Towan and Elliot trudged through the academy's skeletal shadows, their breath crystallizing in plumes as the library's warmth faded behind them. A clawing wind needled through their coats, carrying the scent of impending frost. Above, the moon hung like a tarnished coin in a sky bruised purple with cold. Their footsteps crunched in unison over gravel gone brittle with rime, the sound swallowed too quickly by the hungry stillness.
Elliot hunched deeper into his scarf. "Did winter just decide to punch us in the—" He froze mid-curse, boots skidding on suddenly glass-smooth cobblestones.
A voice cleaved the air like an axe through ice. "Not cold enough."
The world snapped brittle. A spiderweb of frost exploded across the path, fractals blooming faster than breath. Towan's numbed fingers twitched toward his pendant as a figure emerged from the copse of frost-veined birches—not walking, but coalescing, like a specter materializing from the void between heartbeats.
Deyar Vellis stood framed by hoarfrost-glazed branches, moonlight catching the glacial sharpness of his eyes. Not gray—quicksilver, Towan realized, the color of a stormflash frozen mid-strike.
"Who are you?" Towan's question hung visible in the air, his throat tight against the unnatural chill seeping into his bones.
A mirthless laugh crackled. "The man you replaced." Deyar's boot struck the earth. New ice shrieked as it raced toward Towan's feet, forcing him backward into Elliot's outstretched arm.
"He's Deyar Vellis," Elliot hissed, gaze darting between the spreading frost and his brother. "Rank 15 before you... took his spot." The last words carried unintended weight—half warning, half awe.
Towan ground his heels into unmoving stone. "I didn't steal anything you'd earned."
"Earned?" Deyar's voice became a blade honed by northern winds. He raised a palm; the air screamed as ice daggers spiraled into existence above his fingertips. "You think numbers on a ledger measure worth? That trinket around your neck makes you worthy?"
The pendants at both brothers' throats flared—Towan's sun-warm gold, Elliot's leaf-green—as Deyar's ice shattered against twin shields of light.
Elliot stepped forward, shoulders squared like a duelist's. "You want to contest ranks? Dawn Court. Formal challenge. This isn't—"
"This," Deyar snarled, frost crawling up his coat sleeves in jagged armor, "is what happens when upjumped nobodies cheat their way into legacy." The birch trees groaned as their sap froze. "Run to the Mediators tomorrow. Tonight..." A glacier's patience filled his smile. "...I educate."
Towan's hand closed around his pendant, its familiar warmth now scalding against his palm. He met Elliot's questioning glance with a fractional nod—Let me stand—before facing the living storm. "You want a lesson?" Amber light bled through his fingers. "Give me your worst."
The ice sang as it charged.
Towan's muscles coiled like springtraps beneath his skin. (Study the patterns. Survive the storm.) He let his Essentia simmer just beneath the surface, golden light flickering at his joints like foxfire between tree roots.
Deyar's hands became winter incarnate. Hoarfrost crawled up his forearm in fractal patterns as the air itself screamed, molecules forced into crystalline submission. The ice spear gleamed with cruel perfection—not a weapon, but a statement.
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"Let's see you dance," Deyar hissed. The projectile tore through space with a sound like splitting glaciers.
(Too clean—) Towan's thought fragmented as adrenaline sharpened the world. Essentia burned through his veins, turning his dodge into a blur of sun-bleached parchment against ink-dark night. The spear buried itself in an oak behind him, trunk groaning as sap froze mid-bleed.
"Need to try harder, Frostbite," Towan goaded, rolling his shoulders. The taunt tasted bitter—Deyar's control was terrifying, but letting that show meant death.
Deyar's smile held the patience of avalanche country. "Shatter."
The world exploded in silver shrapnel.
Towan became pure motion—twisting through lethal geometry as ice daggers shredded his sleeve. Blood bloomed crimson across his shoulder, instantly crystallizing. The cold wasn't natural. It bit deeper than flesh, gnawing at the Essentia channels along his collarbone.
"First lesson," Deyar purred, stalking forward as Towan's right arm hung useless. "Cold kills in whispers."
The assault came merciless. Deyar's strikes flowed like blizzard winds—elbow strike to solar plexus, knee aimed at frozen shoulder, frost-rimed knuckles seeking temple. Towan's blocks grew fractionally slower, left arm trembling under impacts that rang like hammer on anvil.
(Not martial arts—) Towan realized through the pain-haze as he barely deflected a gut punch. (He's conducting.) Every contact left numbing patches where Essentia flow stuttered. (Using the cold to disrupt my—)
A wild haymaker. An opening. Deyar thought Towan wouldn't be able to attack with his freezed shoulder
Towan's kick connected with a sickening crunch of parting ice armor. Deyar folded like a poorly made chair, skidding back—but his palm slapped the earth. Frost veins spiderwebbed outward, turning cobblestones to glass.
"Second lesson," Deyar wheezed, bloodied grin madness itself. "Never celebrate early."
Towan's boots lost purchase. *(Fight the ground, lose. Fight him—) He let momentum carry him into a slide, Essentia flaring gold as he kicked off air itself, becoming a comet aimed at Deyar's chest.
Frostbitten hands caught his wrists. Agony exploded—Deyar's Essentia wasn't cold anymore. It was absence, the void between stars given teeth. Towan's scream came raw and primal as ice scaled his forearms.
(Burn or break.)
With the last of his warmth, Towan pushed—not against Deyar, but downward, Essentia detonating beneath them. The ice sheet vaporized into mist as he flipped backward, boots slamming into Deyar's sternum with the sweet thud of perfect balance.
The ice-wielder plowed through a frost-coated hedge, gasping. Towan collapsed to one knee, hands leaking smoky gold Essentia into the thawing earth. Both combatants' breath came in ragged clouds—one gilded with sunlight, the other tinged blue.
Towan hit the ground in a half-crouch, every exhalation leaving his lips tinged blue. Essentia flickered erratically across his frost-rimed hands—a guttering candle against Deyar's blizzard. (Not just passive...) He flexed numb fingers, watching ice crystals fracture from his knuckles. (He's turning the battlefield itself against me.) (his punches and kicks aren't all that strong, but this freezing essentia is wearing me down)
"Towan!" Elliot's voice cut through the keening wind, raw as an open wound. "Stop toying and end this!"
"You try—" Towan's retort died as Deyar's laughter rolled across the ice—a sound like cracking glacial shelves.
Golden light flared beneath Towan's skin as he slammed a palm against his frozen shoulder. Essentia burned through congealed veins, thawing flesh with the agony of frostbite reversed. Muscle memory guided his stance into the Dawnbird's Wing—right foot pivoted outward, weight balanced on life's edge.
(Breathe in winter...)(...breathe out fire.)
Deyar spread his arms in mock benediction. The very air crystallized around him, suspended ice particulates catching moonlight until he stood encased in a prismatic cocoon. Through the distortion, his Essentia burned cobalt-blue—the heart of a collapsing star dressed in mortal flesh.
"Run," Deyar whispered. The ground trembled.
Towan's Essentia-sight flared awake.(Oh hells—)Frost patterns beneath their feet weren't random. Glowing sigils spiraled outward from Deyar's boots—ancient and jagged, drinking hungrily from the leylines below.
The cold became sentient.It clawed at Towan's lungs.It whispered promises of sweet oblivion.
Elliot's eyes showed light behind him. "He's overclocking the meridians! Disrupt the—"
"Silence!" Deyar roared. Reality itself flexed as the accumulated frost detonated upward—a maelstrom of ice shards orbiting him like planetary rings.
Towan charged through the storm.