1490 A.S. — The Tsarian Straits
The battle was already in full hell when the sky started going dark.
The water in the Tsarian Straits rolled hard and black, smashing against hulls and throwing freezing spray high enough to soak men on the upper decks. Wind screamed through sail lines and snapped banners like whips. Storm clouds were gathering fast, swallowing up what little light the afternoon had left. A real storm was coming.
And nobody was getting out before it hit.
Fire Muti cannon rounds screamed over the strait from both fleets.
They lit the rough sea red-orange every time they crossed.
Then they hit.
Wood blew apart.
Ice plating shattered.
Men disappeared.
The Tsar Empire had the upper hand.
Their warships were huge galleon-brutes, broad through the belly and built to force water to move around them whether it liked it or not. Dark ironwood hulls. Steel-ribbed sides. Great carved Ursa Maws at the bow, war-bear heads with jaws open and fangs bared, their eyes faintly lit blue from ship-lamps fed through Muti lines in the wood. Along the hulls, engraved channels glowed hot whenever the batteries loaded.
These weren't just ships with cannons.
They were floating Muti engines.
Deep below deck, furnace chambers throbbed. Loader teams rammed rounds home while fire-aligners fed aura into the cannon housings. Muti engineers worked the pressure rods and regulator wheels, keeping the firing lines clean enough that the guns could keep cycling without blowing half the ship open.
Across from them, Vinlan moved cleaner.
Their warships were lower, leaner, carrack-cut and winter-built, with antler-crested Vyrrath prows carved like old sea wyrms. Their hulls were layered in frost-treated timber and reinforced by ice-binding latticework under the boards. Pale vapor rolled from the seams every time they cut hard through the strait. Their Muti systems ran colder and quieter than the Tsarian line, cleaner on the turn, better built for surviving bad northern water.
But right now, the Tsarians were pressing them.
A Tsarian broadside ripped across the strait.
Five Fire Muti rounds came out in rapid succession.
Two missed wide.
Three hit.
One Vinlan ship lost half its side in a burst of burning frost and shattered timber. Another took a direct hit near the bow and lurched hard enough to throw sailors across the deck. A mast cracked halfway up and leaned with that ugly bend that meant somebody's next order was going to be screamed through blood.
On the Tsarian flagship, Grand Admiral Jukof stood at the forward command deck with both hands clasped behind his back, fur-lined warcoat snapping in the storm wind. Thick beard. Hard face. The kind of man who looked like he distrusted spring.
He watched another Vinlan ship barely slip a killing volley and clicked his tongue.
"About time they give up to Tsarian might," he muttered in his heavy Tsarian accent. "Ve are better in every vay, and still these vermin stand in front of us like they have some claim to these waters."
He turned toward the gunnery line.
"More fire. Feed the chambers harder. Break those ice hulls. I vant them burning before storm takes the rest."
"Aye, Grand Admiral!"
Below him, Tsarian crews moved faster.
Loader teams rammed fresh rounds into place.
Fire-aligners fed more aura into the firing mouths.
Pressure rods spun.
The hull veins lit red again.
Another broadside tore out across the sea.
Vinlan answered the way they had all battle.
They moved.
Their helmsmen fought the wheels hard. Their ships cut tighter through the chop than the heavier Tsarian beasts could match. Their own cannon crews answered with white-blue shots from cryo-lined housings, every discharge venting cold mist into the wind.
A Vinlan volley crossed the water—
—and a wall of ice ripped out of nowhere.
It came up fast and brutal between the fleets, a jagged slab of frozen sea that swallowed the incoming rounds whole in a burst of white shards.
On the nearest Vinlan flagship, Admiral Brookloft stared.
"What in the black sea—"
He stepped forward so fast he nearly hit the rail.
"Who in the frost did that?"
He shoved aura into his eyes.
Kyōmei-shi sharpened his vision through sleet, smoke, and distance. His gaze ran the Tsarian line one ship at a time—
Then it landed.
A figure sitting on the carved Ursa Maw at the front of the Tsarian flagship like the whole battle bored him.
One leg bent.
One elbow resting easy.
A cigarette lit in the wind.
Brookloft froze.
His mouth moved before pride caught up.
"It's… it's Tikhan."
One officer beside him turned. "What?"
Brookloft didn't blink.
"The new Pillar."
That landed badly.
Everybody around him understood why.
Tikhan shouldn't have been here.
Not for this.
Not for water claims.
Not for trade pressure.
Brookloft's jaw tightened.
"What in the frozen deep is a Pillar doing here?" he muttered. "Didn't the bastard just get made one? This sort o' scrap should never need his eye…"
Then, lower:
"Where's Flamehart when ye need him?"
As if hearing the thought through the smoke and thunder, Tikhan rose.
