The north was cold.

  Even deep underground, where the temperature should have been stable—insulated by thousands of feet of rock, protected from the surface's extremes—Kael could feel it. A chill that seeped through stone and bone, that made his breath mist and his fingers numb despite the flames that now danced at his command. It was a cold that didn't just exist in the air; it lived in the very fabric of the tunnels, in the walls and floor and ceiling, in the Aether itself.

  Ignis's fire helped. The volcano-titan's gift burned constantly in Kael's core, a warmth that spread through his veins and kept the worst of the cold at bay. But even that ancient fire struggled against this frozen place. It was like trying to warm an ocean with a single candle—possible in theory, impossible in practice.

  "Glacies sleeps deeply," Vex said as they walked. His mental voice was subdued, affected by the cold in ways Kael had never felt before. "Her prison is the oldest. The coldest. The Gilded built it first, to test their methods. If they made mistakes, they made them there."

  "What kind of mistakes?" Lyra asked. She was wrapped in every scrap of clothing they could find—layers of fabric scavenged from their supplies, plus additional pieces that Glacies's ice had somehow provided—but still shivered constantly. Aria's light flickered around her, an emerald glow that fought against the encroaching chill, but even the Primordial of light struggled here.

  "Traps. Wards. Things that kill without thought." Vex's mental voice was grim. "The early prisons were experimental. The Gilded didn't know what would work, what would hold us. They tried everything. Some of those experiments are still active."

  Kael thought about that as they walked. About ancient traps, designed by people who had been dead for millennia, still waiting for someone to trigger them. About the Gilded's cruelty, reaching across time to harm people who hadn't even been born when the prisons were built.

  "How will we know when we find one?" Finn asked. His voice was hoarse, his cough worsening with every mile. Mira walked beside him, her healing hands ready, her face creased with worry.

  "You will know," Vex said. "Trust me. You will know."

  They walked for days through tunnels lined with ice.

  The walls glittered with frost, thick layers of it that had built up over centuries. Strange formations hung from the ceilings like frozen tears—icicles the size of trees, their points sharp enough to impale a person. The floor was treacherous, slick with ice that had formed and reformed countless times, hiding cracks and pits that could swallow the unwary.

  Kael led the way, his flames casting just enough light to see by. He moved carefully, testing each step before committing his weight, watching for any sign of danger. Behind him came Lyra, then Finn, then the others—Mira and Jax, the two Forgotten who had joined their group.

  They spoke little. The cold stole their words, turning breath to ice before it could form sounds. They communicated with glances, with gestures, with the occasional mental nudge from the Primordials.

  The air grew thinner, colder, until even breathing hurt. Each inhale was like swallowing knives, each exhale a cloud of frozen vapor. Kael's lungs burned, his chest ached, and still they pressed on.

  Finn developed a cough that wouldn't quit. It started as a small thing, easily ignored, but grew worse with each passing day. By the third day, it was a constant presence—a wet, rattling sound that echoed through the tunnels and left him gasping for breath.

  Mira did what she could. Her healing hands glowed with soft light as she worked on him each night, pushing back the worst of the damage. But she couldn't cure him completely, couldn't undo the effects of the cold on his weakened lungs.

  "He needs warmth," she told Kael privately. "Real warmth, for more than a few hours. If we don't get him somewhere warm soon..."

  Kael nodded, understanding what she wasn't saying. Finn could die. His best friend, the boy who'd followed him into darkness without question, could die in this frozen hell.

  "We'll push faster," Kael said. "Get to the prison, free Glacies, get out. He just has to hold on a little longer."

  Mira's expression said she didn't think that was likely, but she nodded anyway. What else could she do?

  Then they found the first body.

  It was ancient—little more than bones and frozen rags—but Kael could see the remnants of Gilded armor, the tarnished metal of a Sentinel's badge still pinned to what remained of a cloak. The skeleton lay against the tunnel wall, its arms wrapped around itself as if trying to ward off the cold even in death.

  Someone had tried to enter Glacies's prison before. Someone had failed.

  Kael knelt beside the remains, studying them with a mixture of revulsion and fascination. The bones were brittle, crumbling at the slightest touch. The armor was corroded, almost unrecognizable. But the badge—the badge was still clear, still readable.

