My flame continued to burn, and midday soon came. I found myself hunched forwards; the reins loosely gripped in my hands as Dreihander came to a slow trot. The sun burned brightest at that moment, yet I found myself restrained by my previous life — dragged down by habits I practiced living an efficient and proper life.

It only made me feel bitter, knowing all the work I had done was worth nothing in the empire’s eyes.

Anise sat, cross-legged, whittling away at a cured sapling with an obsidian dagger, shaping the branch into a bow. The curled flecks of wood were gathered and dumped into the lantern, burning softly and blowing with the direction of the flame, traveling forward in embers towards their destination.

The afternoon was a quiet one. The teapot, now empty, spread a soft fragrance that attracted little rabbits — white bundles of fur who were unafraid of giant wolves, beasts who saw them as prey not worth hunting.

I felt like a sailor watching fish swim past my boat, watching as the rabbits glanced over to the sled, peeking in to sniff out the source. For animals that were frail enough to die of fright induced heart attacks, they were awfully brave — enough to climb aboard.

One of them came and climbed up onto my lap, making themselves warm in the embrace of the flameseeker, licking at my cape where I had spilled a bit of tea like they were deer licking salt rocks.

“Made a friend, I see?” Anise said, coming in from behind. “I suppose the journey of the flameseeker doesn’t have to be a lonely one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. My voice spooked the rabbit who shuddered, blinking for a moment before returning to licking at the tea-stained spot of my coat — more vigorously this time, like it was worried I would bite down like a bear trap.

“I’ve heard of the legends of the flameseekers,” Anise said. “They are stars who fall from the sky in search of warmth on earth, with most of them being extinguished before they could ever find their flames. You’re a lucky one — one who survived falling from the sky and into the worst place a flame could find itself.”

“I didn’t fall,” I answered. “I leapt.”

“You jumped? Deliberately?”

“I gave my life up for others — for people who had a chance at survival, for a person who showed me there are people who could stand up for their morals even in the worst of circumstances.”

Anise nodded, returning to chipping away at the wood, forming the limbs of a bow.

“Anise,” I asked.

“Yes, flameseeker?”

“Don’t call me that. It sounds so distant, like I’m not a person.”

“You don’t like that distant feeling too, do you?”

The flame flickered, pointing off the beaches of Nordsummer and pointing towards an ice field. The ocean, partially frozen over, formed a path that led from the mainland to a series of icebergs. The rabbits parted ways with us and my clothes were cleaned of any remaining tea.

Dreihander paused, pawing at the ground, sniffing at the ice before him.

“Is this really the right way?” Anise asked, glancing at the flame before looking to me for answers.

“The last time I was given some kind of magical apparatus, it was a compass designed to lead me to a trap,” I confessed, before asking, "Anise? Do you trust that shaman?"

“Of all the tribal villages I’ve traveled to in my time, no one has been more consistently kind and helpful than Miss Nanna.”

“I thought the same of the man who gave me that compass, who had been good to me for years.”

The two of us fell silent. I turned to Anise who glanced at both Dreihander and the empty bowl of tea. Dreihander scratched at the ground, digging at the growing icy terrain. With my reins, I had him march forwards, towards the edge of Nordsummer where icebergs laid.

Shrouded in fog, the icebergs were tied together by suspension bridges. A pair of metal poles marked the beginning of a bridge held together by tension and rope, fighting against both the cutting winds above and the churning sea below.

The poles, like ice picks, kept the bridges in one piece.

Dreihander stopped before the bridge — absolutely refusing to step foot onto the creaky pathway.

“The bridge is too narrow. We’ll have to go on foot,” I said, and Anise — using her hands to judge the width of the bridge — nodded.

She ordered Dreihander to go and hide somewhere, packing lightly while I stood by the bridge, lantern in hand. My loose flame flickered in the wind, cutting a path through the mist with the subtle yet harsh scent of combusting mercury. My boots crunched and slid on both snow and ice, and with one hand on the rope of the bridge, I marched on.

