The glaciavore let out a blood-curdling roar. Mirian led with an incineration beam. It would have been powerful enough to lance a bog lion, but the ice armor on the huge myrvite only steamed. No heat attacks she thought as she circled behind the trunk of a tree so that the glaciavore couldn’t charge her, then peeked out around as her hands flipped through her spellbook. She always organized her spellbook the same way, a habit she’d picked up preparing for the Battle of Torrviol, since the last thing you wanted in a fight was to be trying to remember what page you put a spell on.

It didn’t seem to be in any rush as it moved forward. Mirian watched as the ground around it froze, ice crystals hardening before her very eyes. Glaciavores had a natural heat displacement aura that extended a few feet around them. Another reason engaging it in melee would be foolhardy. If it was flash-freezing trees it passed, even getting close would kill her.

Mirian carefully retreated, then cast warmth around her because she could already feel the bite of the cold from the glaciavore even at a distance. Then it did charge.

She bolted left, scrambling over a nearby log and then diving through some light underbrush, then as she hefted her spellbook from its chain at her side again, looked for where she might be able to move next. At least the glaciavore’s big size was a hindrance to its movement. It made a growling noise and started circling around again, keeping its four beady eyes trained on Mirian.

A nearby tree let out a pop! as a section of its bark shattered. Mirian felt the bark splatter in her hair as she carefully stepped backward. She sent out a force blades spell. It was powerful enough to carve chunks out of the trees, but the blades just left wet marks on the armor. It was like trying to attack a lake with ice skates.

As the glaciavore rumbled forward again, pincer-mouth tearing through a piece of trunk. It started tearing up the underbrush between it and Mirian with its claws. Mirian dashed up the trail as it crashed through in hot pursuit.

Further up the trail, the road circled around another outcropping of rock. She scanned the boulders strewn about it. Direct attacks on the beast would just fizzle against it. She needed a new strategy.

From the chill deepening around her, she knew the glaciavore was gaining. Quickly, she flipped through her spellbook to lift multiple objects.

When all else failed, she could always rely on a classic.

With a mental heave, Mirian picked up three of the granite boulders, each weighing at least fifty pounds. She sent them past her, two of the rocks passing her shoulders by inches and the third going so close overhead she felt the whoosh of air. That was followed by the crunch! of ice shattering and—at last—a roar of pain from the beast. She whirled, keeping her mana flowing and concentration on the spell. Moving three objects at once was difficult enough that she had trouble remembering to move her body too. She sent the three boulders swirling about the glaciavore, smashing into it one after another, again and again.

Her mana was draining rapidly, but the beast couldn’t ignore the attacks. Instead of coming after her, it was growling and swatting at the offending boulders.

Behind the glaciavore, Mirian noticed that one of the larger pines had been heavily damaged, first by the icy aura, then by the creature as it had smashed into it with a paw. She dropped two of the boulders, continuing to channel mana into the third one. Meanwhile, she crept slowly to the side so she was behind another trunk, then used one of the alternate enhancements on her force blade spell. This changed it from multiple blades to one big one.

She didn’t attack the glaciavore. Instead, she went after the tree behind it.

The force spell took huge chunks out of the tough wood. Then Mirian swapped to a manipulate object, enhanced for raw power, and yanked on the trunk on a high point for the leverage.

There was a tremendous ripping sound. Wood splintered, and then the tree groaned as it fell forward.

The glaciavore stopped batting at the annoying boulder just in time to see the tree plummeting toward it. With a crash that echoed through the forest, it landed directly on top of the beast. Its ice-shell split open, and there was a wet crunch.

It twitched once more, then went still. Gradually, the frost-aura receded, and Mirian could finally ditch the warmth spell.

She let out a breath she’d been holding, then cautiously looked around to make sure nothing else was nearby. Hopefully, the glaciavore had already chased away anything else that might try to eat her. She waited to see if it really was dead, then approached it. She closed her eyes as she steadied her breathing, imagining the Mausoleum she saw so often in her dreams. Along the eastern wing (or what she assumed was east), she found the reliefs of strange creatures. They were carved to be so lifelike it was easy to imagine them just leaping from the wall, yet so alien that they made myrvites look mundane.

