behind her made her turn.

*Alisha.*

Standing there at the edge of the frozen peak, barely clothed, her braid unraveling in the wind. Her hands were outstretched. Her face was lined with sorrow.

Her lips moved. Telaryn could not hear what she said.

She took another step, arm lifting toward her.

Alisha flickered*.

Her image blurred—once, twice—and then began to dissolve into falling snow. Her form unraveled thread by thread, until only **a shadow** remained on the ice. No scream. No sound. Just absence*.

Telaryn ran.

But her feet would not move.

The snow around her turned to ash.

The world cracked open.

She awoke gasping, as if yanked from a pit of cold water.

The fire in the hearth had long died. Her breath came in heavy white puffs. Her chamber was colder than it had any right to be, and the darkness pressed close, like a second skin.

She sat up, throat tight.

Then she saw it.

Across the flagstone floor, from the hearth to her bedside, ran a line of ice. Thin, delicate, and unnatural—no water had spilled there. It shimmered faintly in the darkness, and where it touched the edge of her cot, a single crimson bead welled up on her palm.

She hadn’t cut herself.

And yet she bled.

Her breath caught. Slowly, she stepped down and padded barefoot to the arrow-slit window. The shutters groaned as she pushed them open. Cold bit at her exposed skin.

The city lay below—quiet, dark, smothered in snow. Fires burned in isolated courtyards. Smoke twisted against the stars.

And in the drifting veil of snow...

*They moved.*

Flickers. Motes. Shapes. Spirit echoes, drifting low over rooftops or coiling through the alleyways like smoke caught on thought. No faces. No eyes. Just *presence*—small and cold and watching.

One drifted close to the wall, near the temple-roof. It paused beneath a broken gargoyle.

*It* looked up.

Not with a face. But with intent.

Telaryn did not flinch.

She stared until it faded, until the last of the spirit-light unraveled in the storm.

Then she touched her lips with blood-stained fingers and whispered the name the dream had given her:

“Ashmire.”

The wind paused.