2006, 30th January

Reykjavik, Iceland

Lucia and Magnus were the first off their flight, especially with other passengers giving them a wide berth.

“Business class, really?” Magnus asked her.

“I couldn’t sit in the middle of a crowd, with my legs crammed into a tiny space, for the whole flight.”

“Yes, you never did like being around too many people at once. I might even have thought you hated people.”

“Maybe I did. And my grandfather thinks I’m empathetic.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“He also thinks my mother is to be credited with that.”

“Well, is she?”

“Please. My mother was left in an empty manor with a child and a few servants by Lionel. She was bitter all the time, and taught me not to trust people. But my grandfather seemed pretty enamoured with the idea, so I didn't really say anything...”

“Then where did you learn it… Wait, don’t tell me it was us all along? And- is that a flush? Are you blushing, Lucia Bellone?”

Lucia laughed her first genuine laugh in a long time.

“Shut up, asshole, you know I don’t blush. All I’d learn from you is how to be one of those stoic broody types that keep showing up in B grade action flicks. And following Michael’s example would just leave me with a swollen head.”

“You mean, more than it already was?”

“Sure, sure. I guess I picked up the empathy part myself, I don’t know. Or maybe I didn’t. I’m certainly finding it easier and easier to ignore.”

“You think that's a good thing?”

“We’ll see. If I can kill Lionel, it’ll be a good thing. If I don’t, I probably could have explored my options a little, but I’ll probably be too dead to care.”

Magnus hummed in amusement as they made their way out of the airport.

“Where do you want to start looking? Same place this ice palace was?

“It’s our best lead so far.”

“It’s our only lead so far.”

“We’re also working on a time limit. This being-burned-by-sunlight thing is pissing me off.”

“I can always take you across the Bleed if you take me to that island you mentioned.”

“Can’t I pass through this bleed myself?”

“If you have to ask, probably not. Your soul needs to be at least a bit attuned to the Horizon realms to pass through a Bleed. And not many vampires have much affinity for the Spirit plane, at least.”

“What is all this talk about souls anyway?”

“Probably not the definition you’re used to hearing. How do I explain this- It’s like a connection to the various layers of reality. Vampires are usually more attuned to planes other than the spirit plane. Mostly. There’s probably ways to get around that, but you’d have to ask someone who knows better.”

“Fair enough. We stick with plan A for now though.”

They set off for the harbour to procure a boat.

Lucia assured Magnus she could skirt the requirement for local currency for the time being, and even rent the boat without the supervision of its owner.

And sure enough, she did, forcing her will onto the hapless sailor, and summarily, the two of them found themselves navigating the dark, frosty waters of the Labrador sea.

Lucia could follow their path with unerring precision, tracing the last time they had been there, till they found themselves at the fields of ice once more.

Hopping off onto the ice floes, she traced the approximate location of where she estimated the central chamber of the palace to be, and rapped on the roof hard.

And sure enough, two heads of silvery grey hair protruded from the ice- Erik and the matriarch.

“The scion of Lionel returns to us so soon.”

She peered at Magnus, eyes narrowed suspiciously, while he regarded the new arrivals impassively, hands crossed in front of his chest.

“And with an unusual ally, I see. Take note to not involve yourself too deeply in the Ulfhednars’ affairs, girl. They are volatile as fire itself and no alliance with them can end well.”

“Or perhaps the Draugr simply make poor and insincere allies, matriarch.” Magnus retorted.

Erik narrowed his eyes, fist clenching, and Magnus merely snorted in response.

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“Don’t even think about it.”

From what little Lucia had seen of a werewolf in action, half bloods wouldn’t seriously threaten them unless the matriarch was hiding some particularly clever sorcery behind her sleeve.

Which was entirely possible at this time, and any conflict between them was entirely counterproductive.

“Enough!”

Lucia put her hand between the two of them.

“We can hash out old grievances later. For now, matriarch, I need help tracking down that mage that came to visit you that day.”

“What do you want with him, girl? I already told you; if there’s one thing more dangerous than an Ulfhednar, it’s a mage. You should not be-”

“He’s after your Grandfather Winter. When he sent those ghosts to disrupt your ritual, it was to pinpoint that thing’s location.”

The matriarch's face, against all possibility, grew even paler.

“And you think it wise to interfere in these matters even still, girl?”

“As opposed to standing by patiently waiting for whatever happens when that thing is dug out of its grave to happen? Yes.”

“Alright, then. Open your mind to me, girl, and I will show exactly where our progenitor lays in sleep.”

Lucia opened her mind to the probe with surprisingly little resistance, and the matriarch noticed she could expel her from it just as easily as she had allowed her inside, somehow having grown even stronger since having left after adding Hilda’s power to her own.

