The Frostlands were a realm forgotten by time, locked in a perpetual grip of winter that neither waned nor warmed. A land untouched by thaw, where even light seemed to move more slowly muted, pale, reluctant to touch the cursed snow. Wind howled without pause, carrying stories only ghosts could understand. To most, it was an uninhabitable expanse, a death sentence. But to the Spiral Order, it had become a mystery worth unraveling.
And now, five Spiral envoys walked directly into its cold, treacherous heart.
Kira Vellin, once captain of Emberreach's Forward Guard, moved like a blade through the snow sharp, efficient, always leading with measured purpose. Her thick cloak, lined with wolf-fur and laced with crimson embroidery, was clasped with the sigil of the Flamebearer. Beside her trudged Denor Varin, silent and stoic, his hands never far from the ground, where he listened for tremors in the ley-lines. His breath steamed in the air as he paused every few steps, attuning himself to whispers beneath the ice.
Trailing behind them was Mira Sareth, only seventeen, the youngest flamewright ever allowed on a live mission. Her gloved fingers twitched nervously, repeatedly checking the rune-etched cuffs on her bracers. Beside her, Calen Dryss, the former thief and smuggler turned scout, moved with restless energy, his twin daggers hidden beneath a heavy snow-canvas coat. He chewed on dry meat, eyes darting from tree to rock like a hawk watching for traps.
Bringing up the rear was Thorne Elaran, a Spiral historian and scribe. Thin and wide-eyed, he carried no weapons only a journal sealed with stasis wax and the mission's most vital tool: the Flamecall orb, a beacon that could transmit a magical signal across continents through the ley network.
Their mission was simple in writing but perilous in execution investigate the ley surge near the ruins of a Helvani watchtower in the Frostlands. Cult activity was suspected. Their return was expected in ten days.
That was ten days ago.
They reached the ridge on the twelfth night, after three days without sun.
Below them, nestled in a crater blanketed with unnatural warmth, stood the remains of the Helvani outpost once a proud symbol of the Dominion's surveillance in the North, now desecrated. Its steel walls had melted in places, forming grotesque arches of slag. Green and violet fires flickered in braziers, but there was no smoke. The snow had melted in a perfect circle around the site, the ground humming with quiet pulses of corrupted magic.
Cloaked figures moved in patterns too precise to be mere wanderers. They carried bundles wrapped in ash-cloth, dragging them to a pit of swirling shadow where runes spun like water down a drain. Overhead, a jagged obsidian pillar pierced the sky, covered in red spirals.
"The Hollow Spiral," Denor whispered, his breath catching. "They've built a shrine."
"They're feeding the ley-lines," Mira said, squinting at the pit. "No... poisoning them. Reversing their flow."
Thorne unwrapped the Flamecall orb and held it in both hands. "Should I signal red alert?"
"Not yet," Kira replied, dropping to a crouch. "Let's get closer. I need to know how many there are."
They descended the slope with quiet, calculated steps. Calen swept for traps. Mira cloaked them with low-frequency shimmer spells. The wind offered cover, but the further they crept, the heavier the air became like they were sinking underwater.
Halfway down, Denor froze.
"The ley-tide just spiked," he said. "Something's coming"
Before he could finish, the Flamecall orb flickered violently and shattered in Thorne's hands with a crack like thunder.
They had been seen.
From the snowdrifts around them, cloaked cultists erupted like wraiths. Their masks bore spirals some single, some triple etched with black veins and molten grooves. The air exploded with pulses of corrupted ley energy. The ground cracked beneath them, and a thick mist of magic surged up like a reverse fog, swallowing the team.
Calen lunged with his daggers, slicing through the mist to protect Mira, but the mist fought back, curling around his legs and dragging him toward the pit. Mira screamed, hurling a fire rune toward the closest cultist, who caught it mid-air and consumed it his body igniting briefly with green flame.
Kira fought to regroup them. "Circle formation now!"
But a sonic pulse from the shrine ruptured the ground.
They fell.
Darkness.
Stone.
Cold.
Kira awoke chained to an altar deep underground. Her wrists were bound with rune-scorched manacles, suppressing even the faintest flicker of flame. Mira was across from her, bound in a similar fashion, her mouth gagged and eyes wide with terror. Denor was slumped against the far wall, bleeding from his temple. Calen lay unmoving, half-buried in snow that had drifted through a shattered skylight.
Thorne was missing.
The chamber was vast and circular, the walls alive with motion runes circling like fish in a whirlpool. Above them, a spiral of shadow pulsed with corrupted ley energy.
From the far end, footsteps echoed.
The High Ascendant of the Hollow Spiral entered, clad in robes made of shadow silk, his mask smooth and featureless except for a single carved spiral that never stopped moving.
"You carry the old flame," he said. "But you do not understand its truth. Fire is not creation. It is purification. It is death."
Kira met his gaze without flinching. "We use fire to protect. Not destroy."
He laughed. It was not a human sound.
"You still believe in the Flamebearer myth. You think she'll save you? You think she is light incarnate?" He stepped closer. "We once believed that too before we saw what she left behind."
He gestured to a mural carved into the stone. It showed Emberreach in flame, but twisted children crying, forests razed, oceans boiling.
"This is your Spiral legacy," he hissed.
"We rebuilt what was broken!" Mira shouted, straining against her chains. "You people started the war ! He silenced her with a wave. Her body went rigid, suspended midair.
"Your voice offends the Spiral."
Kira clenched her fists. She still had one chance an embedded shard of Flamecall, hidden beneath her right palm, activated by heartbeat sync.
She breathed.
Felt.
Willed.
And the shard lit up.
A pulse of red light filled the chamber. The cultists reeled. The High Ascendant screamed as the rune circle shattered.
Mira dropped to the ground, and Kira wrenched free, tearing her wrists open in the process.
"RUN!" she shouted.
Back in Emberreach, the central Flamecall tower exploded with crimson light.
Aurora, mid-council, rose to her feet.
"They're alive," she whispered. "Kira's team is alive."
Lucian appeared in the doorway, breathless. "The beacon it was hijacked, corrupted and now... it's been reclaimed."
Tamsin turned to Aurora. "That means the Hollow Spiral was there. And our team survived."
Aurora's eyes burned.
"We move now," she said. "Prepare the Flameguard, send word to the Runewrights and Shieldbearers. We reclaim our people. We reclaim the frost."