Anise followed behind, and I peeked back to find her walking with a hand draped over her eyes like a veil.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t care for heights,” she answered, her voice stoic, her knees wobbly. “I’m a landlocked woman. While I dabble in fishing and the like, the last place I expected to find myself was dangled above the sea on a shaky bridge.”

I took a glance down and gulped. The waters below seemed more aggressive than usual. Nordsummer was an island surrounded by the harshest of seas, and the fact that people even managed to sail here was a miracle itself.

Now, I took a gamble my ancestors would be appalled by — crossing a shaky old bridge of all things, above those freezing cold waters they feared.

Standing here, the very thought made me laugh.

“What are you laughing at, dammit?” she asked, her anger overpowering her fear.

“In all honesty, I don’t know.” and I stood in the center of the bridge, my hands free, my lantern held by my side. “Looking around, being trapped in this mist and suspended above the sea — I feel strangely free.”

"Free?" she asked, and she shook her head, stating, “It’s the fumes."

“Fumes?”

“They’re driving you mad.”

The thought of madness never really crossed my mind, though looking around at it all — traversing between icebergs atop suspension bridges in the mist, guided by nothing but a mystical, undying flame — I couldn’t help but conclude things were insane.

I crossed and stood on the other end, reaching out a hand — a hand which Anise was quick to snatch.

Pulling her onto solid ground — as solid and grounded as an iceberg floating in the sea could get — we crossed the bridges of iceberg after iceberg until the evening blizzard set in.

Crossing one last bridge, the flame burned to its utmost brilliance.

A delicate golden flame lingered in the lantern. Through the blizzard, we could make out the shape of a fortress. Atop an iceberg chained to the mainland by berg after berg, linked by rope, stood a fortress made of dirtied ice, silt and dirt. Hand carved with blemishes and imperfections built into the sculpted work, we stood before the lovingly made Everberg Castle.

I was speechless. “Honestly,” I said, “I didn’t think things as beautiful as this could exist.”

“On a lonely iceberg out in the middle of nowhere, no less,” she added. We approached a frozen garden overgrown with roses made of translucent ice. The flowers, picked from their stem, stood unmelting — rejecting the warmth of my hands while also refusing to grant frostbite to my fingers.

It was like holding onto mist.

The flowers were strange, ephemeral beings that rejected the laws of nature. They refused to accept heat and refused to give cold, choosing to stand outside the mortal coil — the spiral of warmth and death.

“It’s like they don’t exist,” I mumbled, picking up a rose, turning to find Anise standing beside me.

She leaned in close, fixing her hair and pushing her bangs behind her ear, creating the perfect perch. After plucking the thorns off the stem, I placed the flower over her ear.

The spectral white flower stood in stark contrast to her black fur cape, and in the light of my lantern, she seemed to shimmer in the night. It was a particularly starry night — stars that reminded me of my work as a technician.

That memory came with an auditory hallucination of metal hinges.

That’s when I realized it wasn’t a memory. I turned to find the fortress’ front door open. Quickly, I pulled Anise away and into cover, extinguishing my flame, allowing us to disappear into the night.

A translucent being stepped out of the fortress, one that looked humanoid. They lacked any features, and their clothes melted into their body like molten wax shaped to resemble a person. The ghostly figure slowly strode down a set of stairs, walking past us as we hid behind an ice tree before kneeling by the flowers.

They carried with them a frozen pair of shears, gardening equipment they used to prune the flowers. They were absolutely silent and recognizably inhuman, yet every part of their being screamed that they were a person.

“Over here,” Anise whispered, grasping my wrist and pulling me away, through the door the ephemeral gardener left open.

The sound of clinking crystals filled the fortress, and despite the chilly air that filled the building, there wasn’t a drop of cold. As if the concept of warmth and frost were banished from Everberg, we were able to skulk through the fortress, leaning against the frozen architecture for concealment. I took charge, seeing as I was experienced with running and hiding from imperials.

