Whoosh.

The icy cold wind clawed at Alex's face as he looked over the deck at the island below. He held a pair of binoculars, pilfered from the ship to his eyes as he scanned the island. The best way he could describe its shape was like a croissant, a humped landmass looping around a central bay with a range of mountains along its edge.

They were just below the clouds that seemed to cover the entire sky, and he had a decent view of the island, at least from the south side.

At the center of the mass was a massive mountain that rose above all the others, starting only a few kilometers from the port at its base. He could make out roads that lined the mountain's south face, reaching various tunnels that he guessed were mines. However, the top of the mountain bothered him most of all.

It had been flattened, with a massive rotund citadel built on top next to a large lake. The round structure had three square points on it, one pointing north while the other two pointed southeast and southwest. When Alex swept his binoculars in a line from the square points, he could see they pointed to towers on the southeast and southwest sides of the mountain.

All in all, it was something that shouldn't exist. However, he was getting used to that type of thing appearing on Erth. Erth was a world that seemed to defy every natural rule he had ever learned about in school. Maybe it was all the creation of an island core, but he had no way to truly know.

A purple line of lightning shot out from the clouds and to the ground, another strike from the storm that had shot out bolt after bolt in the last few minutes. Alex closed his eyes and counted as he waited for the sound to reach him. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Crack-boom.

The aetherstorm was in full swing over the island. If what Erin had told them about Diamond Peak was right, the storm had raged over the island for the last twenty years, causing all its occupants to flee for the Twelve Kingdoms. The current state of the storm was supposed to be mild, but Alex didn't like how it looked one bit.

With that many lightning strikes, they wouldn't be able to land close to the keep. Combine that with the wind, and flying anywhere close to the island at high altitude would be dangerous.

"How does it look?" Erin stepped out from the cabin behind him, holding her cloak tight around her body to ward off the wind.

"We're going to need those coats," Alex said, lowering his binoculars.

"The sooner we get done, the better," Erin said, turning back inside the cabin and shivering.

Alex agreed, and he followed her below deck to where the others should have been sorting through the clothes that had been left on the ship. He left the binoculars on the ship's console before he followed Erin down the steps.

"Did you guys find anything?" Alex asked as he dodged a white shirt marked 'MP' being thrown at his face.

"Four heavy jackets," Jean reported, pointing to a clothing pile in the cargo bay's center. "Five cold weather hats and ten pairs of warm gloves."

"That sounds like a good start," Alex said as he started to help with the search.

"It would be easier if it wasn't already so cold." Erin shivered as she dropped another jacket on one pile. "Who would have thought it would be so cold?"

"To be fair, we should have expected it," Alex said. "Not every island is going to be a tropical paradise. Tombstone was all desert."

"Besides, it is not that cold in here." Sayed came out with another bundle of clothes and dropped it in the center.

Steam rose off of his body as he heated the room. With his curse active, Sayed was like a mobile space heater. Alex didn't think he could keep it on forever, but it took away much of the edge from the cold. Erin walked over to Sayed after he put down his most recent find, positioning him in the center of the bay with some quick movements.

"Stay still, Sayed," she said. "You're at least making the temperature in here bearable."

"But then, how will I assist in the search."

"You're doing enough," Alex said as Mari came in with an arm full of clothes and dumped them in the center before plopping down face-first in them. "Surely we've got enough."

"We can at least start sorting them," Erin said, picking through the clothing and pulling out a few pieces.

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After sorting through the clothes for a while, they had enough for all of them, even Sayed. They split up to change, Erin taking Mari into a separate room while the men changed in the cargo bay.

Alex frowned as he pulled off his duster and put on the heavy black and red coat of the Military Police. He didn't like looking like the people who wanted his head, but even with his body, cold would eventually get him. Red and black also didn't have the best connotations.

Jean and Sayed were in a similar situation, though Alex wasn't sure how Jean's body worked at all. Beneath his robes and his clothes, Jean was just a skeleton. Only his face, neck, and part of his collarbones retained any human skin on him. The rest of him was just a skeleton with a purple crystal glowing at his heart.

Sayed was normal by comparison, but his curse let him generate more than enough heat to keep warm. Alex shook his head as he pulled out the heavy black uniform pants and put them on. His own curse was magnetism, at least at the first grade, which was a lot less useful in this situation.

When they were all done, they looked no different from the people they had kicked off the ship to steal it a few weeks ago. The three of them wore heavy black and red coats with 'MP' marked on the shoulder, and each wore a woolen cap that covered their ears. Each one had a small black scarf that could be pulled up over their faces.