He took one last drag from the cigarette and stood on the Ursa Maw like he was stepping onto a porch, not the front of a warship in the middle of a freezing strait battle.
Dark skin.
White braids.
Fur-lined armor dusted in frost.
Young enough to look disrespectful.
His coat tails snapped hard behind him in the wind.
He raised one hand.
"Cryo Muti: Ice Age."
The sea answered him at once.
Frost burst outward from the Tsarian flagship in a screaming white ring. It raced over broken water, under splintered debris, beneath blood, beneath the Vinlan hulls—
—and locked them.
One after another.
Keels trapped.
Rudders dead.
Movement gone.
Panic tore through the Vinlan line.
"We're frozen!"
"Axes!"
"It's got the hull!"
"We can't move!"
On the Tsarian flagship, Jukof smiled.
"About time," he muttered. "I thought perhaps you vere just going to smoke while ve fought your battle for you."
Tikhan didn't answer.
He just stared across the sea.
Jukof lifted his hand.
"All ships. Take aim."
The Tsarian batteries shifted as one.
Cannon mouths lowered.
Barrels aligned.
Fire chambers brightened.
Across the frozen Vinlan line, Brookloft roared:
"Take cover! Don't abandon ship! If they catch ye in the water they'll shoot ye dead before the cold does!"
Men dropped.
Some grabbed rail.
Some braced.
Some just waited.
Jukof cut his hand down.
"Fire!"
Nothing happened.
His face changed.
He turned sharply.
"Vhy are ve not firing?"
A cannon captain below shouted up, "Trying, Grand Admiral!"
Jukof's eyes hardened.
"Then fire again!"
A few guns answered—
—and two Tsarian ships exploded.
One burst from the battery deck outward, showering the frozen sea with flaming timber and iron. Another lost half its portside guns in a chain blast that threw men screaming across the ice.
The Tsarian line stumbled into chaos.
Jukof looked out, saw the cannon mouths frozen shut, and his expression changed.
He knew that ice.
"He beat us at the Battle of the Ice Cliffs," Jukof said through his teeth. "He even defeated Momon the Defiled at Rajmu…"
On the Vinlan flagship, Brookloft was still staring at the Tsarian confusion when a voice behind him said:
"It's probably because of me."
He turned.
Then straightened instantly.
"About time ye got here."
Artemis Flamehart stood behind him.
The Ice King.
White hair.
Scar over the eye.
White-and-gold warcoat over black underlayers.
Fur-lined collar.
That same calm face that always looked like the battlefield had arrived late to him, not the other way around.
Frost breathed off him like it belonged there.
The reaction across the Vinlan ships was instant.
"Flamehart!"
"The Ice King!"
"He's here!"
"We're good now!"
It wasn't pretty cheering.
It was raw relief.
Men who had been bracing for death a second ago found their backs again.
Artemis barely reacted.
His eyes moved once across the frozen fleet.
"Get the ships closer together," he said. "I can protect more that way."
Brookloft snapped into motion.
"Ye heard him! Tight formation! Pull in!"
Artemis stepped onto the rail.
The cryo locking the Vinlan hulls cracked.
Then split.
Then started coming apart.
The sea around the trapped ships shifted under Artemis's influence and the frozen grip broke like it had realized it was on the wrong side of the strait.
Out on the Tsarian flagship, Jukof felt the change and hated it.
"Begin withdrawal," he snapped. "Before—"
He stopped.
Because Tikhan moved.
One second he was on the Ursa Maw.
The next he was in the middle of the strait.
He landed on the sea itself.
Cryo Muti burst under his boots in a hard white ring, freezing the surface solid enough to hold him above the black water. Wind slammed into him. His coat and braids whipped behind him. Storm clouds rolled heavier overhead.
Then he looked toward Artemis and curled his fingers once.
Come down.
Artemis stepped off the rail.
And walked onto the water.
His first step froze the surface.
His second froze deeper.
By the third, the strait changed.
Not louder.
Not brighter.
Colder.
The air got sharper.
The sea got stiller.
The frozen path under his feet turned denser, whiter, harder.
Tikhan's Cryo Muti had locked the sea.
Artemis's Ice Muti made the whole place feel buried.
Fish under the surface froze deeper in place. Sailors on both sides felt their lungs tighten. Even the wind seemed to cut cleaner around him.
Artemis kept walking.
No rush.
No show.
No stance.
Just that coat snapping behind him in the storm wind while the sea died under every step.
Tikhan watched him come with the cigarette still between his lips.
When Artemis stopped a few feet away, the two of them stood in the middle of a frozen strait under a sky gone almost black.
Wind howled.
Sails cracked in the distance.
Waves hammered under the outer sheets of ice.
