The northern inland was not just a region; it was a slow, deliberate killer.
When Justus, Daemon, and Lyra had first left Frostmere on a heavy wooden carriage drawn by two sturdy draft horses, the journey seemed manageable.
But by the second night, the sky turned into a suffocating shroud of gray, and the temperature plummeted past anything reasonable.
By the third day, the road had vanished entirely under a wall of white, leaving them completely blind in the jagged mountain passes.
Then came the wolves.
Not normal beasts, but Northern Frost-Hounds—starved, massive creatures with icy blue eyes and coats matted with frozen blood.
They struck during a blinding squall on the fourth night.
The frantic screams of the draft horses tore through the roaring wind as the pack descended.
Justus had lunged forward, drawing Gryphon, but the sheer cold had slowed his muscles to a crawl.
He managed to sever one hound’s jaw, but the beasts had already clamped onto the throat of the lead horse, tearing it open in a spray of steaming crimson that froze mid-air.
In the chaotic frenzy, the second horse panicked, snapping its reins and bolting blindly off the edge of a snow-drifted ridge, taking the carriage and most of their dried rations with it.
Daemon had killed the remaining hounds with three point-blank rifle shots, the gunfire echoing uselessly against the empty ice walls.
But the damage was done.
The carriage was gone.
The horses were dead.
They were stranded on foot in the heart of a dead zone.
“This was a stupid plan!” Daemon shouted over the howling gale, his raw throat burning with every word.
He ripped his cloak tighter around himself, his fingers trembling from the cold.
“We should have stayed near the coast!
You’re the one who insisted we push further inland!”
Justus stopped walking.
For a moment, there was nothing but the screaming wind between them.
Then he slowly turned around.
“If we stayed at the coast,” Justus snarled, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth clicked, “scrap hunters or navy scouts would have sniffed out The Red Fang within a week.”
He took a step toward Daemon.
“We needed distance.”
“Distance?” Daemon barked a bitter laugh.
“Look around you!”
He threw an arm toward the endless white wasteland.
“The carriage is gone.
The horses are dead.
Half our food is buried under a mountain somewhere, and we’re walking through a fucking blizzard!”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Or what?”
Daemon stepped closer.
“What are you going to do, Justus?”
Justus’s red eyes narrowed.
Daemon’s breathing grew heavier as months of tension, exhaustion, and frustration finally erupted.
“You always do this,” Daemon spat.
“You make a decision, drag everyone into it, and then act like you’re the only one who understands what’s happening!”
Justus’s expression hardened.
“You think I wanted this?”
“I think you’re reckless!”
“I think you’re an idiot!”
Daemon’s hand suddenly went to his rifle.
He tore it from his shoulder and leveled the barrel directly at Justus’s chest.
The movement was so sudden that even the wind seemed to disappear for a heartbeat.
Justus froze.
Daemon’s finger rested against the trigger.
“Say that again.”
His voice was low.
Not angry anymore.
Dangerously calm.
Justus stared down the barrel.
Then his hand slowly moved toward Gryphon.
His fingers wrapped around the sword’s hilt.
The purple blade slid from its scabbard by barely an inch.
A faint metallic hiss cut through the storm.
“Put the rifle down,” Justus said.
Daemon’s eyes hardened.
“Or?”
Justus pulled Gryphon another inch.
“Or I’ll make you.”
Daemon’s grip tightened around the rifle.
“Go ahead I dare you.”
The two men stood facing each other in the middle of the blizzard.
Rifle against sword.
Neither willing to blink.
Neither willing to back down.
Daemon’s eyes burned with exhaustion and fury.
“You know what your problem is, Justus?” he growled.
“You think because you’re strong, every decision you make is automatically the right one.”
“And you think shouting makes you right.”
“At least I don’t get people killed because of my pride!”
Justus’s expression changed.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
Daemon stepped forward, the rifle never leaving Justus’s chest.
“Those horses died and we are next because of your decision.”
“And if we stayed near the coast, we’d be surrounded by Guardians by now.”
“So you chose this!”
“I chose the only option we had and it’s not like I knew this would happen!”
“You chose for all of us!”
“And you’re alive, aren’t you?!”
Daemon’s finger tightened around the trigger.
“Not for much longer if you keep making decisions like this.”