  "How long ago?" Lyra asked, her voice hushed.

  "Centuries," Vex said. "This one died not long after the prison was built. One of the early explorers, perhaps, or a Gilded soldier who ventured too deep."

  "There will be more," Kael said, standing. "Vex warned us. The Gilded didn't build this prison to be easily unbroken."

  They pressed on.

  The bodies grew more numerous as they approached the prison.

  Some were Gilded, their armor marking them as soldiers or Sentinels who had died in service to the empire. Others were different—older, stranger, wearing clothing that predated the empire by centuries. Leather and fur, mostly, with crude metal weapons and simple tools. Explorers, maybe. Adventurers. People who had heard rumors of something in the deep cold and come to find it.

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  None had succeeded.

  Kael counted them as they walked—a dozen, then two dozen, then more. Some had died fighting, their bones scattered and broken. Others had simply... stopped, curling up against the cold and never rising again. The tunnel became a graveyard, a monument to the thousands who had tried and failed to reach Glacies's prison.

  "The Gilded did not care," Vex said quietly. "They let the bodies lie where they fell. A warning, perhaps. Or simply indifference. The cold preserves, but it also reminds."

  Kael thought about that as he stepped over yet another skeleton. About the Gilded's cruelty, their willingness to let people die rather than remove the bodies. About the message it sent: this place is death. Turn back or join them.

  They didn't turn back.

  "We're close," Lyra said on the fifth day.

  She had stopped walking, her eyes fixed on something only she could see. Aria's light flickered around her, brighter than it had been in days, responding to something in the distance.

  "Aria says she can feel Glacies now," Lyra continued. "She's... afraid. Glacies was always the gentlest of them, the kindest. To see her like this, trapped for so long..." She shook her head, tears freezing on her cheeks. "It hurts Aria. Hurts her deeply."

  Kael put his arm around his sister, pulling her close. "We'll free her. That's why we're here. That's what we came to do."

  Lyra nodded against his shoulder, then straightened, wiping the tears away. "I know. I just... I didn't realize how much Aria loved her. How much they all love each other. It's like family, but bigger. Older. Deeper."

  "We are family," Vex said softly. "The only family we have. For a thousand years, we could only reach each other through dreams, through fragments of thought that slipped through the prisons' barriers. Now, finally, we can be together again."

  Kael thought of Thend, of Corvus and Elara and the others, of the family they'd built in the darkness. He understood, perhaps better than Vex realized, what it meant to be separated from those you loved.

  "Then let's go reunite them," he said.

  The tunnel opened into a vast cavern, and Kael stopped in his tracks.

  The prison of Glacies was a palace of ice.

  It rose from the cavern floor like something out of a dream—towers and spires of frozen water, bridges of frost that arched between them, walls so clear they were almost invisible. The ice caught what little light penetrated this deep and threw it back in rainbows, in prismatic displays that hurt to look at. It was beautiful in a terrible way—the beauty of a place designed to kill, to trap, to hold forever.

  And at its center, frozen in a block of crystal-clear ice as large as a building, slept a creature of impossible grace.

  Glacies.

  She was everything her name suggested—a titan of ice and snow, her form shifting between solid and crystalline, her features delicate and beautiful even in frozen sleep. Her wings, if they could be called wings, were made of frost and starlight, folded around her like a blanket. Her eyes were closed, her face peaceful, and chains of frozen light bound her to the ice that held her.

  "Sister," Vex breathed, his voice barely a whisper. "Sister, we're here. We've come."

  Kael felt the Primordial's grief like a physical weight—millennia of separation, of longing, of hope deferred. It pressed against his chest, made it hard to breathe, brought tears to his eyes that weren't entirely his own.

  "We'll free her," he said again, though Vex hadn't asked. "We'll get her out."

  "I know." Vex's voice steadied. "I know you will."

  They approached the prison carefully, watching for traps. The bodies they'd passed were warning enough—this place was designed to kill, and it had succeeded many times before.