I moved, dagger in hand, climbing up a set of staircases made of solidified snow packed with dirt — the same as the floor we stood on. More of the strange women filled the castle, their footsteps silent as they moved from room to room. Dressed in robes reminiscent of nuns, they wisped past me as they routinely maintained the castle.

I watched from a distance. Confused, I couldn’t help but watch as two servants walked into one another — phasing through one another as if neither existed.

“What is this place?” Anise whispered. “What has the flame led us to?”

“The shaman said it herself — that we’d be going to the resting sites of daemons slain. What else could this place be but a gravesite?”

The fortress stood frozen; its inhabitants immune to the effects of death — stripped of life as well. I tossed a stone, watching as the servants completely ignored the loud tapping of the tumbling rock.

I grew bold enough to move in close, hiding around a corner — reaching out to touch the edge of their sleeves. My fingers passed through. The figure ignored me completely.

“They’re ghosts — they have to be,” Anise mumbled.

“Whatever they are, they’re not in our way.”

I moved through the halls, passing by unusual furniture, stopping to take a glance at the kitchen. The doorway was tall enough for a person twice my height, and the solid ice table was accompanied by oversized chairs that would make me look like a child if I sat on them. The rectangular tables, at the farthest end, reserved for the heads of the castle, had both a regular-sized chair fit for a regular person and a larger one.

We passed by the dining room and towards the front entrance. A set of giant doors stood, doors that were shattered — their ice broken into shards as if the castle was breached. Strange and large masses of ice filled the entrance, dotting up the stairs like barricades.

The ice was too opaque to see what was inside, and hearing a crack, I couldn’t help but shudder.

Anise, axe in hand, took a poke at the statue. She took a swipe, splitting the ice cube in half, revealing half a broken sword grasped by a man split in two. It looked like an army had smashed through the front gate before freezing in place.

Only the gods knew how long they’ve stood here, frozen in the eternal fortress. Anise couldn’t help but turn to me, asking, “Are you sure about this?”

I snapped my fire to existence, a golden ember whose flames trailed towards the core of the fort. “What other choice do I have?” I asked, to which she shrunk back.

“You know, this might not be the smartest plan,” she said. “If an army like this couldn’t get past whatever is lurking inside of here, what makes us so different?”

I looked at her, looked at the frozen men lost to time and back to the flame.

“Something tells me I was meant to do this,” I answered. “Without this flame, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

“Without it, you’d be safe — free from imperial persecution. Think about how many times you’ve brushed past death.”

Thinking about it, every brush I had brought me closer to feeling alive — from breaking free of the imperial chains, as nothing more than a citizen of their northern colonies. I had no northern pride and no real connection to any part of Nordsummer.

I had been alone and abandoned for so long that I couldn’t tie myself to any cause.

“I’ve never felt more alive,” I said, standing next to the frozen corpses in a castle that had rejected the passage of time. “If you’re worried though, I understand. I could never repay you for all you’ve done for me.”

“Flameseeker?”

The title of flameseeker irked me.

“You’re free to head back if you’re worried. I can travel on foot if I must," I told her. "When I reawaken the primordial flame, I promise you’ll be the first one who’ll know about it.”

I spoke earnestly, though to my surprise, Anise was less than happy with my calculated, measured response. She took a handful of snow and balled it up tight — a frown growing on her face.

“I don’t know where you got a mouth like yours, telling me off the moment I show a bit of hesitance. Where do you get off, telling people goodbye like that?”

“Ever since I got this flame, goodbye is the only word that makes sense to me anymore.” and I turned to her with a smile, telling her, “As a flameseeker myself, I’ve found that people aren’t very loyal to fire — that they turn on a dime if they’re given the right incentives.”

“Well, I have enough incentive to stay."

“Like what?” I asked.

She answered by swiping her hand — slinging the snowball into my face so fast I flinched after getting hit. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing I left such a helpless little ember all on their own," she said.

I wiped the snow off my face. To her surprise, I wore not a frown but a smile. Whoever this girl was, I couldn’t lie — for the first time in this strange journey, I found myself enjoying my time despite being burdened by the curse of flames. With smiles, we moved forwards.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The further we went, the more evidence of an invasion filled the castle. Past more translucent statues, I could see the twisted expressions on the faces of soldiers, of bodies pierced by strange, crystalline weapons.