"It feels weird," Alex said as they waited for Mari and Erin. "It feels like I'm wearing a different skin."

"It is very cumbersome." Sayed was working on the straps for his swords over his back. "I will not have the freedom of movement I need for my swords with so many layers."

"Hopefully, we won't be fated to fight while we are here," Jean said, nodding toward Sayed. "These clothes are too restrictive to fight in."

Alex had to agree. All three of them had fighting styles that relied on mobility. They probably had some resistance to the cold, but he wasn't sure how well they would do in the island's frigid temperatures.

"I'll take the warmth first. We'll figure the rest out as we go," Alex said.

As he finished saying that, Erin walked out into the cargo bay, dressed in a coat similar to theirs but a little too large for her frame. Mari had it a lot worse. Her coat rubbed across the ground as she followed behind Erin, and Erin had wrapped several scarves over her head. To Alex, Mari looked like a Russian nesting doll, and he couldn't help but grin.

"I couldn't find much to fit her," Erin said. "We'll have to carry her unless we want to leave her on the ship."

"That won't work." Alex shook his head as he knelt next to Mari. "We'll need Mari to find the ship. It is on this island, right?"

"I feel it." Mari's voice was muffled by the scarves. "It's close."

"There we go," Alex said, standing and heading back toward the stairs. "Now we just have to decide where to land. Then we can just take it as we go until we figure out the island."

"We could just fly up to the top of the keep," Jean said as they approached the deck and looked out the windows. "Surely it would be better than climbing up the mountain."

"I'd agree, except for the lightning," Alex said, as purple light struck the ground on the side of the mountain to emphasize his words.

Crack-boom.

Again, the thunder came about five seconds removed.

"Look at the wind blowing the snow up, too," Erin said, taking Alex's binoculars and scanning the mountainside. "It looks like there's a heavy crosswind all up the island's slopes. We're not feeling it out here, but it'll get worse the closer we get."

"So, don't try to land close to the peak." Jean shook his head. "It feels like fate is conspiring to make us walk."

"That, and it's just rude to land anywhere without docks." Alex smiled. "Granted, I don't think there's anyone on the island to argue."

"I'll bring us in low and slow," Erin said as she worked the controls and took hold of the helm. "The question is what we do when we land."

"That'll depend on where the ship is." Alex shrugged. "But if we have to go up the mountain, there seems to be a road, and we can use the tunnels for shelters as we climb."

"A grand expedition into the unknown." Sayed came up from below, setting Mari down as he approached the windows. "Do you truly think the entire island is abandoned?"

"It's quarantined," Erin said as she clenched her teeth and pulled hard against the wheel. "Hold onto something. The wind's getting worse."

Hrrm.

The ship shook as it started tilting down and descending toward the docks. Wind buffeted and shook the ship as they came closer to the island, and a chill ran up Alex's spine as Sayed's question itched in the back of his head.

Snow blew past the windows as they approached the docks and the surrounding buildings. They were like grey figures out in the storm, ghosts from a past that no one had seen in over twenty years. Would the town truly be abandoned, or were people still hidden on the island?

He couldn't help but think of ghost towns—abandoned places across a country where people had once lived but had long since moved on. Sometimes, there were stories of people who still lived in those towns—people that society forgot and who teetered on the brink of madness in their lonely lives away from society.

He could barely see the town outside as they came in for a landing. The mountain was a fuzzy giant in the distance, and the buildings were little more than grey cubes against the white of the storm. Alex took in a deep breath as Erin pulled the lever to bring the ship down.

Creak. Crack. Thump.

Ice groaned underneath the ship as Erin guided it down to a stop. Alex held onto the wall as they landed, and the engines hummed lower and lower until they finally shut off. Then, the ship dropped down on the ice next to the docks. Diamond Peak appeared to only have a set of wet docks, but it was currently iced over too much for the ship to break through completely.

As the ship's engines shut down, it leaned over to the side, and Erin flipped a switch on the control panel. Another creak sounded outside, and the ship righted itself, returning to a level surface in seconds. She looked over to Alex and nodded.

"Landing struts," she said. "Military Police ships are built to land almost anywhere."

"Fair." Alex nodded. "Let's get going, people. Who wants to carry Mari first?"

Sayed ended up being the first to carry Mari, picking her up like a barrel and holding her over his shoulder. The layers of coats and clothing made it almost impossible for her to move, and Alex had to hold back a laugh as they left the ship and walked out onto the iced-over docks.