Nathan stepped out of the igloo for the first time in three weeks. Outside, he found the kids fighting with sticks in circular arenas made of crystal shards. They laughed and yelled, others tussled and wrestled. But all had large smiles as if nothing was wrong, and all was good. As if they weren’t being held captive in this tiny walled enclosure when there was a whole world ready to be explored.

Nathan went and sat down on a small mount of snow next to the igloo. He had been sleeping and doing nothing for too long. Even his hands had begun to shed and lose their protective layers of skin.

Although painful, dissolving crystals was doing something instead of nothing, and nothing hurt more than crystals. “We’re going back to work,” he exclaimed to the miners.

The kids stopped their games and looked over at Nathan, confused, thinking that perhaps that was the seer’s attempt at a joke.

But when they locked eyes with him, they remembered that he was unable to play, unable to laugh. This was the boy who killed the kind man who helped them mine and settle into the igloo on the first day. This was the boy who hadn’t come out of that den of ice and snow for the past month.

“…” No one dared talk. They quietly picked up their pickaxes and shovels before heading into the mine. Whether they were going to work was a different story.

Seeing this, Nathan relaxed, and his left hand released the cold air he’d begun accumulating.

#

Sitting on his shack’s stool, Nathan looked up to the bulbs. It was nearing the end of the day, and no bulbs were lit. But it didn’t matter to Nathan. He just wanted to keep working, what the kids did was of no concern to him.

Someone knocked on the shack’s door. “Your food.” It was the Overseer.

Nathan got up and opened the door, looking into the Overseer’s eyes. In the past year, he had gone from being level with the Overseer’s shoulders to now being at his nose.

Nathan took his food and stepped out of the shed. Since he’d been self-isolating in the igloo, he now wanted to move as much as possible. It was the only way he could trick himself into thinking he had an ounce of liberty. He sat down on a patch of ice, leaning against the shack’s wall, from where he could see the great walls surrounding the mines. But just as he was about to bite down on a sardine, the earth shook. He jumped up and looked in the direction of the mine, but nothing seemed to have happened.

Looking around, he searched for anything, but he saw nothing.

But then a boom resounded. This time it clearly came from the walls surrounding the camp. And there, a gigantic cloud of snow, and mist rose. “What’s going on!” Nathan asked, getting ready to fight some kind of unknown beast.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

But the Overseer looked calm. “Don’t worry, it shouldn’t bring harm to you."

The next thing he knew, a cold wave spread throughout the camp, making Nathan shiver for the first time in months. He wanted to leave, however, he had no escape and his body was frozen. Before long, a figure took shape in the mist. Nathan tried to identify the person. It was no doubt a mage, but was it the same one as before?

The shadow steadily grew more defined until it crossed the mist. It was a woman with short, slicked back black hair and thin, piercing grey eyes. Nathan’s heart seized.

“Are you the young mage?” she asked.

Her cloak was blue with red stripes covering the seams of her outfit, and her emblem was that of a snowflake with five branches.

“Answer, are you the young mage?”

Nathan could only nod, hesitatingly.

“Emblem.” Her voice was curt and firm. She did not ask, but ordered.

Nathan’s hand fumbled in his clothes, trying to find the pin. It had been too long since he’d even thought of it. Finally, he found it in an inside pocket of his coat. He passed his finger over its smooth surface, making sure it was real, that this wasn’t a dream, that he indeed was a mage, and that he was getting rescued. After all, if she wanted to kill him, he’d already be dead. He threw it to the mage. She caught it and gave it a glance before it flew back into Nathan’s hands.

The lady searched for words, before taking a few steps and crouching down next to Nathan. “I’m glad you’re doing fine; I can’t imagine how they’ve treated you.” And then her eyes made their way down to his hands. “To treat a noble mage in such a manner is more than vile.” She grabbed his hand and inspected them. “Trust me when I say that the mage responsible for this will pay dearly, and you will be compensated for the hardship you’ve endured.”

Nathan didn’t know how to react, but suddenly his back, his neck, and arms felt stiff.

“Let us go quickly, the faster we reach the continent, the quicker you can get healed and gain access to the life you were promised and deserve.”

The mage helped Nathan up. “What’s your name?”

“Nathan,” he answered.

“No, your full name. Me, it’s Julia Frendelle.” She smiled.

“It … it’s Nathan de la Cortella.” Answered Nathan, stupidly blushing.

She nodded, but as they were about to leave, she turned to the Overseer. “And were you not the one tasked with caring for him?”

The Overseer threw up his hands. “No need to tell me, I’ve grown bored with it all.”

“Then let us get this over with.” She straightened her back and took a firm stance. “As representative of the tower of law, I hereby find you guilty of insulting, abusing, and failing to assist a young mage’s travel to a Tower. For these crimes, you are to be sentenced to death.”

And before Nathan could even process her words, the Overseer exploded into a haze of crystals.

Nathan fumbled back. In awe of her strength, he remembered that his father was only a third-ranked mage, and that there were seven more levels to magehood.

But after the shock passed, and he realized what had happened, his heart began to ache. He hated the Overseer, but how could he have died so easily, so inconsequentially, so … almost accidentally? Just a few minutes ago he seemed like an unshakable pillar, a pillar of this world, of this system. It was him who made Nathan work, it was him who fed him. It was him who looked over him, it was him who controlled. How could such a person die so suddenly? Nathan looked back to the mage. She seemed more like a force of nature than a man, and he wondered if he, himself, could one day be her.

“We should go,” she said, turning towards the breach in the wall.

Nathan looked at the pile of tiny red shards spread on the ground, but when he looked back and saw that the mage was leaving, he ran off, and the next thing he knew, he crossed the walls which had imprisoned him all these months.