A haze of soft pink enveloped the room, casting a capricious glow over a closet adorned with daisy motifs. Wooden shelves, punctuated by the bright faces of plushies and Barbies, dominated another wall. A dollhouse intricately crafted from wood showcased rooms tailor-made for Nord's ragged dolls. Sitting on the floor, dressed in a cotton onesie and her hair tied in a dishevelled ponytail, Nord was lost in her world of crayons and paper.
Her drawing was coming to life— drawings and more drawings of blue water, with paper-foiled boats sailing across the paper. While she was working on a lake, fractured by shards of ice, bones and blood, and in the sky, ugly crimson birds seemed almost ready to take flight.
Her concentration was interrupted by a sudden, muted tap of hooves on wood that reverberated through the room. It was a curious sound—both odd and comforting. Nord lifted her gaze from her artwork. Her eyes ballooned in astonishment at what stood before her. A momentary hush fell over her; she feared that even a breath could dispel the magic.
Gently, Nord rose from her perch on the floor. Her small hand reached out, trembling slightly as if she were about to touch something infinitely delicate. Her fingers brushed against the velvety, pure-white fur.
"Are you a unicorn?" Her voice was just a fragile whisper, barely escaping her lips.
The unicorn answered in its own silent language, nuzzling its head against her shoulder. The feeling was electric, a hushed understanding that words could never capture. A smile stretched across Nord's face, warmth radiating from the point where the creature's fur met her skin, filling her with an indescribable joy.
"I'll take the silence as a yes," she said, her eyes twinkling.
But the room's energy shifted. The unicorn took a step back, its horn aimed squarely at Nord's abdomen as if readying for a charge. Nord's eyes flickered with a sudden, intense brightness. A surge of adrenaline coursed through her veins, yet she neither spoke nor moved.
What followed was beyond words—a cataclysmic explosion that bathed the room's soft pink hues in a visceral red. Bits of flesh and bone splattered violently against the walls, sliming down to coat even the ceiling.
The lake Nord had been drawing seemed to have become an ocean of another kind—an ocean awash with crimson, an uncanny silence hanging heavy in the room where magic had once flourished and innocence had just died.
Nord Morningstar met a unicorn when she was five years old—and she killed it.
"Nord, baby girl, what happened?" A gravelly voice sliced through the heavy, almost palpable, silence of the room, now splattered in shades of visceral red.
"I saw a unicorn, Daddy!" Nord grinned as she spun around to face the figure in the doorway. Her father enveloped her in his arms, holding her tightly as if seeking assurance that she was still real. A weighty silence descended upon them; words seemed inconsequential in the wake of what had transpired.
"What have you done, Nord?" His voice was tinged with a mixture of awe and dread.
Looking up, Nord sought her father's eyes. But his features were a blur, a shifting haze as if distorted by some unseen force. The only points of clarity were his eyes—deep and dark but with flickers of emerald green, burning like twin candle flames in a dark room.
"I did nothing, Daddy. They were mean!" Her voice was laden with a conviction that belied her tender years.
For a moment, her father simply held her, staring into the distance as if grappling with some terrible, irrevocable truth. Finally, he spoke, his voice almost a whisper, "I guess it's time we had a talk, little Morningstar. A talk about who you are, what you are, and the things you can do."
"What am I, Daddy?" Nord's eyes were wide, filled with the mingling of innocence and a dawning awareness that her world was far more complicated than crayons and dollhouses.
"You are like me, little star," he said, his chuckle tinged with a nervous energy he couldn't quite conceal.
"So, I am a—" Nord began, her voice trailing off as she searched her father's inscrutable face for answers in a fragmented memory that wasn't fully completed.
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In the ink-black water, Nord's senses were numbed by the bone-chilling cold. It felt like the lake itself was holding her limbs in a vice grip, reluctant to let her go. Despite the odds, she kicked with all the strength she could muster, but her legs felt distant, almost foreign to her.
If she weren't in such a dire situation, she might have almost laughed at the irony—the damn lake seemed hell-bent on drowning her. But laughter would be a luxury she couldn't afford; it would steal the precious air she had left.
Just when it felt like her body was reaching its limit, something flickered in her peripheral vision—a small, floating figure surrounded by a dim luminescence. "Bram," she mouthed silently, recognizing the tiny Nixbob suspended in the water.
With renewed urgency, she propelled herself toward the small child. Each stroke was a monumental effort as if she were pulling against the gravitational pull of a planet. It felt as though the water had turned into a thick syrup, resistant to her every move. But she continued to forge ahead, spurred on by the sight of Bram's frozen expression.
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Finally, Nord reached him, her fingers grazing against his arm. As she made contact, the realization of their situation seemed to sink in deeper—both were trapped in this abyss, both facing the crippling cold.
Gathering whatever resilience she had left, Nord clutched Bram's arm tightly. For a moment, her fingers felt like they were encased in ice, but she forced herself to hold on.
Nord's eyes flitted nervously to Bram's face; the child seemed eerily still, his eyes closed. The grim possibility that he was unconscious—or worse—made her heart pound in her chest. She tightened her grip on his arm and pushed off with her feet again, attempting to ascend to the surface.
However, Bram's inert body seemed to add a hundred pounds to her weight, making her struggle against the water's pull even more gruelling. Every movement she made was a monumental effort, each kick and pull becoming more laborious than the last. She felt like a sinking stone, dragged down by fatigue and the dead weight of her own failing strength.
As she felt her energy ebbing away, the desperate reality of her situation crept into her consciousness. Were they both going to drown here, trapped in this icy abyss? Just as despair threatened to engulf her, she felt something—a grip, strong and unyielding, encircling her wrist.
