Snow clung to the stone pathways like forgotten silk, quiet and cold as ever.
But today, it didn't feel serene. It felt watchful.
Kai brushed the edge of his sleeve across his eye, squinting at the horizon. From the edge of the Eastern Ridge, the sky above the Umbra's border looked darker than usual. Not clouded. Just… dull. As if the light had forgotten how to shine there.
He stood alone, hands folded behind his back, robes fluttering slightly in the breeze. His breath misted in the air. Somewhere behind him, faint bells rang—an early ceremony. He ignored it.
Footsteps approached.
"You've been standing here a while," Naomi said, stepping beside him.
Kai didn't turn. "The wind changed."
Naomi raised an eyebrow. "You can hear the wind now?"
"No," Kai said. "But it can hear us."
She frowned at that, glancing over the edge into the deep snowdrifts and shadowed trees below. Far in the distance, the last barrier stones shimmered like forgotten stars. The old boundary. Where the Umbra Realm began.
"Do you think the Umbra is… alive?" she asked softly.
Kai didn't answer. Not because he didn't know—but because he didn't want to speak what he felt. Some truths had teeth.
That afternoon, Elder Borin was in rare form.
He stood at the front of the lecture hall with his mask pushed slightly to the side and a basket of snowberries in hand.
"Today," he declared, tossing a berry into his mouth, "we discuss lies."
A few disciples exchanged confused glances.
"The first lie: Cultivation brings peace. Rubbish. Cultivation brings clarity. Peace is a by-product—and often temporary. The second lie: Qi flows only within meridians. Nonsense. Qi flows through will. Meridians are just the road. You? You are the rider."
He threw another berry high into the air, caught it in his mouth, then bowed dramatically.
Kai clapped slowly. Naomi sighed behind him.
"What's the third lie?" one of the disciples asked hesitantly.
Borin's voice quieted. "The third lie... is that frost is gentle."
He walked toward the center of the hall, his boots clicking on rune-carved stone.
"Let me show you something."
With a twist of his fingers, he summoned a single thread of frost Qi. It floated in the air like a wisp of silk—harmless at first.
Then it lengthened. Hardened.
The temperature in the room dropped. Breath misted. Disciples shifted uncomfortably.
The strand of Qi pierced through a stone tile with a soft snap, cracking it clean in two.
Borin exhaled. The frost vanished.
"Remember this," he said. "The cold does not ask permission. It simply takes."
Later that day, Kai wandered the lower courtyards where elders rarely ventured.
This was the domain of outer disciples, artisans, and wandering merchants—people who didn't care about sect politics, only about survival.
He stopped at an old forge built into the cliffside. The blacksmith, Master Ren, was hammering froststeel into a blade with rhythmic precision.
"You're not here for a weapon," Ren said without looking up.
Kai smiled. "You know me too well."
"I know your eyes. Frost-born, like your mother. She once came here barefoot in the snow, demanding a twin-blade sheath for your father."
Kai leaned against the stone wall, listening to the hammering.
"Do you believe," he asked, "that the world ends quietly?"
Ren paused. "No. But I believe it begins again that way."
Kai said nothing. Just listened. Hammer. Breath. Snowfall.
That night, he returned to the family courtyard and found Naomi sitting beneath the old frost tree, a glowing orb in her hands.
"Father left this," she said, tossing it lightly to him.
Kai caught it. The orb shimmered—a memory crystal.
When he activated it, soft light spilled into the air, forming a blurry image: their father, Arden Duskthorn, standing tall in full warden armor.
"I may not return by winter's end," his voice said through the recording. "If so, protect each other. Remember what you are."
Kai closed his hand. The image faded.
"What are we?" he asked.
Naomi leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Duskthorns."
He smiled faintly. "Terrible answer."
Somewhere far away...
In the shadow of a broken citadel, buried deep within the Umbra's reach, a figure knelt before a spiraling black obelisk. The air reeked of rot and whispers. Ash stirred beneath every breath.
The figure's robes were tattered, his body covered in scars—and yet, his eyes gleamed with power that bent the light around him.
He pressed a bleeding palm against the stone.
"The Frostborn child stirs," he said.
A voice echoed from within the obelisk.
"Then the silence ends."