Summarily after Lucia had glimpsed her memories, she straightened herself.

“Thank you for that matriarch. This is where we part ways, for now.”

Magnus began to leave ahead of her, but the matriarch tapped Lucia’s wrist as she turned to leave herself.

“Do you still have the charmed serpent I gave you?”

Lucia pulled back the sleeve of her heavy jacket to reveal the gleaming metal band wrapped around her wrist.

“It’s silver. When the wolf inevitably shows its true colours, that will slow it down if not stop it altogether.”

Lucia nodded once, then made her way back to the waiting boat, filing that bit of information away.

“What was that between you guys? There some history there that I’m missing?” Lucia asked Magnus as they set off to find the ancient monster’s resting place.

Magnus shook his head.

“I suppose our people have simply shared territory for too long. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that. And the vampires have long memories to go with their long lifespans. Plenty of time to nurse grudges.”

“Hmm. When we do find Victor and Hans, how do you want to handle it?”

“I’ll handle Victor. You try and overwhelm Hans. Mages are powerful, but they mostly have human frailties.”

“And any ghosts they may have along with them? I can destroy them, but what about you?”

Magnus gave her a curious look.

“Only creatures attuned with the Horizon realm of Hel can interact with ghosts. But they don’t usually have enough power to be more than a nuisance.”

“Hell?”

“With one L. The realm of death.”

“Charming. But even nuisances can dip the balance you know.”

Scanning the horizons, Magnus sighed.

“I don’t believe they’re here.”

Lucia frowned.

“They could be hidden with some magic or the other.”

“True. Let’s get a little closer, and stay on our guard.”

Soon, they were directly atop where Lucia estimated the monster’s resting place to be.

Nothing sprang from the shadows to attack them.

“They might be waiting for us to let down our guard. But that’s not relevant- One of us has to go down there and check on this Grandfather Winter.” Lucia said.

“I’ll do it,” Magnus volunteered, “You need to save body heat.”

Shortly, he had slipped out of his clothes, not seeming overly concerned with the biting chill in the air.

And he dove into the water.

His vision quickly adjusted to the water, but visibility was still far less than he would have preferred, almost no light making its way into the depths of the water.

So Magnus reached for the heat nestled within his heart, the fire that he had consumed from the essence of the forge spirit he had slain.

Heat illuminated his body with unnatural bioluminescence, his skin glowing red like heated metal, granting him even more protection from the chilly water he had swam into.

The reddish glow was dull enough, but his eyes caught the ambient light well, and he swam deeper, lungs not really requiring oxygen, his metabolism free to pull energy from the essence flowing within his system instead.

And soon, he was near the bottom, structures jutting out irregularly from the bedrock, and he noticed a single anomaly.

A chunk of the seafloor missing, the excision it left behind far too even, too perfectly shaped to have been natural.

And he realised they were too late.

Grandfather Winter had been removed, along with his entire resting place, excised from the sea floor.

He breached the surface shortly.

Lucia raised an eyebrow at his glowing red hot skin.

“There’s something you don’t see every day.”

Magnus let the heat retreat from his epidermis, pulling himself back on board.

“He’s gone. They’ve taken him, ripped out the entire chunk of soil he was buried in and absconded. We were too late.”

Lucia nodded.

“It was a slim hope anyway. And that’s another lead dead.”

“You mean our last lead.”

“Not necessarily. We still have one last avenue of approach.”

“And what is that?”

“Apotheosis.”

Back on the firm soil of Iceland once more, Magnus raised his objections.

“They don’t just let anyone inside, you know. I don’t even know if I was supposed to go back after finishing my assignment. And you can’t just brute force your way in with these people.”

“You were initially sent to make contact with my father, yes?”

“Yes. I mean, I assume so. Either that, or he replaced whoever I was really supposed to meet after killing them.”

“That’s a little far-fetched, so let’s leave that aside for now. Suppose I reveal the fact that I am his daughter. Do you think that gets us an inroad?"

“It might. Or it might get you abducted as a piece in the negotiations.”

Lucia could feel a growl building in the back of her throat, having seemingly been cornered with no viable alternatives.

“We have to take a chance somewhere.”

“I get it; you don’t want to sit on your hands. But these aren’t the people you should be pushing, Lucia.”

“Hmm. We should rent a room somewhere, and you should get some coffee or something like that. I need to think, and you need to be the sounding board I bounce ideas off.”

“Hah, fair enough. But where do you get the local currency at this time of the night?”

“Fuck that. We’ll just do it like the boat.”

Magnus shook his head disapprovingly, but followed along anyway.