Justus’s hand tightened around Gryphon.
The sword began sliding free.
One more inch.
One more word.
And the two of them would have torn each other apart.
Then—
“Hey…” a faint, shivering voice broke through the storm.
Both of them stopped, turning back.
Lyra was three paces behind them, swaying like a dry leaf in a tempest.
Her lips were a deep, unnatural violet, her skin deathly pale, and her eyes glazed over with delirium.
She took one fragile step forward, her knees buckled, and she collapsed headfirst into the snow bank.
“Lyra!”
Justus scrambled back, dragging her up by the shoulders.
The heat radiating off her skin was terrifying—a burning, violent fever raging inside a body that was rapidly freezing from the outside.
Her chest rattled with a wet, hollow cough, and a thread of dark blood seeped from the corner of her cracked lips.
“Hypothermia…
severe lung rot,” Daemon said, his voice dropping all aggression as he dropped to his knees beside them.
He checked her pulse with trembling, gloved fingers.
“Her core is collapsing.
She won’t last the night.”
“We can’t stop,” Justus rasped, panic finally drowning out his anger.
“Where is the town?
How much further?!”
“According to her map…
two days.
Maybe three if we’re on foot,” Daemon muttered grimly.
Without waiting for Justus, Daemon unslung his heavy rifle, strapped it tightly across his chest, and hauled Lyra’s limp body onto his back.
He wrapped her arms over his shoulders and hauled himself up, his boots sinking deep into the snow.
“What are you doing?” Justus asked, his voice shaking.
“Your spiritual reserves are almost dry!”
“Then they’ll go completely dry,” Daemon growled through gritted teeth, taking a heavy, ragged step forward.
“Keep walking.
If you drop, I’m not carrying you.”
For the next three days, the journey devolved into a nightmare.
The storm never eased.
Every mile was a physical torture.
Daemon carried Lyra, his breath coming in agonized, whistling gasps, his posture bending lower and lower under her weight.
Justus walked in front, using Gryphon’s scabbard like a cane to probe the snow for hidden crevasses, his own mind slipping in and out of consciousness from sheer physical depletion.
They didn’t speak a single word to each other.
The earlier argument hung between them like a wall of ice, reinforced by the agonizing guilt that both carried as they watched Lyra drift deeper into unconsciousness on Daemon’s back.
On the seventh night, near the summit of a desolate ridge, the storm reached a screeching crescendo.
Justus’s legs simply gave out.
His knees hit the ice, his face buried in the drift.
He tried to force his arms to push his body up, but there was nothing left.
No energy.
No heat.
No spirit.
Behind him, Daemon stumbled over Justus’s legs.
The weight of Lyra dragged him down, and both of them spilled heavily into the white abyss.
Daemon wrapped his arms around Lyra, pulling her beneath his coat to shield her from the wind, but he couldn’t get back up.
The blizzard swept over the ridge, silently piling snow over the three motionless bodies until they vanished beneath the frozen earth.
Hiss…
The smell of bitter medicinal herbs and burning pine wood slowly clawed Justus out of the darkness.
He opened his eyes, but his vision was blurred, swam with heavy shadows.
He tried to sit up—to reach for the comforting grip of Gryphon—but his body felt entirely paralyzed.
A sharp, unbearable ache radiated from his chest down to his toes.
He couldn’t move his legs.
He couldn’t even lift his hands beneath the heavy layers of furs covering him.
“Don’t try to move, boy,” a dry, gentle voice spoke from the corner.
“Your muscles are severely frost-damaged, and your spirit core is completely dry.
If you force your body now, you’ll tear your own tendons.”
Justus turned his head with agonizing slowness.
Sitting by a stone hearth was an elderly man with silver hair bound in a low tail, stirring a steaming clay pot.
To Justus’s left lay Daemon.
He was propped up on a thin pillow, staring blankly at the timber ceiling.
He was awake, but he looked like a corpse—his face hollow, his lips chapped and raw, his hands bound tightly in thick linen bandages.
He didn’t look at Justus.
He didn’t say a word.
The silence between them was heavy, suffocating, and cold.
Justus shifted his gaze to the third bed across the room.
Lyra lay completely motionless. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
A thick, dark herbal paste was smeared over her neck and temples, and heavy furs were piled over her frame, but her chest barely moved.