Glaciavores, she remembered at last, had two spell organs. All four eyes were magical, and it had its own unique organ, called a coldheart, that moved an entirely different circulatory system around. The eyes were easy enough to pry open out of its head once she’d smashed the skull open. The shone like sapphires—the world’s creepiest sapphires. She’d heard of people wearing them in jewelry, but couldn’t fathom why someone would want to wear blue eyeballs. However, they were also fantastic for any wand that used any of the glyphs that regulated heat energy, not just displacement, but heat generation.

The coldheart took some time to get out, because even with the ice armor shattered, the beast’s hide was tough as anything. Also, it was beneath a tree. Thoughtless of whoever put it there, Mirian joked to herself.

The heart had been mostly pulped by the tree landing on the glaciavore, since it was just below the spine, but she emptied out one of her drawstring bags so she could stuff the remains of it in there. Someone in Frostland’s Gate would want to distill the magichemicals from it.

Really, the whole thing was valuable, but there was no way she was hauling a literal one ton beast all the way to the village.

Mirian’s traveler’s pack was a mess. The glaciavore had walked right by it, freezing everything in it. Several of the ink bottles had shattered and her waterskin had burst. Fortunately, she could thaw the pack and the food, and her bedroll had an enchantment, so it had never frozen. She ditched anything that was unsalvageable in a pile by the corpse, then set off again.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

And again, she barely made it to the obelisk at the top of the next pass. She was surprised to see the ward already up, another traveler resting by the hearth stone. She made small talk, introducing herself as Niluri. When he said he spent his life on the road, she believed him; his face and arms had this weather-beaten look to it, and even though the hearth stone wasn’t putting out much heat, he’d taken off his cloak and jacket, not the slightest bit bothered by the cold.

When he asked, “Seen any myrvites on the road?” she hesitated at first, then answered truthfully. The man stood up instantly. “Where? How long ago? Did it follow you?”

“It’s dead,” Mirian assured him.

“Thank the Gods,” he said, “But don’t frighten people like that. Do you know what killed it?”

“I did.”

That brought a moment of silence to the campsite. The man blinked several times. “What are you trying to pull?”

Mirian brought out the bag of glaciavore eyes and tossed it to him. “Check them, if you want. They still have dried blood on them. Did you know glaciavore blood is unusually dark, but the cryoblood is blue?” She was so tired of people not believing her. Rationally, she knew why. She still looked young, even with the soul-transformation, and didn’t dress like anyone particularly powerful or important.

The man was quiet again. Finally he said, handing the bag of eyes back, “Then you have my thanks, and my apologies.”

It sort of killed the small talk, though. The man checked on his donkeys and their packs, then they didn’t say much to each other as they ate dinner. She’d imagined, during the long trek, meeting someone on the road and laughing together as they swapped stories. She was tired of being lonely, and the long journey had only exacerbated it.

At least you have Beatrice to look forward to, she thought. But then again, she didn’t look like Mirian anymore. And if Sulvorath did manage to track her down—he did have that airship skiff, after all—she didn’t want him going after Lily’s sister.

The clouds covered the stars as another bout of snow swept over the Littenord.

***

Mirian and the other traveler were terse with each other in the morning. Snow had once again covered the trail, and though the man had snowshoes, his donkeys didn’t, so it would be slow going for him. But he did know the route very well, and told Mirian what landmarks to look for.

She reformed her ice-shoes, which the man was bemused to see, then set off. Her provisions were all but gone, so she was eager to make it to Frostland’s Gate.

After a mile or two on the trail, she saw a few lesser ice wyverns circling above her, deciding if she’d make easy prey. She chased them off with a few incineration beam spells that singed their wings and sent them flying off.

She’d thought maybe she would reach the village early, but another brief snowstorm swept in and the visibility shrunk to nothing. Mirian found herself constantly needing to cast her divination spells to keep pointed in the right direction, and at one point even stopped to scribe a compass spell because even finding north was impossible. Fortunately, the capricious weather relented after a few hours. Finally, she saw the glyph lamps and spellward that marked the outskirts of Frostland’s Gate, and beyond it, the old palisade.

The whole village was smaller than even Arriroba. Part of this was because it was compact, with stout stone and wood buildings that clustered around each other like cold travelers around a campfire. The other part was because it was at the feet of the frostlands, where constant storms raged, the land was locked in eternal winter, and some of the most terrifying myrvites not found deep underground or in the ocean lived.