I hesitated to touch a great sword stabbed through a frozen corpse, but to my surprise there was a slight chill to it. I slid the blade out with ease, as if it was water and oil, and I lifted a bizarre sword of pure ice.

The soldiers, by their armor, were unlike anything I had seen before. They were different from the occupational armies, from imperial soldiers and from Petrov’s guard. They were armed with swords and what looked like flintlock rifles. They stood, rifles in arms, moments away from pulling the trigger before being turned to ice.

Bullets were lodged into the walls and we came across a skeleton — a man in tattered robes who was on his knees, his body pinned to the wall by arrows and lodged with bullets. He stood tall, almost three times my height, and in his skeletal hand he held a long, curved blade made of seething ice. A helmet of hand carved rock covered his head, obscuring his face in both life and death.

Past the corpses, past the warzone of a castle once infiltrated, we found an actual person. Standing above the rubble, surrounded by bodies pierced with icy weapons stood a soldier.

“Oh?” the soldier said.

I tried to stay hidden, but the moment I laid eyes on the man who stood, facing away, the soldier somehow detected our presence. Sword and shield in hand, the soldier turned to us.

“Ah, ‘tis an unfamiliar face,” the soldier said. “What brings ye to Everberg Castle? Come to loot? To rob the traitor king blind?”

“Who are you and what happened here?” I asked, to which the knight stood tall and proud.

“I am Carim, an imperial legionary. I’ve come to bring the traitor king back to the empire, to become fuel for the primordial flame.”

“You’re an imperial flameseeker?” Anise asked, to which the soldier stood, confused.

“Seeker?” he asked. “Why seek the flame when we are here to spread its influence over Nordsummer?” and the soldier pointed to one of his frozen comrades, telling us, “If ye are able to thaw them, while they are dead, they carry with them rifles — weapons that can easily tear through the stone bodies of the frost giants.”

Carim tossed us a pouch of black gunpowder, the same powder used in firecrackers, and sent us off, telling us, “Fight or run away. Children such as ye are not fit for a frozen fortress such as this. Leave with your life, lest the Mourning Queen reaps your souls.”

I stared at the powder, freezing when I heard a great shout come from deeper inside the castle. Carim heard that too, and with his shield up and sword by his side, he turned to us to say his goodbyes. “It appears the fight hasn’t yet calmed,” Carim said. “Be good now. The Emperor and his trusted legion shall bring justice to the traitor king.”

Carim charged forward for his emperor, all while the noise of clashing swords echoed through the fort.

Anise and I heard the tapping of bones, and I turned to find a reanimated skeleton. The giant foe carried an icicle sword — a blade it raised high above its head.

“Flameseeker!” Anise cried. I leapt back — watching as the sword crashed into the ground. My first instinct was to run away from the undead monster, but Anise charged forward, kicking the center of the sword’s frozen mass.

The ice shattered. The blade broke in the giant’s hand, and there, I saw an opening. With my dagger, I sunk it into the skull of the undead monster — bringing the giant down to his knees as my burning knife melted a hole in its stone helmet.

Jaws agape, the undead grasped at its liquidized skull before crumpling backwards. I stood, panting with both shock and adrenaline as I stared at the slain undead. The flame ate away, flickering inside the monster’s skull that burned like a lantern. To my surprise, the fire didn’t go out. Rather, it began to torch the skeleton — purifying the beast.

“We don’t have a chance,” Anise muttered. “We have to get out of here. If we stay here any longer we’ll join the undead — either chopped to bits or frozen like a statue.”

I couldn’t argue with her. Seeing as this was an invasion, I headed towards the entrance that should’ve been cleared by the imperial troops. Making my way to the front, I found that the gates were guarded by reanimated skeletons — undead giants who carried machetes of ice.

I didn’t even contemplate fighting them. The front entrance was simply not an option I could take.

