The forest lay smothered under snow, the trees standing like tired watchmen beneath a moon that gave more shadow than light. At the edge of a clearing slouched a wooden hut, half-buried in frost, its chimney nothing but a jagged stump of stone.
A small fire crackled in front of it, fighting hard against the cold. Every gust of wind nearly stole it away, yet the flames clung stubbornly to life. Around it sat a rough collection of travelers—mercenaries, vagrants, zealots, the kind who shared fire more easily than trust. Their shadows jumped long and crooked across the snow whenever the logs popped.
An old man hunched nearest the flames. His cloak was more patch than fabric, his beard a tangle crusted with ice. The staff in his hands looked less like a weapon and more like it had been pulled from the roots of a dying tree. Most nights he spoke only to himself, drifting in and out of nonsense. Tonight was different. Tonight, his voice cut through the crackle of the fire and held it still.
"Closer," he said, not loudly, but with a weight that drew ears all the same. His pale eyes reflected the firelight like wet stone. "Come closer. Let the night lean in with you, for what I tell is older than your kings, older even than the crowns that rotted on their heads." You know of the Arathian Empire, do you not? Its banners once clawed the skies, its blades carved a world. Yet what is empire against eternity? What are crowns when curses choke the very breath of the world?"
The wing sighed through the trees, carrying the scent of ash and snow. The fire popped, and for a moment, it seemed the forest itself held its breath.
"This tale," the old man whispered, leaning close, "does not begin with heroes, nor with gods, nor even with war. It begins with the dying of the seasons...with winter that came and never left. And from that endless frost...arose the first curse."
...
The Sea of Shattered Ice stretched out in silence. Only the groan of the floes broke it—sheets of frozen water grinding together like teeth. The waves were long dead, their last breath frozen into jagged ridges that caught the pale sun and split it into hard shards of light. Nothing moved here. No gulls, no wind. The place felt emptied out, as if even time itself had given up walking this far north.
Through that graveyard drifted a ship.
Her hull was oak blackened with age, the wood etched with runes so worn they were almost scars. Her sails hung in tatters, yet they billowed anyway, though no breeze stirred them. On her prow, an angel's figurehead leaned forward, face chipped smooth, wings cracked down the middle. She looked like she had been fleeing something when she froze there, caught forever in the attempt.
And still the ship moved. Not with tide, nor wind, nor the hand of man. She cleaved through ice that should have held her fast, as if some invisible hand was carving her way ahead.
Unseen hands did move upon her.
By day, they walked her decks. Sailors that were not flesh but pale outlines, their forms thin as fog. They wore the garb of seafarers long drowned—sashes frayed, boots split, hats eaten through by salt that no longer clung to them. They muttered half-words to each other, laughed without sound, and worked without end. They tightened ropes that never frayed, scrubbed planks that never stained. Now and then, when the living happened to meet their gaze, they would nod politely or offer a ghost's grin, even lift a tankard that carried no drink. They meant no harm. But their friendship was the hollow kind, echoes caught in a loop, gestures repeating themselves for eternity.
Below deck, in the ship's frozen belly, five travelers slept.
The vessel swayed gently, though no wave dared stir it. Cold breath drifted from their mouths, misting in the lanternlight. Above them, faint as a thread, the sound of voices seeped through the timbers.
The dead sang.
It was no tavern song, no drunken chant bellowed at sea. Their voices were low and heavy, carrying like thunder pressed through wood. A hymn, if such a thing could belong to those who drowned. A lament for the sea, for lives lost to it. Each note sank deep into the bones of the ship.
And though sorrow bled from every verse, it was not cruel. There was no malice in the singing. Only memory.
One by one, the travelers stirred.
The first Ru'Val. His head was bare, skin weathered and lined with the weight of countless ages, yet he looked no weaker for it. Both his eyes burned a fierce orange, like twin embers that never cooled, a fire that winter could not touch. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his frame forged into the shape of battle long before any living man's grandfather drew breath. There was no softness in him, only the hard discipline of war carried across millennia.
Even in sleep, his body did not rest. His hand twitched toward the greatsword bound in cloth at his side, as if some part of him always lived in the heartbeat before combat. For Ru'Val did not dream as mortals dream. He dreamed of prophecy—the whisper that one day, among men, a god would rise. He had sword, with iron and blood, to be that god's strength. Immortal or not, his oath bound him tighter than chains.
