—shhhhhh—
The snow never stopped.
It fell in slow, merciless silence, layer upon layer, as if the sky itself had forgotten how to do anything else. Gray flakes drifted through the shattered spires of Aethelgard's outer district, settling on rusted iron, broken glass, and the bowed backs of those unfortunate enough to still breathe beneath the open sky.
The wind howled.
Not loud—never loud—but sharp. A blade of cold that slipped through cloth and skin alike, stealing warmth, stealing feeling, stealing years from a body one shiver at a time. In this place, staying warm was a privilege. One Leon did not possess.
He pulled his hood lower and kept walking.
Crunch. Crunch.
His boots—mismatched, soles split and chewed thin—bit into frozen slush that had once been a street. The buildings around him leaned inward like dying men, their brickwork gnawed raw by decades of frost and neglect. Pre-Cataclysm patterns peeked through collapsed walls—strange geometries, symbols without meaning to anyone still alive.
Leon didn't look up.
There was nothing to see but the same ash-colored sky that had loomed over the city since the day he was born.
Eighteen years.
Eighteen winters.
He had never seen the sun.
He slipped into a narrow alley between two half-fallen tenements, boots scraping against hidden ice. The air here was thick with the smell of coal smoke, boiled roots, and something faintly metallic.
Blood.
Someone's nose had given out again.
Common. The cold thinned the blood. Hunger finished the job.
A patrol crossed the alley's mouth.
Four guards in heavy greatcoats. Rifles slung. Faces hidden behind frost-rimmed scarves. Their lanterns swung slowly, arcs of dull gold cutting briefly through the gray before being swallowed whole.
Leon pressed into the shadow of a doorway.
Step. Step.
White breath. Clinking metal.
The guards passed without stopping.
They always did—unless they smelled fresh meat or easy coin.
Leon had neither.
When the sound faded, he moved again.
His destination lay ahead: a breach in the old inner wall, a wound in stone left unhealed. The masonry had split just wide enough for a thin body to slip through. Beyond it waited the forbidden ruins—what remained of the pre-Cataclysm districts.
Picked clean decades ago.
Still worth the risk.
A pipe fitting. Copper wire. Insulated glass. Anything that could be traded for bread… or coal.
He turned sideways and squeezed through, coat snagging on exposed rebar.
Scrrrrk.
On the other side, the wind struck harder, unimpeded by slum walls. Snow bit into his cheeks like needles. Leon adjusted the scrap sack on his shoulder and stepped forward.
The ruins greeted him with silence.
Towering skeletons of buildings stood open to the sky, their insides hollowed by time and scavengers alike. Snow filled the lower floors, smooth and untouched—save for tracks.
Long.
Dragging.
Ending in clawed impressions.
Frost wraiths.
Leon avoided them instinctively.
He had seen what they left behind.
Frozen statues of people who had screamed once—mouths stretched open, eyes wide, skin blue-black and glittering as if carved from ice.
He climbed instead.
Broken staircases. Collapsed floors. Leaps over empty air where a misstep meant death. His breath stayed even. His body knew this work well.
Numb fingers pried at window frames.
Tested doors.
Searched seams.
Today was lean.
A handful of screws.
A cracked porcelain insulator.
Enough for half a loaf.
Maybe.
By late afternoon, such as it was, the gray dimmed toward black.
Time to leave.
On the way back, Leon paused on a third-floor landing, chest rising and falling. From here, he could see the inner city.
Lights.
Faint electric glow beyond towering walls.
Warm.
Distant.
The Veiled Ones lived there.
The Awakened.
Those who had returned from the Spell with power in their veins and coin in their pockets. People whispered that they didn't feel the cold anymore.
Leon spat.
The saliva froze before it landed.
He descended, slipped through the breach, and trudged home.
The basement hid beneath a bombed-out laundry block, its entrance masked by a rusted washing drum. Inside, a single oil lamp burned low, shadows stretching across cracked concrete.
Three figures waited.
Mara sat hunched over the fire barrel, coughing into a rag already stained red. Fifteen years old. Dying slow.
Kell lounged on a heap of blankets, dragging a whetstone along a shiv with lazy strokes. Sixteen. Loud. Always talking about how he'd welcome the Spell if it ever came for him.
Little Jey slept in the corner, clutching a rag doll stitched from old socks.
Leon dropped his sack.
Clink.
"That it?" Kell asked.
"That's it."
Kell snorted. "Better than nothing. Old Tully said another kid got taken last night. South sector. Woke up screaming 'Mueor' till he vanished."
Mara lifted her head, eyes hollow. "They always scream it," she rasped. "Like it's carved into them."
Leon said nothing.
He ladled thin soup—boiled snow water and root scraps—and sat against the wall. The fire's warmth barely touched him. He ate slowly, tasting nothing.
The night dragged on.
Kell boasted about a Veiled One who walked barefoot through snow without leaving prints.
Mara whispered prayers to gods no one remembered.
Jey whimpered in his sleep.
Leon stared into the lamp flame until his eyes burned.
Later, when silence reclaimed the room, he lay back and listened to the building groan above him. Wind moaned through broken windows.
Far away—
Aaaaaaah—
A frost wraith's howl cut through the night, thin and mourning.
Sleep would not come.
It never did.
Leon stared at the ceiling where frost crept in delicate fern-shaped patterns. If he stared long enough, they almost looked like letters.
Almost like writing.
A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes.
He ignored it.
Then—
Drip.
Something warm struck his cheek.
Leon wiped his nose.
Blood.
Dark.
Another nosebleed.
When it hit the concrete, it steamed.
His breath hitched.
He wiped it away and closed his eyes.
That was when the whispering began.
At first, it sounded like the wind—soft, mournful. Then it sharpened.
Closer.
Inside.
Voices. Many voices.
All the same word.
Mueor.
Mueor.
Mueor.
Leon sat up.
The basement was unchanged. The others slept. The lamp still burned.
Yet the air felt heavy—oppressive—as if the snow outside pressed down through the ceiling.
His heartbeat slowed.
Another drop of blood fell.
This time it smoked longer.
The whispering swelled, filling his skull with grief older than the city.
Older than winter itself.
Mueor.
Leon stood.
The walls rippled.
Concrete bled into white.
Snowflakes drifted inside the room, settling without melting.
Impossible.
Kell stirred—but did not wake.
Leon stepped back.
The floor cracked beneath his boot—
—not with sound—
—but with light.
Pale blue fractures spread like veins.
The voices spoke as one.
Come.
He tried to shout.
Nothing came out.
The snow rose.
The world fell silent.
And Leon was swallowed whole.