The windows were all frozen and the walls, no matter how hard I pushed my flame, were immune to the melting effects of the ember. The castle rejected warmth as well as the passage of time. The only way to escape the fortress was by destroying it from within.

We turned back, following Carim’s footsteps as we trailed behind a bloody conquest. The once-empty halls were filled with soldiers and riflemen — imperial troops who faced off against giants wearing stone armor.

It simply didn’t make sense. Before, the halls were silent — roamed by ghosts and nothing more. Now, those ghosts vanished, and a battle took their place. It was like we had gone back in time, like we were witnessing a snapshot of history trapped within the walls of the fortress.

Musket balls flew, smashing apart the stone masks of the giants. Javelins rained down from the upper floors like icicles. Sword and shield wielding soldiers charged forwards in a shield formation, up the stairs and to the upper ramparts. The soldiers invaded, smashing apart the delicate furniture, destroying the hand-crafted world.

The two of us hid behind the doorway. Through the chaotic battle, I caught a glimpse of fire, of flames that crawled up the walls — the soldiers watching in awe as a single man stepped forwards.

Flaming spear in hand, I witnessed the emperor in the flesh.

The emperor, dressed in heavy armor and a gothic iron mask, marched forwards — piercing giants with a single stab of his spear. Spreading his conquering flames across the architecture of the building, he was the very image of a flame scourge.

I watched from a distance as he marched forwards, and before I knew it, I was running off on my own. It was an unconscious act — to follow the emperor into the depths of the fortress.

Before I knew it, I had run through the battlefield, past soldiers and giants alike, making my way into the deepest, darkest chamber of the iceberg castle.

A pair of frozen doors shut behind me and the emperor I followed was nowhere to be found. The noise of the battle died down and I watched as moonlight poured in through a hole in the ceiling, illuminating a skeleton below.

It was an ordinary corpse placed in a seat, yet the ember within me burned wild. That feeling alone told me that the corpse belonged to a powerful man whose influence could still be felt today. In other words, the skeleton was my sacrifice — a daemon whose strength would become fuel for my flame.

I stepped forward into the moonlit chamber, to a world trapped in time.

Alone, I knelt before the corpse, reaching my flame-tipped hand towards the traitor king. Before I could ignite the body and steal his strength for myself, a frozen dagger flew.

“Flameseeker,” I heard coming from the dark — the voice of a ragged old woman. “Humans, all of ye. Ye be vultures who’ve come to pick the marrow from my bones.”

A pale hand peeked out from the dark, slithering out like a snake — an arm too long to belong to an ordinary woman. Carried in her hand was a giant scythe and pierced through her black dress was a familiar spear, one that had impaled and ran through her abdomen, its blade burning eternally.

The woman stepped out from the dark. She was a giant dressed in a black veil and dress. She stood by the corpse — protecting it with the frozen handle of her scythe.

“Ye will go no further. My husband’s corpse is not yours to defile.”

No eyes pierced through the veil. Before I knew it, the mourning queen stepped forward and swung.

Frozen wind stole the air from my lungs, and I narrowly stepped back, slipping back behind a pillar for cover. All I had on my person was a knife and the ember within me, one that desperately wanted to escape — erupting from my fingertips in a bold display of fire.

“Such a pathetic flame,” the queen muttered. “How foolish of ye, to come alone."

The queen took her scythe and swung it like an axe, striking down and shattering the pillar I hid behind. Moonlight poured into the pitch-black room, revealing armored skeletons who lay dead, their bones broken apart by her scythe. I ran out of the way of her blade, snatching a weapon off the ground.

I grabbed myself an old flintlock pistol and jammed my burning blade into its pan.

Even after so long, the gun was still able to fire, lobbing a round that tore a hole through her black dress.

The mourning queen stood frozen. I watched as she reached down to the hole in her chest, and touching the blood that spilled, she arched her back before breathing in the frozen, accursed air.

Her banshee’s scream echoed through the frozen fortress.

“I will not let you take him!” she cried, lunging forward with her scythe, leaving trails of pale ice with every swing that trickled across the floor, rising up the walls before forming crystals of glowing ice.

