The sound hit Kieran first—a singular note, pure and crystalline, that reverberated through the labyrinth like a ripple running over ice. It silenced the clicking claws and the faint hum of frost-bound air. The creatures froze where they stood, their glowing eyes narrowing in unison as if the sound had pierced something deep within their hollow forms. Kieran stiffened, his breath catching as the frost in his veins stirred, tightening its hold on him with an unfamiliar urgency.
For several moments, nothing moved. The maze shifted slightly around him, its frozen walls warping and refracting the dim light into jagged patterns. The silence felt too heavy, too fragile, the kind that could shatter without warning. Kieran tightened his grip on the crude frost blades at his sides, his raw hands shaking under their weight.
Then the sound came again, louder this time. It seemed to answer itself, like a bell struck somewhere deep within the labyrinth, each toll sending vibrations through Kieran's chest. The frost-creatures twitched, their spindly forms pulsing with translucent cracks that spread outward like veins of ice. The light in their eyes flickered. They no longer hissed or crept closer. Instead, they turned, their movements sharp, deliberate—retreating.
They were leaving.
Kieran blinked, disoriented, the reverberations still humming in his bones. His instinct screamed at him to follow their path away from this cursed place, but a different part of him, colder and quieter, knew that whatever sent the creatures fleeing was far more dangerous than they could ever be.
The frost in his blood shifted again, pulling at him, its voice voiceless but insistent. It wasn't asking him to flee. It was asking him to stay.
He stumbled forward, his body dragging itself into motion as though it were no longer entirely his own. The frost, usually erratic and strained, began to weave from his footsteps into thin trails that snaked across the icy labyrinth floor. The air thickened with the sensation of being watched—not by the retreating creatures, but by something older, something that had always been here, waiting for him to come this far.
The maze inched closer around him. The crystalline walls reflected his warped shape back at him as he walked, every twist and angle of his frame stretched and distorted. He stopped, startled, as his reflection seemed to linger a moment longer than it should have, its head tilting to one side where he had not moved.
He took an uneasy step back, his throat constricting as frost crackled beneath his boots. Just as quickly as it had shifted, the warped image snapped back into alignment, mirroring his terrified expression perfectly. He forced himself to keep walking, fighting the unnerving sensation that the walls were breathing.
The chime pulsed again, louder now, a beckoning note that bent Kieran's path before him. The frost trailing outward from his feet began to widen, creating a fractured map that led him through the maze's twists and turns. It wasn't him guiding the frost anymore. It was guiding him.
Eventually, the narrow corridor opened up into a cavernous chamber, vast and echoing, its high ceiling lost to shadow. Columns of frost rose haphazardly along the edges, like the ribs of some long-dead giant encasing the space. The air here was stiller, heavier, pressing down on Kieran's tired frame with the weight of unseen eyes.
At the center of the chamber rested a pedestal, carved from smooth, dark stone. Unlike the chaotic frost formations around it, the pedestal was unmarred, its surface pristine and unyielding. Above it hovered a shard of ice, pulsing faintly with a light that was neither green nor white but something in between, a strange glow that seemed to shift shades as Kieran drew closer.
His frost flared in response to the shard, the frozen edges of his veins seemed to reach for it. He staggered, overwhelmed by the vibrancy of his own magic meeting the shard's. His breath hissed between clenched teeth as pain flashed up his arms and settled sharply against his still-burning shoulder.
The whispering began as soon as he stepped onto the pedestal's platform, low and indistinct, but growing clearer with each step. It wasn't external; it was inside him, threads of thought that were both his own and entirely foreign. They spoke in fragmented sentences, none of which he could fully understand but all of which carried the same message underneath.
Who are you, to wield what does not belong?
Kieran fell to his knees before the shard, his legs trembling, his body crumpling under the sheer intensity of its presence. The frost within him surged and spiraled outward uncontrollably, wrapping him in jagged patterns that mirrored the larger frost columns of the cavern. He gripped the pedestal's edge tightly, as though anchoring himself would stop his unraveling.
"I don't… I didn't… I didn't ask for this!" he gasped aloud, his voice shaking as the frost poured from his chest in uneven bursts. The whispering shifted, growing sharper, colder.
It was never yours.
Kieran's vision blurred as the shard trembled. The frost coiled beneath him, deep cracks spreading outward like veins on a broken mirror. His breath frosted in the air as his body locked into place, every muscle seizing as the frost tried to pull him upward, toward the shard.
He fought it, his fingers digging into the stone pedestal, but it was like holding back an avalanche. The frost magic had never felt this alive, this uncontrollable. He could feel pieces of himself slipping away, muscles turning numb, caught in the pulse of power.
"No," he hissed. "This doesn't control me!"
The words barely left his lips before the frost roared in his ears, drowning out everything else. But something deep within him stirred against it, a warmth born not of heat but of determination, a reminder that he refused to be consumed—not by the magic, not by the trial, not by whoever or whatever had done this to him.
With a guttural cry, he shoved his hands forward, palms pressed to the edges of the glowing shard. The frost surged violently, a storm erupting around them, the cavern shaking as though resisting the union of Kieran and the shard. Pain flared through his body, but he gritted his teeth and held on, even as the frost felt like it would shatter him completely.
The shard's glow intensified until it was blinding. And then, with a final, piercing chime, it shattered into a thousand swirling fragments, its pieces spreading through the froststorm and embedding themselves in the air, the walls, and Kieran himself.
The storm ebbed into silence. Kieran collapsed to the ground, his frost-flecked hands limp against the cavern floor. Above him, the pedestal was empty. His breath came in faint gasps as his vision dimmed.
Somewhere in the distance, the whisper echoed one last time, fractured yet strangely calm.
What remains is yours to bear.
The frost within him fell silent.