Neither man cared.
Tikhan smiled around the smoke.
"You know, I grew up on your story. The Ice King this. The Ice King that. Greatest ice user alive. Greatest prodigy. Greatest legend. I used to hear all that and think…"
He flicked ash onto the frozen sea.
"I want to be just like him."
His smile widened.
"And now I've surpassed you in every way."
He lit another cigarette off the first one, then let the old one fall.
"I'm gonna show my country why I'm a Pillar. I'm gonna put down my hero, make a fortune, and prove I'm the best thing they've got." He laughed softly. "And you know me. I can't ever have enough money."
Artemis just stood there.
Still.
Calm.
Wind tearing at his coat.
White hair moving across his face.
Tikhan's smile tightened a little under that silence.
Then Artemis spoke.
"I never looked up to anyone but myself."
A beat.
"Pity you chose me."
Tikhan's eyes narrowed.
Artemis looked him over once, like he was trying to place the face and deciding it wasn't worth the effort.
"I don't even know who you are."
That one landed.
For the first time, real shock flashed across Tikhan's face.
Then the grin came back.
Sharper now.
Meaner.
He crushed the cigarette under one heel and dropped into his stance.
Low.
Ready.
Cryo Muti hissing off him.
Aura coiling tight around his body.
Artemis didn't move.
Didn't mirror him.
Didn't take a stance at all.
He just stood there on the frozen strait, hands at his sides, face calm, like the battle, the sea, the ships, and the man in front of him all meant the same thing to him.
Very little.
Then Tikhan smiled.
And raised one hand.
"Cryo Muti: Permafrost."
Ice caught Artemis at the feet.
In a burst crawl.
White cryo climbed over his boots, then his ankles, then started traveling up his legs in a slow hungry sheath. The rough frozen sea around them crackled under the pressure.
Tikhan lit another cigarette.
"How's that feel, Ice King?" he asked, smoke curling from his mouth. "I know it ain't much, but must be a little chilly over there."
The cryo kept climbing.
Shins.
Knees.
Thigh.
Then it stopped.
For one weird second, the ice shook.
Then it started retracting.
Not melting.
Pulling away.
Like it had touched something and thought better of it.
Tikhan's eyes widened.
"Damn," he muttered, half to himself. "He's using Ōi."
The cryo peeled back farther, hissing off Artemis's body.
"His will's that strong…" Then he grinned again. "Not even my ice wants to touch him. That's the Ice King for you."
Artemis stood there and dusted his coat off.
That was all.
Tikhan laughed once through his nose.
"Fine."
He opened his hand.
"Cryo Muti: Winter Pack."
Ten ice wolves formed around him at once.
They hit the sea hard when they landed, low and savage, frost steaming off their backs. Their jaws opened in silent snarls as Tikhan pointed.
"Go."
The pack shot forward.
Artemis finally moved his hand.
"Ice Muti: Sky Flock."
The air above him thickened into form from water vapor and then the birds came.
Eagles.
Hawks.
Dozens of them, made from pale killing ice and sharpened speed.
The first wave of eagles slammed into the wolves and snatched them up in their talons like they weighed nothing. They climbed hard into the storm-dark sky—
—and dropped them.
The wolves hit the frozen sea below and shattered into exploding sprays of ice.
The hawks were worse.
They didn't lift.
They accelerated.
White streaks punched across the strait and smashed straight through the rest of the wolves and into the frozen water beneath them. The impacts blew chunks of ice skyward in violent bursts, the sea-floor beneath spider-cracking with every hit.
Tikhan's smile twitched.
Then the flock turned on him.
The eagles swung back around, diving at full speed, talons out.
Tikhan snapped his hand up.
"Cryo Muti: Ice Wall."
A slab of ice rose in front of him—
—and the birds hit it.
One.
Two.
Three.
Explosion after explosion rang out as eagles and hawks smashed into the wall at full speed, blowing frost and broken ice everywhere. The white debris clouded the whole center of the strait.
Artemis watched through it, expression unchanged.
At least he can think on his feet.
Another blast hit the wall.
Still don't see what makes a brat like him a Pillar.
Then Tikhan came out of the smoke.
Fast.
Way faster than before.
He blitzed low across the ice, dodging between the last birds of the flock while his right hand formed a blade of cryo around itself.
"Cryo Muti: Frostblade."
The sword locked into shape in one clean flash—long, sharp, pale-blue, cold enough to warp the air around it. He cut through two incoming hawks in the same motion and kept coming.
One more eagle dove.
Tikhan ducked under it.
One step.
Two.
Now he was there.
Hair's length away.
Frostblade rising toward Artemis's neck—
Artemis moved one hand.
Everything ice on the sea except the space under his own feet converted instantly.
