The peak of the mountain was a cathedral of ice, where the wind sang in the key of death and the sky felt close enough to touch, yet cold enough to shatter the soul. Kaelen stood knee-deep in the crystalline drifts, his lungs burning with every intake of the razor-thin air. Before him, the Frost-Wyrm loomed—a gargantuan entity of living glacier and ancient, frozen sorrow. Its face, a haunting, translucent mask of the First King, Aurelius, stared down at him with eyes that held the weight of a thousand winters.
This was not merely a beast of legend. It was the Echo—the remaining sentinel of Aurelius's memory, a fragment of the man who had founded the Blackfang dynasty, left behind to guard the only thing that could bridge the gap between mortal frailty and divine fire.