Kaelen Vire lay nearest the lantern's glow. He was thin, almost frail in frame, his skin pale enough to seem carved from moonlight. Black hair spilled across his cot in an unruly curtain, strands catching the dim light like threads of shadow. Even in rest, the air around him stirred—dark wisps curling as if the night itself sought to shelter him. His youth was plain in his jaw and restless features, yet his eyes—when open—were bottomless, dark pools where no light dared linger. Kaelen had never belonged to hearth or home; he was a child of omen, a shadowborn whose dreams whispered secrets better left forgotten. Power churned inside him, waiting, a tide of night unspent.
A cot away lay Ikkas, the hybrid. His chest rows slowly, one arm folded across it, veins glowing faintly green as though venom puled in place of blood. His face bore a sleek sharpness of his satarre kin, cunning etched into every line, but his heritage was undeniable: a single lid, closed now, splitting his brow like a scar given by the gods themselves. One eye only, but it missed little. His body was strange in its resilience—hands and feet thickened, calloused in odd places, shaped for clinging to stone and shadow alike. His breaths came with the faintest hiss, the exhale of poison bound in flesh. To speak with Ikkas was to bargain with something dangerous, a predator half in this world, half in the next.
At the far end, wrapped in a ragged cloak lacquered with scripture pages, rested KameKami. His head was bare, the tortle's bald scalp cracked with age and weather, his shell daubed in symbols of faith both crude and desperate. Some were carved deep by claw, others painted in moments of fevered prayer. His hands clutched a wooden holy symbol so tightly the edges bit into his scaled flesh, drawing flecks of dried blood. Even in dreams, his lips moved, mumbling invocations to a god who demanded fear more than love. To follow KameKami was to walk a path of fire and judgement, for he sought to scour heresy until only the righteous—or the ash—remained.
And there was Null.
He did not lie in a cot, for Null did not sleep as men did. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the deck's cold planks, draped in a black coat whose high collar and hood swallowed his features whole. Where flesh should be, there was only suggestion—an outline, a silhouette that seemed to flicker between presence and absence. At times, he looked like a man, lean and indistinct; at others, he seemed half-dissolved, as though the void itself had borrowed a shape for convenience. His face, when glimpsed, shifted subtly, stolen details of those nearby etched and erased in silence. To look upon Null was to feel the uneasy to truth: there was no one beneath the coat, only a question without an answer.
The ship rocked gently, its timbers groaning with each slow pass through the floes. From above came the song again, swelling in solemn cadence, voices without breath filling the hull with sorrow. The melody seeped into dreams, stirred sleeping minds, and at last the five awoke.
Ru'Val's eyes opened first, both blazing like molten suns in the dark. His hands found the bound greatsword at his side before thought even returned, fingers tightening around the cloth-wrapped hilt. Beside him, Kaelen shifted, thin frame curling as shadows stirred at his fingertips, restless things drawn by habit as much as will.
Ikkas roused with a hiss, his lone eye narrowing against the lantern light, hand dragging across his brow as if to scrape away the remnants of dreams. His breath rasped faintly, venom humming just beneath his skin. KameKami's lids snapped open next, his cracked lips already moving in whispered prayer, a mantra spilling into the cold air with instinctive urgency.
And Null...Null was already upright, cross-legged on the planks, hood shadowing a faceless shape. He had not risen, for he had never truly slept.
Their gazes swept the hold in silence. Barrels lay stacked against the ribs of the vessel, chests sealed tight, coils of rope and tools scattered like offerings. Riches to tempt any hand—yet none bore weight. Each time a blade or coin was reached for, it blurred, passing through like smoke. The loot was an echo, as untouchable as the sailors above who had once claimed it.
The five exchanged glances but no words. There was no need. The song above pressed down, heavy with memory, the sound of centuries worn into ritual. A sudden thud rattled the deck, followed by the hollow laughter of the shades, carrying on their eternal play.
Boots creaked against the boards as Ru'Val stood, his eyes lifting toward the ceiling. Kaelen's pale face tilted next, listening. The others lingered in their own silence, some muttering, some smirking, some merely waiting.
The crew did not threaten. The crew did not notice. The crew only sang.