Solid white turned to black water.
Not slowly.
Not melting.
One state.
Then another.
Tikhan's footing vanished.
The ice under him became ocean and he plunged straight down into the rough strait with a violent splash, Frostblade breaking apart as the water swallowed him.
On the Tsarian flagship, Jukof's face changed.
"What—?!"
Across the Vinlan side, sailors exploded into cheers.
"He got him!"
"He's dead!"
"He's dead if he fell in there!"
One sailor laughed breathlessly. "That's 400 feet o' black water in a storm! He's done!"
Artemis turned and started walking back toward the Vinlan ships.
Calm.
Like the matter was over.
Then the sea shook.
The water around him rolled harder. Not wave-hard.
Something-under-it hard.
Artemis's eyes narrowed.
He fed aura into them.
Kyōmei-shi sharpened.
Down below the black water, something huge was ascending fast.
He bent his knees.
Jumped.
The ocean exploded.
A forty-foot ice-blackfin shark burst out of the strait in a wall of freezing spray, jaws wide enough to swallow a boatman whole. Its body was part dense cryo, part living sea-beast shape, black-backed and white-bellied with frost spikes running down the fins.
Artemis cleared it by a heartbeat.
Two of his remaining eagles caught him clean in the air and carried him up just enough for him to watch the creature breach below.
Standing on the shark's back was Tikhan.
Soaked.
Annoyed.
Trying to relight his cigarette.
The lighter sparked once.
Twice.
Failed.
Tikhan stared at it, irritated, then threw it into the sea.
He looked up at Artemis and smiled to himself.
"Muti conversion," he said. "That's super hard to pull off. Even for masters."
The shark circled under him, splitting black water and broken ice.
"Water to ice. Water to vapor. That's normal enough if you're built for it. But converting something like ice back to its primary state…" He laughed once, shaking water from his braids. "Only one percent of people in Margerina can do that clean. No wonder you're one of the monsters at the top."
His grin widened.
"No wonder I envy you even more."
Artemis looked down at him from between the two eagles holding him aloft.
"Of course you'd be impressed by a weak technique like that," he said flatly. "I thought you Pillars were supposed to be the strongest."
That one hit.
Tikhan's grin sharpened.
Then their Ōi collided.
It struck.
The pressure between them slammed out across the strait and the environment answered instantly. Clouds above split apart between their positions, a hard dark break running through the storm line like the sky itself had been cut. Rain hit heavier around them. Wind screamed across the water so violently the fleets had to fight just to stay upright.
The sea turned rougher.
Angrier.
Ships groaned.
Masts strained.
Men grabbed rails and cursed.
And yet the rain never touched either of them.
It fell around them.
Bent around them.
Broke around the space where their wills were clashing.
Tikhan's eyes narrowed.
Artemis's stayed cold.
The frozen sea between them cracked.
The shark under Tikhan snarled up foam.
The two eagles holding Artemis above the water beat their wings hard against the storm.
Tikhan's aura surged sharper.
He was about to go farther.
About to open more—
"Ryōi-"
Then Jukof's voice cut across the wind from the flagship.
"Tikhan!"
Tikhan didn't look away from Artemis.
Jukof again, harder:
"The strait is lost. We have what we came for. Pull back."
A beat.
Tikhan's jaw tightened.
His eyes stayed on Artemis.
The pressure between them held another second.
Then Tikhan made the call himself.
His Ōi eased first.
Deliberate.
Like setting something down rather than having it taken.
The sky didn't clear, but it stopped splitting wider.
The sea backed off just enough for the ships to stop looking like they were about to capsize.
Tikhan rolled one shoulder.
"Next time."
Artemis looked at him for a second.
Then said, "Hey, boy."
Tikhan blinked.
"Not bad."
A beat.
"Maybe next time I'll come in person."
Tikhan's smile faltered.
The two eagles holding Artemis burst into frost.
The figure between them melted away with them—
—not flesh.
Not real.
Ice.
An ice clone.
A perfect one.
The real Artemis had never even been there.
Tikhan's eyes went wide.
For the first time since the fight started, his face was completely honest.
Shock.
Then he laughed.
A short, sharp laugh, more impressed than angry.
"Of course," he muttered.
He stood on the back of the blackfin shark in the middle of the storm-dark strait, wet braids hanging, no cigarette left, ships pulling away on both sides.
The gap was still the gap.
He'd known it going in.
Told himself it wouldn't matter.
Fought like it didn't.
But standing here now, at the end of it, with the clone's frost still dissolving into the wind—
He knew exactly how far he still had to go.
Good.
The shark turned under him.
The Tsarian fleet withdrew.
The Vinlan ships regrouped behind the cold the Ice King had left on the sea.
And above them all, the storm finally broke.