Chapter 5

(Kullervo)

Cora was burnt out and exhausted, and I knew it. I couldn’t say anything about the sparring because it would worry her more, just as chopping wood with her baby tightly slung against my chest would. I had made the sling in my armour for just such an occasion as this after all. In the event of a fight, I could conceal him there and make my escape to take him somewhere else.

I’d left the girls to work on the sewing and cooking even though both could easily chop a whole forest for wood within half a day. I needed them there to care for their mother. We were about to walk into the middle of a frozen wasteland to meet the Clan that caused this eternal winter here.

I hacked apart at least fifty logs before looking back to the house. Cora and the girls had just come out and brought the sleigh out of the shed on the side of the house.

I smiled as I noticed my wife looking much better. I quickly went over after I put the logs against the house and gave the baby to Eris while Cora wasn’t looking. We soon piled in as Fantasia brought over a small group of typinole that could easily get us to the Frozen Wastes within half an hour. It was fortunate that we’d tamed a few the last time we were out here because normally the trip would take two days on foot. My wings ached from the cold. I remembered vividly the first time I had crashed into a snowbank from twenty feet in the air. That had been, to put it lightly, unpleasant.

They were truly majestic creatures and very docile despite their wolfish appearances and mouths full of icicles. I made sure we were bundled up before hitching the sleigh to our beasts and setting off.

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As we came within a hundred miles of the city, the temperature dropped drastically from around forty degrees Fahrenheit down to twenty, then as we came within sixty miles of the city, down to negative five. I made sure we had no less than five warm layers on (the baby was practically engulfed in wool and cotton clothing with extra heating layers around him), and even then there seemed to be an overbearing chill in the air.

We entered the city proper at a slow gallop from the typinole who stopped at a customs station. I released them as I told the customs officer who I was and why I was there.

The insipid, harsh-eyed man wore little more than a light set of armour and a tunic underneath and spoke in a shrewd voice. His speech was sharp and clipped, and he almost spoke faster than I could reasonably keep up with. He recognized me by the orb of black and violet flames within my chest, a lens through which Core energy flowed through me and gave me my powers. He looked into my eyes and noted the twin irises within one of them, impossible to replicate by any means.

With a curt nod, we finally entered Cryox, and what a sight it was. We were in the centre of a massive crater just downwind of the ferocious blizzards that ravaged the arctic plains. Houses were built from sheets of blue ice and christened with a heavy covering of snow. Large patches of giant lichens grew like great flower boxes scattered around the shops and houses.

The marketplace was full of pale white people in simple clothes, speckled here and there by the occasional winter-scaled Nocturna. A lone Weaver lay sleeping against a wooden stall of crystalline statuettes. I left the girls to find an inn as I walked onwards towards the palace.

Snow and ice barely melted under my feet, which was surprising since typically my own body heat would melt it straight into water, but instead it would melt then refreeze while I was still over it. I shivered thinking of the power and cruelty that this Clan could unleash given enough provocation.

Needless to say, on my way through the palace gates of clear blue ice, I felt a strange warmth from the initial palace guards underneath their cold-steel armour, frozen over helmets that hid their light blue eyes and variegated features, both light and dark, tan and auburn. They recognized me as the High Emperor and true friend to their Clan. I smiled to myself as the throne room opened before me and the queen came forth.