The violet slab of ice carved through the frozen basin like a silent, spectral ship. Clevatess stood at the very edge of the moving platform, his raven-feather mantle streaming behind him in the biting wind. The Absolute Zero energy hummed beneath his feet, keeping the "tide" moving at a speed that blurred the jagged white horizon.
Around them, the Queen's ice-skiffs were scattered like broken toys. Their brass runners, designed to glide on sun-glass ice, were useless against the deep violet frost Clevatess had summoned. The Vanguard scouts could only watch in stunned silence as the King of the Night bypassed their checkpoints without firing a single shot.
You look different when you are in your element, Alicia said, her blue aura crackling as she practiced her low-gravity footing on the moving ice. You look like you are finally being fed by the world again.
A King is only as strong as the land he protects, Clevatess replied, his eyes fixed on a cluster of lights appearing in the distance. For ten years, the north has been starving for the cold. My spirit is fed because I am finally giving back what was stolen.
The lights ahead belonged to a Northern Outpost, a massive fortress built into a glacier. It was the "Feeding Station," where the Queen's engineers processed the essence of the frozen sea to power the Sun-Gates. As they drew closer, a siren began to wail—a harsh, mechanical scream that vibrated through the air.
Three heavy-duty ice-sleds, armed with thermal cannons, lurched forward from the outpost's gates. They weren't using runners; they had massive serrated wheels designed to grind through any surface. They were built for war, and they were heading straight for the violet tide.
Nelluru raised her hands, her lime-green aura glowing with intensity. They're going to try and ram us!
Clevatess didn't flinch. He simply lowered his hand to the ice beneath him. They think they are the ones who control the movement of this world, he whispered.
With a sharp flick of his wrist, Clevatess commanded the violet sea to rise. A massive wave of solid ice, fifty feet high, erupted from the flat plain. The enemy sleds, unable to stop their momentum, slammed into the frozen wall at full speed. The sound of crushing metal and exploding thermal cores filled the air, but the violet tide simply flowed around the wreckage, carrying Clevatess and his companions closer to the fortress gates.
The spirit of the north was waking up, and it was hungry for justice.
*