Not many people wanted to live in such a place.

For those that liked the challenge though, it provided. Frostland’s Gate was a strange place. There were no manors or wealthy enclaves, nor beggars. Basic supplies were expensive to get up there, but the village more than made up for it with the income they brought in from myrvite hunting. Brave arcanists and trappers had worked for several centuries to stem the tide of myrvites that wandered down from the frostlands into Baracuel, and there was an official military barracks to help with that task. It also supplied Torrviol and the rest of the north with the myrvite parts it needed for its magic. For their life of hardship, the people were well compensated. After a few years, most people left Frostland’s Gate for something more comfortable.

Unlike Torrviol’s spellward, which one could just walk through, the spellward here had regular patrols. A pair of soldiers met her at the barrier, and Mirian had to bite her tongue so that she didn’t ask why they weren’t saluting her. All those years of fighting the Battle of Torrviol were still inside her, and she felt the impulse that what she had achieved there should be recognized.

But it couldn’t be.

“Anyone else traveling with you?” the first soldier asked, peering out into the snowfields behind her.

“No, just me,” Mirian said. “I’m Niluri, coming up from Cairnmouth.”

“Just you?” the second soldier asked. He sounded surprised.

“Just me. Though I met another merchant on the road, though he’s probably a few hours behind me. Sounded like he’d been here before.”

“Right,” said the first soldier, looking again out in the distance. “Thanks. We’ll keep an eye out. Anything to declare?”

Mirian had read about this. Because Baracuel was trying to crack down on myrvite part smuggling, and a great deal of parts came from Frostland’s Gate, they had a local ordinance requiring all visitors to declare any myrvite parts upon entering or leaving. It was a small village, and she had no contacts yet, so she did so. “Glaciavore spell organs, though the coldheart got a bit mashed.”

“You’ll want to stop by the Royal Courier’s building. It’s that one,” he said, pointing at the building with orange and white trim and the Baracueli lion waving about on a banner. “They take care of all declarations and levy any of the fees. Then, this one’s not official, you probably want to visit Elsadorra next door, she can get you an appraisal on anything you find. I do mean anything, but she specializes in myrvite parts and Labyrinth artifacts. You… found a dead glaciavore?”

Mirian closed her eyes and took a deep breath. People would know soon enough. “Yes.”

They asked several questions to pin down the location, both soldiers quite concerned that a predator that large had gotten so far south.

“Been a long journey,” Mirian said finally.

“Oh! Yes, of course. Welcome to Frostland’s Gate,” the second guard said. “Last bit. Traveler’s lodgings are one block down from the Couriers. Taxes partially fund it, so it’s free to stay at.”

Mirian paid the two drachim fee to the office with a promissory note, since after all the supplies and purchases she’d made in Torrviol, she was completely out of coin. But since the fee was paid on a percentage of the worth of the parts, she was quite happy to; the tax was that high because the eyes and heart together were worth a full ten doubloons at least. Mirian skipped the appraiser’s office so she could head to the Kivinotsuur, which was the name of the large stone lodge that took up an entire city block.

The base architecture was medieval, though it had been renovated with modern glyph lamps, hearth stones, and a fancy looking spell engine that played music in the central hall.

The smell of roasting meat and long simmered stews and the warmth of the hall gave Mirian a visceral feeling of comfort. It only took her a bit to get a room, and she was happy to pay a small fee (again, with a promissory note) for one with extra comforts and its own cozy workroom. The warm meal, soft bed, and heated bath was a blessing after the long journey.

She slept well, and as she did, a new dream came to her. She and the Ominian walked out into the Endelice Mountains, though in the logic of dreams, she traveled much faster and with less effort than if she was actually walking. The monsters that lived there simply watched as the colossal statue strode with her, and even the storms parted for Them, leaving a vast sky the same color as the glimmering glaciers below.

As They walked with her, she felt the reverence They had. Though the endless ice cracked with fissures and dagger-like peaks were death to any that tried to cross them, the desolation had this beauty to it that warmed her as much as the hot stew she’d had before bed.

Frostland’s Gate, she thought, looking back, though by now there was nothing to see but more mountains. I wonder what I’ll find here.