I got up from the bed and followed the mocking voice. A maid was standing beside the door as I opened it. She bowed toward me and offered to assist with my brushing and dressing.
For others standard she might be a beauty.
After brushing my teeth and tidying myself up, I walked down the long, majestic corridor made of eternal ice. I was thinking our palace is much larger than most others, roughly 32 square kilometers, and with the yard included, it spans over 56 square kilometers.
In our 'Nation of Preservation', Moon, the 'Six Angels', and the 'Twelve Saint Families' are working to strengthen our forces and expand their influence. They remain loyal, as each god in our lineage lives for over a thousand years before passing their essence to a worthy successor or continuing to rule until the end of their time.
Over the past ten thousand years, many gods have fallen and risen.
As I entered the dining room, I let go of those thoughts and sat beside the one still mocking me.
"Finally, we can have breakfast. Hey! You're getting lazier ever since you are ascending to the throne."
"If I've even ascended at all..." he murmured.
The one babbling was my older brother, Raka Frozenlight.
Seated in front of me were a handsome man and a graceful woman my father, Neil Frozenlight, and my mother, Elsa Frozenlight.
We all shared the same features: icy blue eyes and light blue hair. My mother's hair was a different color before my brother was born.
"North, you are going to ascend the throne within few days. After the next full moon, you'll begin to lose one of your human emotions and this will repeat every century," my father said, his voice calm but serious.
"You know what happened to our ancestors, right?"
"Yes, Father. I know."
Since awakening the 'Essence of the Ice God' and ascending the throne, I've felt a shift within me as if my anger and sorrow are slowly fading. The divine essence is affecting me deeply. I haven't spoken of this to my family, but they've already noticed the change.
Especially my brother he realized it when I stopped reacting to his provocations like before.
And then there are the nightmares endless visions that have haunted me since childhood. They've stripped away my fear... and perhaps even my rationality.
I remember dying my head severed by a monstrous creature.
I remember perishing in a devastating war that consumed the world.
Killed by the conspiracy of the Six Nations.
Killed by the dazzling light that fell from the void.
Each death in my dreams dulled me to pain.
So, if I put it simplyI was an abnormality from the moment I gained self-awareness.
But now... I'm slowly 'losing even that'.
And for the first time, I feel 'fear'.
Fear of losing the very emotions that made me 'human'.
" Raka, eat quietly and don't make too much noise."
After answering my father, Raka got scolded for being noisy.
We had a quiet breakfast afterward.
Once we finished, my mother tapped her holographic watch, and a digital file appeared. She handed it to me.
I asked, "What is it?"
She replied, her tone was serious,
"An emergency case near the Slumber Pit. People have started disappearing from the nearby village."
"North, I want you to go with Raka who's been lazing around and start understanding your divine authority and responsibility."
"Since we still don't fully understand how your divinity work."
Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked away coldly.
Every god has their own 'authority' and 'abilities'.
My great-great-great-great-grandfather, Olwen Frozenlight, had the ability to freeze time itself. He even made time heavier across our entire nation so much so that time here passes far more slowly than in other lands.
'Sounds absurd, right?'
Time is relative and imaginary but it has 'essence' too, because it exists and we can see the flow of the time or it's imprintment. That's how Olwen could command it.
And yet, my affinity with the Ice God's divinity is said to be even greater than his.
But I'm still not used to it.
It's like handing an 18-year-old 'a thousand nukes', telling him,
"Learn how to use them without hurting anyone."
" I cannot show up like this, just give a little time to get ready ."
While Raka went to get dressed with the help of his maid and butler, I made my way to the 'Information Bureau', located deep underground beneath the palace