I scrambled back, breathing hard with my body low to the ground. I was like a rodent, grasping at the floor till I felt something metallic.

I lifted a sword to block — and with a single swing the rusted blade flew out of my hand, sticking into the wall. Drool spilled out of the giantess’ mouth as she leaned in towards me, her teeth sharp and broken, her scythe held up high for a downward swing, one that’d pin me down to the ground like a stake.

Before she could finish me off, I heard the shattering of ice followed by a falling axe.

“Emil!”

Anise leapt down from the second floor and grappled onto the queen, grasping onto nothing but the axe she plunged into the beast’s shoulder.

The queen screamed, stumbling about while she swung her scythe back and forth, throwing Anise off her back and to my side. With an axe in her shoulder, a bullet hole in her chest and a spear through her body, the mourning queen stood, hunched over like a beast with one hand on the ground and the other clenched firm to her scythe.

She stood, jaw agape, her drool infused with blood. Pale white eyes glowed through her veil, piercing through us both like moonlight.

“What is this monster?” Anise asked me, picking up a rusted sword and shield from a corpse.

“An undead giantess,” I answered, reaching over to light her sword ablaze along with the front of the shield, preparing her for the queen’s assault.

For a giant, she was swift — spinning her scythe in a circle as she swept her weapon across the battlefield. I backed off while Anise stepped forward, rolling backwards when the monster’s scythe struck her shield. Anise took her shield and smashed it against the striking scythe, shattering the glassy ice blade apart.

To her surprise, the giant let out a breath of foggy ice, reforming the weapon in an instant. The monster carried regenerating weapons and was cursed with immortality, an insurmountable obstacle for two people.

“How do we kill the undead?” Anise asked. I felt the flames lick my fingers, whispering their flickering secrets.

“I’ve got a plan,” I answered, a loaded flintlock in hand.

Together, we stood shoulder by shoulder with both our hands grasping the handle of her shield, a test of faith on both our ends. Exchanging a nod with Anise, we charged forwards, breaking past the mourning queen’s scythe with our combined strength put behind a shield bash.

The queen was forced back after her scythe shattered, but she wasn’t defeated so easily. With her icy breath, she formed a giant sword in the other free hand, an action I predicted.

"Get down!" I cried.

I let go of the shield, and before the beast could split us in half, I jammed my burning dagger into the pan of my flintlock, staggering her back with the power of gunpowder.

With the monster forced back and dazed for the briefest of seconds, Anise threw her rusted shield away and together we grasped the impaling spear.

With our combined strength, we yanked the weapon out — spreading the emperor’s undying flame to the mourning queen’s body. The beastly giant, undead as she was, lurched back and let out a final banshee's screech to the moon above.

“Eckard,” she said in her final dying breath, scorching away in the emperor’s all-engulfing flames. “A thousand curses upon ye and yer spawn. May the white winds bury yer cursed empire.”

The undying flame ate away, turning the beast into ash that vanished with the wind. The fire extinguished beneath moonlight, leaving behind nothing but the traitor king’s bones.

Anise fell to her knees — utterly exhausted.

“Is this why you ran ahead on your own?” she asked, looking the skeleton up and down. “To think that an old man — long dead and forgotten — would be the one who helps light the primordial flame... How strange.”

I couldn’t help but nod. “It’s strange for sure, but he’s the sacrifice the flame chose.”

The traitor king sat; his darling spouse turned to ashes. I came and knelt before the man, the flame in my hands brought up to the corpse. Anise came and knelt beside me, watching as the flames flickered before crawling onto the long dead corpse.

We watched the pale bones light ablaze — watching as the sacrifice burned.

A growing flame rose, escaping through the roof of the fortress and to the sky. As the flames burnt and the skeleton sat, melting beneath the intense heat, I turned to Anise with nothing more than a smile.

“Thank you,” was all I could tell her. She simply shrugged.

“When I fished you out of the sea, killing daemons and monsters was the last thing I thought I’d be doing. This all feels like a dream.”

