The morning began in silence. Wind tore through the frostbitten plains, carrying with it the sharp sting of snow. Raizō exhaled, his breath a white cloud against the pale blue sky. Across from him, Taren stood, spear planted firmly in the ground, golden eyes watching with the patience of a predator.

  “Again,” Taren said simply.

  Raizō wiped the sweat from his brow. His body still ached from days of training. He adjusted his stance, left foot forward, shoulders squared, eyes level.

  “This is the last time,” Taren continued. “Before Frostmarch, you fight me as if your life depends on it.”

  “It feels like it already does,” Raizō muttered.

  A faint smirk crossed Taren’s face. “Good. Then don’t hold back.”

  Their clash was immediate, fast and deliberate. Taren’s spear lunged, a streak of silver cutting the air. Raizō parried with his forearm, the strike sliding off the hardened muscle he’d conditioned through countless drills. He stepped in, countering with a sharp elbow that Taren barely avoided. Lightning flickered.

  A spark ran up Raizō’s arm, brief and thin like a thought half-formed. Taren’s eyes narrowed, following it. “Don’t lose that feeling,” he said, retreating a few paces. “The lightning isn’t summoned — it remembers.”

  Raizō frowned. “Remembers what?”

  “The truth you try to hide.”

  Raizō hesitated, confused, but the moment passed. Taren turned toward the horizon. “Come. Frostmarch waits for no one.”

  The following days blurred into white. They traveled through a landscape that seemed frozen in perpetual mourning, forests encased in glassy ice, rivers still and silent beneath their frozen surface. The only sound was the crunch of boots and the distant call of unseen beasts.

  Taren walked ahead, his spear serving as both weapon and guide. “The frost remembers every battle fought on it,” he said once. “If you listen closely, you can still hear the screams.”

  Raizō said nothing. His thoughts were far away, in another world, another life. Emi’s smile flashed in his mind, soft and warm against the biting cold. He clenched his hand until it stopped shaking. He wanted to see her again. That was all that mattered. By the time they reached the ridge, the sun had already begun to fade behind thick gray clouds. The air grew heavy. Taren stopped suddenly.

  “You’ve fought me long enough,” he said. “Now you fight alone.”

  Raizō froze. “What are you talking about?”

  Taren didn’t answer. He only looked past him, toward the trembling snow. A low growl rose from beneath the frost. The ground split open. It emerged, towering, pale, its fur crystalline like frozen smoke. Its breath formed jagged mist, and its eyes glowed with cold fire.

  The Frostfang.

  Taren stepped back. “Survive,” he said. “Or don’t.”

  Raizō’s pulse quickened. The beast circled him, each step deep and deliberate, testing his resolve. He moved into stance, wide, focused, but his heart pounded too fast. When the Frostfang lunged, he reacted late. Its claws grazed his shoulder, drawing blood. The pain sent a shock through him, but he forced himself to stay standing.

  Taren’s voice echoed behind him: “You think too much. The frost kills hesitation.”

  The creature came again. He dodged, barely. He countered with a punch that met only air. He stumbled, frustration burning his chest.

  “If that’s all your resolve amounts to,” Taren said coldly, “this world will kill you before you ever see your sister again.”

  Raizō froze. That single word, “sister” cracked something inside him. Emi’s laughter. Her tears. The sound of her calling his name. Garron’s sword. The heroes turning away as blood filled his throat. The storm answered before he could. Lightning flared around him, faint at first, then brighter, a thin aura of blue-white energy that hummed in rhythm with his heartbeat. The Frostfang lunged again, but this time, Raizō didn’t hesitate. He moved, instinct and training fused, and his fist connected with the creature’s jaw. The impact burst in a flash of light, forcing Taren to shield his eyes. The beast roared, staggering back, snow scattering in clouds. Raizō followed through, elbow, knee, another strike to the neck. Each blow pulsed with contained electricity. When it finally collapsed, the air fell silent. Only the faint hum of lightning remained. Raizō stood still, trembling, the faint sparks fading from his skin.

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  Taren walked toward him. “You see now?” he asked.

  Raizō stared at his hands. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You did what you had to.”

  Raizō’s voice was quiet. “It didn’t feel like me.”

  “That’s because it wasn’t.” Taren looked at him for a long moment. “You’re not who you were anymore.”

  They buried the Frostfang beneath a cairn of stone and ice. The flames of their campfire flickered weakly against the vast dark.

  Raizō watched the sparks drift upward, disappearing into the night. “Back home,” he said quietly, “lightning was just weather.”

  Taren chuckled. “In this world, it’s something alive. I've never seen anything like this.”

  Raizō nodded. “It feels like it.”

  “Maybe it’s waiting for you to decide what you are.”

  Silence. Raizō tapped his thumb against his knuckle once, twice, three times. The habit grounded him. The storm above stirred faintly, as if answering. When dawn came, they left without a word. The horizon shimmered faintly with the lights of a distant settlement, Mornvale, the edge of Frostmarch civilization. Raizō didn’t look back. The frost had taught him enough. He only thought of one thing. He had to live long enough to find her. The next morning came without warmth. The sky above was iron gray, streaked with the faint light of three pale suns fighting through the clouds. Raizō tightened the straps of his worn jacket, the smell of smoke still clinging to it. The Frostfang’s grave lay behind them, a mound of snow and stone already half-buried by wind. Taren led the way down the ridge, his cloak drawn tight against the cold. His spear hung across his back like a warning to the world.