A jolt of surprise shot through her, followed by a surge of buoyant force. It was as if an unseen hand had seized her, pulling her upwards with an almost supernatural strength. Within seconds, she found herself breaking the water's surface, gasping hungrily for air as she emerged into the moonlight.
Nord's vision was blurred, and her body felt like it was encased in a block of ice. The chilling sensation was so acute it was almost as if she could feel each individual ice crystal forming in her veins. Though she struggled to focus, she could hear Baal's voice—desperate, commanding—as he performed CPR on Bram.
"Come on, buddy, wake up," Baal counted aloud between compressions, urgency lacing his words. "Come on, Bram, wake up!"
Nord felt like she was fading, her senses receding from her like a retreating tide. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she swayed dangerously.
"Merlin! Take the kid; I've got to get Nord inside," Baal bellowed, the urgency in his voice now heightened to a level Nord had never heard before.
Though her vision was cloudy, she saw the elderly figure of Merlin rush forward to cradle Bram's limp body. "I'm okay," she managed to say, her words barely audible as they escaped through her chattering teeth.
Baal didn't seem to hear—or if he did, he wasn't taking any chances. Swiftly, he shrugged off his cardigan and wrapped it around her shivering frame. He scooped her up from the ground, her body feeling incongruously light in his arms.
As he carried her, her head lolled against his shoulder, the warmth from his cardigan barely making a dent in the deep chill that had settled in her bones. But its scent—earthy, tinged with a hint of mint —was oddly comforting, a sensory anchor in the disorienting swirl of events.
They moved quickly, Baal's footsteps pounding a frantic rhythm against the earth as he darted towards the manor. As they crossed the threshold, Nord finally passed out.
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The scream was harrowing, a sound so raw it seemed to tear at the very fabric of the air. It echoed through the hallways, reverberating back in a haunting refrain that no one could ignore. "Bram! Bram!"
Perdita's voice was laced with a kind of anguish that defied description, a torment so profound it could break bones and shatter hearts. It was a mother's scream, a primal howl that cut through everyone's soul like a razor-sharp blade. "My little baby!"
The cry lingered, a piercing note that resonated in the air long after it had been uttered, as if the walls themselves were reluctant to let it go. It seemed to hang there, a visceral testament to grief so acute that it left a haunting imprint on everyone who heard it. "My lucky charm, he was..."
For a moment, everything stood still. People froze in place, their movements suspended, their words caught in their throats.
As Perdita's cries continued to echo, repeating her son's name like a broken litany: a mother had lost her child, and her agony was a language that everyone understood.
Nord lay there, swaddled in blankets from head to toe as if she could shield herself from the raw grief that had seeped into the very walls of the house. Even after Perdita's cries had grown distant, their echoes lingered like haunting reverberations, filling the space with an unbearable tension.
When her bedroom door creaked open, Nord remained motionless under her covers. She didn't want to hear it—didn't want to face whatever reality lay beyond the safety of her bed.
A weight settled beside her on the mattress, followed by a hand that gently pushed back the covers from her forehead. "You still have a fever," Baal's voice broke the silence, laced with concern.
She felt the bandages on her fingers and feet and sensed the way her skin still prickled with a lingering burn. As if on cue, she heard the soft thump of Baal's shoes hitting the floor, followed by the rustle of clothing. Then, almost cautiously, he slid into bed beside her.
Nord remained still as Baal covered himself with a portion of the blanket, leaving her head still enveloped in its fabric cocoon. Finally, his arms encircled her, pulling her gently toward him until she felt the warmth of his body against hers.
For a long moment, they lay there in silence. No words were exchanged, but none were needed. Baal's arms around her felt like a sanctuary—a small pocket of warmth and safety in a world that had suddenly grown terribly cold.
Finally, she broke the silence, "Where is..."
Baal's voice wavered as he spoke, filling the room with a heaviness that seemed to cling to the air. "At the clinic, Perdita went now with Adamastor and Finnea." He paused, taking a shaky breath. "Sirdona spoke with Perdita, and...we're all expecting the worst. She didn't give us much room for anything other than prayer and hoping for a miracle."
"Is there something we could..." Nord's voice trailed off, the words sticking in her throat as if they were too painful to be fully formed.
Baal sighed a heavy exhalation that seemed to bear the weight of his guilt. "Nord, you almost died too. You have frostbite on your feet and fingers. The kid... Bram... he was in the water for too long. I don't think he's going to wake up. And I—I don't have that kind of power. I wish I did, but I don't."
His voice teetered dangerously close to breaking. "When I first came back to Nyu, Bram was the first creature I spoke to. He was looking for a four-leaf clover and wanted a bit of luck to protect his mom. So I spellbound him to come here if things ever went south at home."
The blanket rustled as Nord pushed it off her face, her eyes locking onto Baal's. She reached up, her bandaged fingers gently brushing away the tears that had started to spill down his cheeks. "It's not your fault," she said softly, her gaze unwavering.
Baal looked at her, his eyes meeting hers with a blend of relief and sorrow. "Yeah," he murmured, "but it just doesn't feel like it is." His arms tightened around her as if by holding her close, he could somehow keep the painful reality at bay, even if just for a moment longer. But both knew that the world outside their embrace was crumbling, and the time to face it was fast approaching.
Amidst the swirl of emotions—guilt, sorrow, regret—one thought persisted in Baal's mind, a notion he didn't dare voice but couldn't banish. As much as he grieved for Bram, as much as his heart ached for Perdita's loss, he was consumed by a visceral, selfish relief that it wasn't Nord.