What the Ice Remember: Magic deeper than stone
The winds do not reach this far north, and yet something colder than winter clings to the walls. Beneath the fortress lies an ancient weight, humming through stone and soul alike. It is the kind of silence that remembers. He was sent here to endure, not to understand—but the carvings taught him otherwise. There are lines beneath the world—etched, hidden, pulsing—and they must be kept. So he watches. So he carves. So it holds.
Each rune etched into frostbitten stone serves as both anchor and plea, stabilizing the arc-lines that stretch unseen beneath the land. These lines don’t just carry magic—they shape reality, memory, and time itself. Left untended, they unravel. And in this place where magic and madness coexist, even the smallest crack can echo deep below. Something ancient listens. Something ancient waits.
The girl’s eyes were wide, pupils glazed with frost. "I wasn’t cold," she whispered. "He said I could stay like this." She wrapped the blanket tighter.
Isalyn knelt and checked the girl’s pulse. It was too slow. Too still. "Tell me where he went."
The girl points toward the caverns. "He’s in the cavern. He’s waiting for you."
The light faltered. He pressed his palm to the rune—cold, still, wrong. "It should hold," he muttered.
A whisper answered, not from the hall, but from the stone: "Should is not enough."
He sniffed the air, hackles rising. "Smells wrong. Not bad wrong. Just… itchy." He turned in a circle twice, then sat with a huff. "I sit here now. Safer here." His tail wagged once before he added, "Also someone left pie."
He pressed his hand to the ice. It sang—high, sharp, wrong. The rune beneath pulsed once, then cracked. "That shouldn’t…"
The wind shifted. Something breathed back. He drew his weapon, fur bristling. "I know you're there. I know you feel it too."
He ducked into the tunnel, boots crunching over frost. The air shifted—colder, sharper. Runes along the wall sparked blue, casting spirals of light across his coat. "Doesn’t feel abandoned," he muttered. Behind him, something scraped across stone. He turned fast. Nothing. Just the glow. And the sound of breathing that wasn’t his.
When the lines falter, the buried no longer stay forgotten.