  The ice beneath their feet was solid, but Kael could feel the Aether pulsing through it, complex patterns woven into the very structure of the frozen water. The Gilded had been thorough. They'd made sure that anyone who reached this far would still face challenges.

  "There," Vex said, pointing with a tendril of silver light. "A pressure plate. Step on it and the ceiling collapses."

  Kael led them around it, carefully skirting the danger. A few steps later, Vex warned them again—a tripwire, nearly invisible, connected to something in the walls. Then another pressure plate, then a pit trap disguised by a thin layer of ice, then a series of spikes that would shoot from the floor.

  By the time they reached the central ice block, Kael's nerves were frayed. Every step had been a potential death. Every moment, a gamble.

  But they'd made it. They were here.

  Glacies hung before them, frozen and beautiful, so close Kael could almost reach out and touch her. Her face was peaceful, her eyes closed, her expression serene. She looked like she was sleeping, not imprisoned—like she might wake at any moment and smile at them.

  "She cannot hear us," Vex said softly. "The ice blocks everything—sound, thought, Aether. She has been alone in there for a thousand years, unable to see or hear or feel anything but the cold."

  Kael's heart ached at the thought. A thousand years of solitude, of darkness, of nothing. It was worse than Vex's prison, worse than Aria's. At least they'd had their thoughts, their memories, their slowly fading sense of self. Glacies had nothing.

  "How do we free her?" he asked.

  "Fire," Vex said. "Fire and light. Together, they can melt even this ancient ice."

  Kael looked at Lyra. She nodded, stepping forward, Aria's light flaring around her.

  They placed their hands on the ice—Kael's burning with Ignis's fire, Lyra's glowing with Aria's light. The ice was cold beyond measure, so cold it burned, so cold it seemed to suck the warmth from their very souls.

  The ice resisted.

  It was ancient, this ice. It had been here for millennia, growing thicker and stronger with each passing century. It knew its purpose—to hold, to trap, to preserve. It would not give up easily.

  Kael poured more power into his flames. The fire roared, heating the ice, melting it—slowly, so slowly. Water ran down his arms, freezing as it fell, forming new ice even as the old ice melted.

  Beside him, Lyra sang.

  It was Aria's song, the music of light, the sound that had shaped the world. It rose and fell in patterns that seemed to come from somewhere beyond human understanding, and the ice responded.

  Cracks appeared—hairline fractures at first, barely visible. Then they spread, multiplied, connected. The ice was fighting itself now, torn between its ancient purpose and the song that called it to release.

  "More," Vex urged. "You're doing it. Don't stop."

  Kael couldn't have stopped if he wanted to. The fire was flowing through him like a river, endless and unstoppable. He felt Ignis's presence behind him, supporting him, lending him strength. Felt Vex's guidance, Aria's song, even Glacies's distant awareness reaching through the melting ice.

  The cracks spread faster. The ice groaned, a sound like the world breaking. And then, with a crash that echoed through the cavern, the entire block shattered.

  Glacies fell.

  Kael caught her—or tried to. She was made of ice and starlight, of frost and dreams, and she passed through his arms like snow through fingers. But she touched his face as she fell, her insubstantial hand resting on his cheek, and he felt her gratitude like the first warm day of spring.

  "Thank you," she whispered, her voice like wind chimes, like falling snow, like hope. "Thank you for coming for me."

  Her eyes opened.

  For a moment, there was nothing in them—just the blank stare of the long-frozen, the emptiness of those who have been suspended for so long that consciousness itself has become strange. Then, slowly, awareness dawned.

  "Vex?" Her mental voice was like the tinkling of ice crystals, like wind through frozen branches. "Aria? Is that truly you, or am I still dreaming?"

  "It's us, sister." Vex's voice was thick with emotion. "It's really us. We're free, and we've come to free you too."

  Glacies's gaze moved to Kael, to Lyra, to the company behind them. Her eyes widened with wonder.

  "Humans," she breathed. "You brought humans."

  "These humans are different," Aria said. "They freed us. They risked everything to save us. They are worth trusting."

  Glacies was silent for a long moment, studying the two children who had come so far to save her. Then, slowly, she smiled—an expression that made the ice around her sparkle with new light.

  "Then perhaps there is hope after all."