Her face was marble-white, her eyes closed so tightly it looked like she would never open them again.
A cold knot of pure dread tightened in Justus’s chest.
“Lyra…” Justus croaked, his voice barely a rasp.
“Is she…
is she…”
The old man set his wooden spoon down and walked over, wiping his hands on an apron.
“I am Dr.
Vance.
And to be direct with you, lad…
she is in a deep coma.”
Justus’s breath caught in his throat.
“Coma?”
“The cold reached her lungs days ago,” Vance explained softly, checking the pulse at Lyra’s wrist.
“Her body locked itself down just to keep her heart beating.
I am feeding her herbal tonics through a dropper, but her spirit is spent.
Whether she wakes up in a week, a month…
or ever…
is entirely up to her.”
Justus closed his eyes as a wave of overwhelming helplessness crushed him.
He couldn’t move his arms.
He couldn’t stand up.
He couldn’t do a single thing for her.
“How long…
have we been here?” Justus whispered.
“Over a week,” Vance replied.
“My gatherers found the three of you buried under six feet of snow near the upper pass.
It took three days just to thaw the ice out of your clothes without tearing your skin off.
You two have been drifting in and out of high fevers for eight days.”
Vance walked over to the frosted glass window, looking out into the bleak, silent town of Northwood.
Wooden cabins sat smothered under heavy snow, but the narrow dirt streets were hauntingly empty.
No children played.
No merchants shouted.
“Though…” Vance murmured, his tone darkening, “surviving that mountain storm only to wake up here might just be a prolonged curse.”
Daemon’s head turned slightly on his pillow.
He didn’t speak, but his dark eyes fixed on the doctor, demanding an explanation.
“What’s wrong with this town?” Justus asked softly.
Dr.
Vance swallowed hard, a visible shadow of genuine terror creeping into his weathered face.
“Queen,” Vance whispered.
The word seemed to drop the temperature in the room by ten degrees.
Not the Queen.
Just Queen.
One of the Four Lords of the Lower World.
While Dragon’s name evoked imagery of raw, catastrophic destruction and absolute domain, Queen’s name carried a different kind of horror.
She was an ancient, terrifying force of cold malice, shadow, and total subjugation.
Her realm was built on terror so absolute that entire kingdoms paid tribute in blood just to avoid her gaze.
To hear her name spoken in a tiny, isolated mountain village was surreal—and horrifying.
“Queen?” Justus echoed, his chest tightening.
“Why would one of the Four Lords have any interest in a mountain village?”
“It’s her commanders,” Vance said, his voice trembling as he gripped the edge of the window sill.
“Her warband has been sweeping through the northern mountain settlements for the past month.
They burn our storage barns, steal our winter rations…
and they drag away the children.”
Justus frowned, fighting the dull ache in his head.
“The children?”
“Every boy and girl between eight and fifteen,” Vance said, a tear cutting through the dirt on his cheek.
“They haul them away in iron cages, bound in heavy chains, and march them deep into the upper crags.
Over twenty children from Northwood alone are gone.
Parents who tried to fight back were butchered in front of their own doors.”
“Why?” Daemon’s voice finally cut through the air—flat, hollow, and sharp.
“What does Queen want with mountain children?”
“We don’t know!” Vance cried out softly, wiping his eyes frantically.
“Some whisper about dark rituals to feed her power…
others say forced labor in deep, toxic mana mines.
We are simple mountain folk, lad!
We have no strength, no weapons, no power to stand against Queen’s monsters!”
Silence fell over the room once more, broken only by the crackle of the wood fire and the faint, agonizingly slow sound of Lyra’s shallow breathing.
Justus lay still, staring at the ceiling.
His body was a cage.
He couldn’t move his legs, his fingers barely twitched under the blankets, and his spirit core felt hollowed out.
Beside him, Daemon remained completely silent, staring off into the dark corner of the room, his jaw clenched in quiet, unresolved anger.
They were trapped in bed, crippled by the northern cold, while Queen’s men terrorized the mountains around them—and their navigator lay silently dying three feet away.
Then suddenly they both fell back to unconsciousness.
Things are only getting worse for Justus, Daemon, and Lyra… and Queen’s shadow is finally starting to creep into their journey.
It really helps me keep going and bring you more chapters.