The rise of a Frozen Star

[POV Liselotte]

The silence that followed Varek Valerius’s mental collapse was heavier than the thunder of the battle we had just fought. I looked at Leah; her hands, once steady on the hilt of her sword, trembled almost imperceptibly. The emptiness in Varek’s eyes was not physical death—it was something far more perverse: the absolute erasure of an existence for the mere sin of trying to speak a name.

“Elliot, get the girls out of here right now,” I said, breaking the trance. My voice sounded metallic, stripped of the warmth I usually reserved for my allies. “Take Maya and Elina to the royal infirmaries under maximum guard. If the traitor could silence Varek from a distance, we cannot allow anyone else near them.”

The prince nodded with military rigidity, ordering his men to carry the unconscious mages.

“Lotte… what are you going to do? The academy is still under the residual effects of the inhibitor. We need to restore the barriers.”

“The academy is safe for now. The viper’s nest has been crushed,” I replied, turning toward Leah. “But Chloé is out there. If what Varek said is true—if there’s a demonic ‘merchant’ pulling the strings—then the attack on the supply convoy isn’t a mere distraction. It’s an execution. And Chloé is at the center of it.”

Leah stepped forward, the fire returning to her gaze.

“I’m not letting you go alone, Lotte. My magic is slowly returning. If Chloé is in danger, Whirikal will send both its princess and its guardian.”

“It’s too risky, Leah,” I tried to protest, but she placed a hand on my chest, right over the Seal of the Eternal Guardian.

“This isn’t a request, Lotte. It’s a matter of state,” she declared. “If we lose that convoy, my father dies in the north. If we lose Chloé, we lose part of our soul. Elliot can handle the capital and the purge of the Valerius. We’re going to the Whispering Forest. Now.”

I looked at Elliot, who watched us with a mixture of resignation and respect. He knew there was no stopping us.

“Go,” he said simply. “I’ll give you the best horses left in the royal stables. But come back. I can’t be the only one left to rebuild this kingdom.”

In less than an hour, Leah and I had left the academy walls. We rode beneath a night that refused to end, leaving behind the chaos of noble betrayal to plunge into a much older darkness. The wind lashed against my face, and as we galloped, I felt a stab of anxiety in my chest. It wasn’t fear for myself—but for the stubborn wolf who was probably biting off more than she could chew.

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[POV Chloé]

“And another one! Don’t you have anyone who actually knows how to use a sword?” I shouted, letting out a wild laugh as I spun on my heels.

My claws sank into a lesser demon’s shoulder, tearing through flesh and shadow as easily as a hot knife through butter. I stood at the center of a whirlwind of violence. Around me, the forest clearing was a chaos of scattered bodies and groans. Valerie’s soldiers—my small army of brave women—formed a flawless defensive circle a few meters away, holding back the frenzied human soldiers with a mix of shields and containment tactics.

“Miss Chloé! Watch your right!” Valerie shouted, driving her blade into the side of a ghoul that tried to leap at me.

“I’ve got it, Val! Focus on holding formation!” I replied, kicking an attacker in the chest and sending him crashing into a tree.

Despite being surrounded by dozens of enemies, I didn’t feel real danger. For someone who had grown up hunting in the mountains—and trained with the monster that is Lotte—these minions were little more than a nuisance. They moved predictably, with that puppet-like clumsiness that betrayed they were being controlled by someone who didn’t understand real combat.

Still, beneath the adrenaline, a part of my mind remained cold… observing.

I paused for a second, crushing the head of a fallen demon under my foot, and looked up. At the center of the clearing, the woman in the black robe was still there. She hadn’t moved an inch. Her hands continued weaving invisible threads in the air, and that cold smile had not left her pale lips. She was watching me—not with hatred, but with a scientific curiosity that made my skin crawl.

“What are you planning, witch?” I muttered to myself, sniffing the air.

The smell of burnt flesh and sulfur lingered—but there was something else. A sweet undertone, like rotting flowers, growing stronger every time I killed one of her demons. Then I realized: the blood of those creatures wasn’t seeping into the ground. It was evaporating into a purplish smoke that rose into the forest canopy, forming a kind of gaseous dome above us.

“She’s gathering energy…” I realized, a chill running down my spine. “She doesn’t care that I’m killing her minions. In fact—she wants me to! Every death is fuel for whatever she’s brewing in that stone cauldron.”

I glanced at Valerie’s soldiers. They were starting to tire. Their movements slowed, sweat blurring their vision. If this continued, they wouldn’t be able to hold the line against the red-eyed soldiers, and I’d be trapped in a battle of attrition I couldn’t win alone.

“Valerie, fall back!” I shouted, rushing toward them to open a path. “It’s a soul-harvesting trap! Don’t kill any more of those demons unless it’s absolutely necessary!”

The captain looked at me in confusion, but before she could respond, the woman in black let out a laugh that echoed like shattering glass in an empty cathedral.

“Too late, little wolf,” the woman said, raising her arms toward the sky. “The harvest has already reached critical mass. Do you smell it? It’s the perfume of Whirikal’s end.”

Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet began to tremble with terrifying intensity. The purple smoke above us dropped all at once, engulfing the clearing in a thick fog that erased sight and smell. I felt my senses dull, as if I had been submerged in deep water.

“Lotte! Leah! Wherever you are, you’d better hurry!” I thought, unsheathing my claws and bracing myself for whatever was about to emerge from that mist.

The easy fight was over.

The real monster had finally stopped playing with its puppets… and had begun to hunt.