  “Where are we heading next?” Raizō asked.

  Taren didn’t slow. “Korrin Vale.”

  Raizō frowned. “That’s not the capital, right?”

  “No,” Taren said. “It’s one of the four major cities. Winterhold Citadel is the capital. We need to go to Driftmoor. If you want to survive in Frostmarch, you’ll need more than fists and half-frozen resolve. You’ll need gear, and money.”

  Raizō stayed silent for a moment. He knew Taren was right. His clothes were torn, his boots half-worn through, and his knuckles still burned from last night’s fight.

  “How far?”

  “Two weeks on foot, if there’s any blizzards. A week if the frost doesn’t kill us first.”

  Their journey stretched into a rhythm of cold, hunger, and silence. The Frostlands turned harsher with every mile, jagged cliffs, endless fields of white, and stretches of frozen forest where nothing made a sound. At night, the wind carried strange howls. Sometimes, the trees themselves seemed to shift and groan. Raizō kept his distance from Taren during the first few days, still processing what had happened, the lightning, the kill, the storm that had answered him.

  Taren, on the other hand, spoke little. When he did, his words carried the sharpness of experience. “The frost tests you differently than the storm,” he said one evening by the fire. “It doesn’t strike. It waits.”

  Raizō didn’t respond. He only stared into the flames, remembering the sound of the Frostfang’s roar and the way the lightning had burned through him, how alive it felt, and how wrong. By the sixth day, the cold had grown unbearable. Food was running low. Taren stopped suddenly, sniffing the air. “Something’s watching,” he muttered. From the tree line, the snow stirred, four shapes moved in silence. Wolf-like, but larger. Their fur was black as shadow, their eyes gleaming like molten ice.

  “Frost Hounds,” Taren said, lowering his spear. “Your turn.”

  Raizō blinked. “You’re serious?”

  “You’ll fight. I’ll watch. The world won’t hold back, neither will I.”

  The beasts spread out, circling. Raizō took a stance, low, focused. His heart pounded against the frozen air. The first one lunged. He dodged too early. It clipped his shoulder, sending him rolling through the snow.

  “Too rigid,” Taren called. “You’re still overthinking.”

  Raizō rose, breath heavy. He tightened his fists. The second beast charged; this time, he ducked low, striking its ribs with a clean hook. The blow sent a jolt of pain through his hand but knocked the creature off balance. Lightning flickered, faint, unstable.

  Taren watched with a measured expression. “Don’t call it. Let it move when it wants to.”

  Raizō focused, breathing slow, eyes fixed on the third hound. It circled, low and cautious, then sprang forward. He sidestepped and caught it midair, driving his knee into its jaw. The faint blue crackle returned stronger. He didn’t think. He moved. When the last hound lunged, he met it with a forward strike, lightning burst from his fist, sending the beast sprawling in the snow. The silence afterward was deafening.

  Taren approached, looking down at the fallen creatures. “Better.”

  Raizō exhaled, his hands trembling. “You said not to call it. But it comes when I start to feel stimulated.”

  Taren smiled faintly. “Exactly.”

  That night, they made camp near a cliff overlooking the plains. The moons reflected faintly off the snow, painting everything in shades of silver and blue.

  Taren tossed a stick into the fire. “You fought well,” he said.

  Raizō looked up. “You tried to kill me.”

  “I tried to prepare you.”

  “Same thing,” Raizō muttered.

  Taren chuckled. “You sound like my brother.”

  Raizō didn’t press. He could tell from the weight in Taren’s tone that the topic wasn’t one for the firelight.

  After a long silence, Taren said, “Back when I was young, I thought instinct was chaos. I thought you had to fight it to survive. But it’s not chaos, Raizō. It's a memory. Every scar, every mistake, your body remembers what your mind refuses to.”

  Raizō tapped his thumb against his knuckle, quietly. “And what if my mind can’t forget?”

  “Then you’ll always fight yourself harder than any beast could.”

  It took ten days to reach it, a vast city carved into the frozen cliffs, its lights glimmering like a constellation trapped in ice. Spires of steel and crystal rose from the center, reaching toward the storm-heavy sky. Smoke rose from chimneys. Merchants shouted faintly through the blizzard. Raizō stopped at the edge of the ridge, staring down.

  Taren grinned. “Welcome to Korrin Vale. A city that survives by taking from those who can’t.”

  Raizō said nothing. His hands clenched unconsciously. He could already feel the hum of danger beneath the beauty, the kind of place where survival meant compromise. As they began their descent into the city, Taren spoke quietly, his voice almost lost in the wind.

  “Remember this, Raizō. In the wild, you fight to live. In Korrin Vale…”

  He paused, eyes fixed on the shimmering city below.

  “…you live to fight.”