“Is it that hard to believe this is real?”

“It truly is, flameseeker," she said, "or should I say Emil?”

The flame rose, sputtered, and returned to a gentle burn. The bones burned for eternity, a sign of the primordial flame’s coming return. The castle was empty. Like phantoms, the soldiers and giants vanished.

Stepping outside the fortress, past a bush of dead roses, I froze.

The bridge shuddered, as if some weight had been placed atop it. Anise let out a yelp of surprise when I grabbed her arm and pulled her away to concealment.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It looks like all of Nordsummer has witnessed us."

I listened to the clopping of horses and from behind a tree I watched as an envoy crossed the bridge. Armed with spears, soldiers marched across the bridges towards the source of the flaming pillar. I checked for an escape route, peeking over the side of the iceberg to find a crack — someplace we could hide in for the time being.

We both peeked over the edge, to the imperial soldiers who gathered around the frozen fortress. I recognized them as Petrov’s guard, led by Commander Lucas who was accompanied by the old shaman Nanna. To see an imperial commander standing next to a tribal shaman was jarring.

Of all the expressions a shaman and a commander could share, it was a smile.

“Is this really the work of the flameseeker, Aunt Nanna?” Lucas asked her. “Is a human really capable of creating pillars of fire?”

“Yes, and more,” Nanna answered.

I leaned against the ice wall. “About the old shaman…” I asked Anise, looking at her with narrowed, suspicion-filled eyes.

“I trust her,” Anise answered, “but I don’t trust any soldier — especially not an imperial.”

We both listened in. “Fire, like the sun, is the source of all life," Nanna said. "We are born from the rays of the sun and when we die, we turn to ashes scattered in the wind. Imperial or tribal, peasant or royal — no matter who you are, all life follows this sacred rule.”

Lucas shrugged. “That's how life normally goes, unless you’re blessed by the primordial flame, that is.”

The flame within me flickered. I found the flame had grown a mind of its own, emerging when my interest peaked — reacting to my emotions like it was gasoline.

The fire crawled about like a snake, trickling about like spilled water, down the side of the iceberg and even onto Anise. She found the flames were warm — gentle to her, going as far as to climb up her arm, up her shoulder and brushing her cheek.

Seeing that, I reigned the flames in — forcing them back inside their host.

“Have you seen the wolf sled?” Nanna asked Lucas.

“No. We found tracks, but they led to nothing.”

“That is to be expected. Hollow wolves can detect your soldiers’ presence from a mile away. I bet it’s hiding, ears perked — waiting for its master to call for it.”

Lucas simply nodded. “Perhaps I’ll advocate for the use of military wolves. I'm sure Prince Petrov would approve.”

The soldiers entered the iceberg fortress along with their commander and the shaman, leaving a few men behind to guard the front. I thought of waiting for them all to go ahead and leave, but Anise pointed ahead.

“Ahead,” she said. “We can slip past them.”

I looked, I mapped out a path, and I pressed on ahead — trusting her judgment with my life. The two of us laid down, crawling through snow with our capes over our backs. We looked like black bushes of fur, slowly making our way out of the fortress and towards the mainland.

Crossing the bridges that connected the icebergs together, we waded through the blinding ocean mist.

Voices whispered from the other end of the sea. Like spirits rising out of the ocean, strange voices called to those atop the icebergs. I looked down to find eyes looking up out of the sea, pale white dots that pierced through the azure blue. The fortress, cursed and haunted as it was, was a gathering ground for the undead.

The undead floated just below the surface, peering up to those who were alive, almost as if they were jealous of the flames I possessed.

“We ought to leave,” I said, and Anise — glancing down at the watery grave below — nodded.

We sped off the bridges, off the icebergs and towards the mainland where — with a whistle — Dreihander stormed in with our sled in tow. Climbing on, we heard the shouts of soldiers, our presence spotted by the imperials.

“The wolf! The giant wolf is here!” they cried, appearing out of the fog — freezing when they saw the jagged jaws of Dreihander.

