I met Tema's brother today. Voscov is such a dunce. He gave me a pastry.

I like pastries now.

- Excerpt from the diary of Lynica Arskavi (lost).

It was cold.

Voscov was helped up. Then he was moving... running. He gazed at his surroundings through half lidded eyes. Where was he going? Who was carrying him? Who was he? Where was he?

He exhaled and let darkness come over him.

He awoke, his thoughts jumbled, to find that he was no longer moving. A boy sat across him and two girls were to his right, surrounding a light source of sorts. Who were they? Where were they? Everything was terribly blurry and he could not quite see. Something was wrong with his sight. What was it?

He couldn't see.

He could not see.

Oh. He had lost that.

The darkness creeped in and once more Voscov surrendered himself to it.

Time passed and he slipped in and out of a feverish fugue several times. His thoughts were drawn out and broken, faces coming and going in the darkness that surrounded him. His head throbbed, an intense migraine building in his skull, and by all that was holy it was terribly hot.

All at once a pervasive chill swept in and he came to full awareness with a weak stuttering gasp as his stomach rioted, trying to empty itself. The organ quieted, and the heat came back, but the chill was still present, leaving him shivering. His mind turned, and after an eternity, he came to the conclusion that wherever he was, it was extremely cold.

Where was he? How could it be so cold? And who were the morons around him yammering away in a nonsensical arguement about the taste of razatche blood?

Voscov tried to move, wanting nothing more than to shut them up so he could form a coherent string of thought in peace, but found himself lacking the strength to do so. He gave a frail groan and felt someone tap him comfortingly on the arm. They didn't stop their argument.

The next time Voscov awoke, it was to a shoulder digging painfully into his sternum. Pain stabbed through him and he wheezed as his mind cleared rapidly.

He was being carried by Gabriel, he realised, and they were moving once more. No. Yes. They were moving... quickly. Disturbingly quickly. Where was he?

A quick scan of his surroundings showed that it was terribly dark, with the crystal lamp held within Ellen's hands the only source of light. Where were they?

Gabriel stumbled and Voscov bit back the wail of pain that rose to his throat. Why in the world were they running? And what was that noise in the air?

"Ellen! They're getting closer!" Gabriel yelled.

"Damn it! If you guys die, it is no fault of mine!" Ellen yelled back.

What?

Through half lidded eyes, the prince could make out as Ellen set her jaw in determination before speeding forward, the very wind pushing her onward. In very little time she was but a speck of light in the distance.

"We're not going to make it," Voscov heard Gabriel murmur despondently.

"Probably not," Valerina agreed.

Again. What?

Suddenly the whole place rocked and dust drifted down from the ceiling up above. They were in a tunnel, Voscov realised, and something had impacted the ceiling. The tunnel shook once more and Voscov belatedly pegged them to be air pellets. Which was... strange. Voscov knew air pellets, and they did not rock tunnels.

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Three more whistled overhead, impacting the ceiling with resounding thuds, loosening chunks of rocks overhead. Voscov's blood ran cold as he realised what Ellen was trying to do.

The air wailed as pellet upon pellet sailed above him, bombarding the walls and ceiling with reckless abandon. Gabriel sped up, each pump of his feet sending lances of pain through Voscov while the air whistled and the ceiling began to come loose in earnest. Several bolts of pain speared through him and Voscov was vaguely aware of a huge crash ringing through the air behind them.

But the ceiling never did stop falling, and Voscov suspected that he had come infinitesimally close to being crushed countless times. Suddenly Gabriel dove low and agony speared through Voscov, sending him back into the embrace of darkness.

....

"What are you? What monster has the royal clan kept hidden?" The woman asked, her voice little more than a wheeze.

Voscov straightened from his crouch and turned to face her, sheer spite driving him forward as he stalked toward the fallen woman. Blood leaked from the cut around his neck, running into his robes in dark rivulets, pooling at his feet, marking his every step, and glinting crimson in the moonlight.

