Chapter 111: The Frost of the Forgotten
The silver mist that usually bathed the valley was now thick with an unnatural chill. By midday, the warm grass of the sanctuary was covered in a layer of crystalline frost. The Moon-Oak's leaves, which had been singing with light, were now silent, as if the tree itself was holding its breath.
"The seasons don't change this fast, Silas," Elara said, her breath hitching in the cold air. She looked at the fallen snowflake on her palm—it didn't melt. It pulsed with a faint, icy blue light.
Silas gathered the elders and Fenris at the center of the clearing. "This isn't just weather. I've felt this cold once before, in the old scrolls of the Spire. They called it the Great Silence—a winter that only comes when the Frost-Born are disturbed."
Suddenly, a scout burst into the clearing, his fur matted with ice. "They are at the northern pass! Not wolves, but creatures made of shadow and hail. They aren't attacking... they are just standing there, waiting."
Elara stepped forward, the Silver Pulse in her blood reacting to the cold. She closed her eyes and saw a vision: a throne of ice in the far North, and a queen whose heart had been frozen for a thousand years. The queen was looking for the Moon-Oak, but not to destroy it—she wanted to claim its warmth to fuel an eternal winter.
"We cannot stay in the valley," Elara whispered, her eyes snapping open. "If we stay, the frost will consume the tree and everyone with it. We have to go to the source."
Fenris sharpened his blade, a grim determination on his face. "The North is a graveyard for Alphas, Silas. No one who goes there ever returns."
"Then it's a good thing we aren't just Alphas anymore," Silas replied, looking at Elara and the gathered Silver Covenant. "We are the Dawn."