Anise tugged on his reins. “It’s time we left, Dreihander,” she said, and Dreihander followed — kicking up a storm of snow before turning to leave.

Before long, the imperial army began their pursuit through the night. The soldiers reported back, and horseback riders charged after us. They wielded mancatcher spears, riding alongside our giant wolf that was twice their horses' size.

“Stop!" the soldiers cried. "In the name of Prince Petrov, we command you to stop!”

“Emil!” Anise said. It was up to me to get them off our tail.

I was experienced with mancatcher spears, and with Anise seated with the wolf’s reins in her hands, she was a sitting duck. I stood, and with my arms crossed, I unleashed the empowered ember from within.

Flames escaped my fingertips, forming whip-like tendrils that spat flames.

“A demon!” one of the soldiers spat out. “A flame wielding demon! A flame scourge!”

I whipped out my flames, grabbing the soldier’s mancatcher and wrapping my flames around the head of the spear. With a tug, I yanked the spear out of his hands — stealing it for myself, pulling the soldier off the back of his horse, leaving him to be trampled.

With the spear stolen, I clashed blades with the other soldier. The other soldier swung their spear, nearly wrapping the jaws of the mancatcher around Anise before I parried the spear away with my own. Flames licked my weapon — leaping off my spear onto his, forcing the soldier to throw it aside before he suffered the same fate as the mourning queen.

With his spear thrown aside, the soldier resorted to more lethal weapons, pulling out a sword. He got up, standing on his horse’s back, ready to leap onto our cart.

“Emil! Take this!” Anise shouted, throwing me a musket ball pillaged from the fortress.

The soldier leapt off his horse, and like a slingshot, I launched the musket ball, catching the soldier midair, sending him tumbling through the snow. Dreihander left the horseback riders in the dust.

Speeding across the snow like a black storm, Anise paused for a moment.

“Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Wind chimes.”

Those windchimes arrived alongside the churning of tank treads. A titan of a machine rode by our side, dwarfing Dreihander with its steaming, sprocketed treads. We rode against a cliffside, the tank eating up most of the needed space, pushing us towards the edge.

“Emil?” Anise asked. I clasped my hands together, tying the flaming whips into a singular weapon.

“Don’t stop!” I told her. “I’ll clear the way!”

The whip hardened, forming a curved sword. I dragged the blade back and held it sideways — aiming at the engine where the weathervanes were kept, protected inside of a cage.

With a breath in, I swung my sword — only for the blade to be stopped by a familiar sight.

Black flames erupted out of the tank, engulfing a spear that blocked my strike. The top of the tank opened, and an unforgettable face appeared before us. Marked with dark hair and an ashen-white face — the sign of a man who lived close to the primordial flame’s burial grounds — the leader of Petrov’s guard made himself known.

“I am Prince Petrov, the crown prince who shall ascend to the imperial throne! Flameseeker! You aren’t the only one capable of wielding fire!”

I froze at the sight of his black-flame spear. Dreihander panted and panted while the tank shuddered, the ground beneath us growing too unstable for it to ride upon. Prince Petrov, spear in hand, stood before me — a mirror image of the emperor I had witnessed in the castle.

“Flameseeker! I offer you a truce!” Petrov said, his spear planted firmly onto the roof of the tank. “Join me and aid me in the birth of a noble, benevolent empire! Join me, and together we will unite Nordsummer, destroy the north-south divide and put an end to the eternal winter that plagues our lands!”

Petrov offered a hand — a promise of the empire’s aid, an offer no sane person could refuse. Before I could make a decision, however, Anise shone a light on the truth behind the spear Petrov wielded.

“Those flames!” Anise shouted. “They’re the false flames!”

“False flames?” I muttered.

“They’re the flames that razed my home to the ground!”

Petrov fell silent.

A bitter frost fell over and I, without a moment of hesitation, struck the vehicle’s treads — forcing the machine to a halt while we escaped. Through the night and through the coming blizzard of the endless winter, Petrov watched, burning spear in hand, as his flameseeker vanished into the night.