"I," he began while the woman crawled backward, seeking to escape his wrath. "Am Voscov de la Reantendale Franskuvia Dalha Iluhiem." He planted his feet before her. "And I... am your god, worm."

The kitchen knife found its way through her eye socket. He swallowed a sigh and turned to face Lynica. She watched him with wary eyes, her mother's dagger clutched tightly in her grip.

"Where do you stand?" He queried.

...

Awakening was a slow, laborious affair. His mind moved like syrup - slow and viscous, his thoughts terribly disjointed. Feeling returned slowly to his limbs, his bones aching terribly, and his digits a hassle to move. He breathed in, tasting dust in the air while icy air surged through his nostrils.

It took Voscov an eternity to open his eyes and when he did, he found himself alone and surrounded by darkness. The air was cold to an unnatural degree, seeping through his clothes and caressing him with frigid fingers.

The prince exhaled and, through sheer willpower alone, pushed himself to his feet, relegating the resulting pain to the back of his mind. Feeling along the wall, he began to walk against the draft that flowed tamely through the tunnel. Barely a minute later he bumped into something.

He felt the obstruction with his fingers and came to the conclusion that it was a statue. An extremely cold statue.

The prince dug into his clothes and pulled loose the very last of the crystals stitched into his undershirt. A moment later a dim light bloomed and Voscov held the crystal above his head to better see and was promptly dumbfounded.

Standing before him were rows upon rows of humanoid ice statues, all of them in various running poses. They all faced the source of the draft, their backs to the prince.

Voscov tapped his knuckles against one of the statues and found that the ice was, at the very least, an inch thick. Bringing his light source closer, he attempted to peer through the ice, and while he was unable to find much else, he was able to make out three distinct blue lines.

The prince stepped back and pushed the crystal forward, glancing about him. The statues seemed to all be razatches, seemingly frozen mid-action. What had caused this? An ice manipulator was certainly incapable of acheiving something on this scale. Was it an array? And, more importantly, were Gabriel, Ellen, and Valerina frozen too?

After a moment of hesitation the prince moved on, stumbling his way through the statues and against the draft, his legs barely able to keep him standing. After some time he caught sight of light spilling through the gaps of the statues, and all but crawled toward it.

He burst through the cadre of statues into an open space, collapsing to his knees while his teeth chattered with cold and his insides boiled with heat. Two pairs of feet came into view and he raised his gaze to find himself being looked down upon by Valerina and Ellen, all three of their gazes complicated.

"He's not dead," Ellen hummed.

"Spare... me your... jokes," Voscov replied, pushing the words out through chattering teeth.

Ellen sighed and got down to a knee. Seizing Voscov by the arm, she heaved him over her back and pushed herself to her feet with a grunt of effort. She had more strength in her than her frame would suggest and soon they were trudging slowly through the darkness, a crystal lamp held by Valerina their only source of light.

"What are those behind us?" Voscov asked once he had gathered enough energy to do so.

"Our pursuers up until an hour or so ago," Valerina replied, her tone light with despair. "Razatches swarmed the city lord's house and we had to escape through a secret tunnel."

Voscov wasn't surprised - he had deducted as much.

"What turned them into that?" He whispered.

"Not what, unfortunately," Valerina scoffed. "But who."

"Who?"

"Yes. Who."

Voscov took the time to think. It was impossible someone had did it. It made no sense - no one had such power.

"Who is it?"

"Certain death. Ildrat the Frozen King."

Silence reigned for a long while as they trudged down the tunnel.

"This is no time for jokes. The Frozen King has been dead for almost a millennia," Voscov said eventually. "Even were he not, he has no reason to desire our death."

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Valerina queried. Voscov glanced at her and found tears at the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall.

Once more Voscov fell silent.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked finally.

"Quiet with your questions," Ellen said, giving him a light, annoyed smack. "Even you should know by now that the only place we could be headed is to Ildrat."

"Is there a cauldron present there?"

"Why would that matter?" Ellen snapped at him angrily.

"I do not presume I would make a fine stew."

Valerina and Ellen could not resist slight snorts of laughter.