FROST
Chapter 112: Of Halo and Horn

Chapter 112: Of Halo and Horn

Caspian’s body crumpled against the cracked stone floor as the last of the pain ebbed from his limbs.

His breaths came in gasps, chest heaving, muscles twitching as the oppressive mana that had bound and burned him for what felt like an eternity finally lifted. The chains of shadow that coiled around his body evaporated in a hiss of smoke, leaving behind welts and smoldering cuts that glowed faintly with the residue of demonic magic.

But he didn’t move. Not yet, because couldn’t.

Instead, wincing, he turned his head—slowly, carefully—toward the source of the strange new mana that had torn through the cavern like a silent command. It wasn’t overwhelming like Yami’s chaos, nor was it radiant like the divine magic the Royal bloodline carried. No. This... this was still. Innocent yet eerie.

There, standing in the haze of settling ash and ruptured air, was the boy. His delicate hand was clutching Yami’s wrist.

And Yami stood frozen, mouth agape, eyes wide with something Caspian never thought he’d see in a creature like that. Just like him, Yami himself was also surprised by the boy’s sudden interferance.

Yami’s body twitched, his other hand jerking in an attempt to pull away, but the boy didn’t budge. His grip, small as it was, held him like iron forged in silence. They looked as if they were arguing—but no sound reached Caspian’s ears. His hearing hazy from Yami’s sudden attack. He could have avoided it, and yet he was caught, thinking he had won.

Only the rising tension that made the air hum and the shadows on the walls twitch like they wanted to run.

Then the silence broke.

"I am your father, you useless child!" Yami snarled aloud, his voice echoing through the hollow cavern with enough force to crack the walls.

The boy blinked once. No expression. No emotion. Just silence. Yami recoiled, grimacing—not from injury, but from disbelief. He knew the child would grow strong. Knew the blood he forged would one day eclipse even his own might. But not now. Not this soon. Not like this now that he had stolen half of his years.

If only Yami wasn’t bound in this half-existence—his original form sealed away, his body no more than a vessel, fragile, corrupted by time and war. Only if he were whole, he could have ended this. Crush the cavern and shatter the demon barriers himself.

But here he was—tethered. Failing. Fearing a child he bore into this crooked world.

A flash of rage surged in his core, igniting the coiled shadows around him with a crimson glow like corrupted veins bursting beneath the skin.

"You dare defy me?" he howled.

In the blink of an eye, the air split.

Dozens of shadowy tendrils, pulsing with malignant light, shot out from his back like spears, zeroing in on the boy’s chest—aimed straight for his heart. The attack was meant to obliterate him, to erase whatever defiance existed in that tiny shell.

But they never made it.

The tendrils vanished—before they touched a strand of the boy’s hair. Not dissipated. Erased. Unmade by a will stronger than Yami’s own.

Caspian’s breath caught in his throat.

Yami’s eyes widened—too late.

In one swift, utterly fluid motion, the boy curled his fingers and drove his tiny fist straight through Yami’s chest.

The sound wasn’t explosive—it was quiet. Too quiet. Like a knife slicing through silk.

Yami’s mouth opened, and a strangled groan escaped his throat. He staggered backward as black and crimson miasma poured from the gaping hole in his torso like tar, writhing and screaming in tongues no mortal could understand. The edges of the wound burned with a lightless fire, devouring him from the inside.

Caspian stared, unmoving, eyes wide with disbelief. The demon who had easily captured him earlier stood helpless against a young boy.

Thrashing.

His form began to collapse in on itself, shadows peeling away from his limbs in smoky ribbons. His face warped, features blurring, twisting—not from magic, but from the pure unraveling of what he was. And the boy, still silent, still emotionless, stood in place with his arm buried deep in the collapsing demon’s chest.

Then, slowly, the boy stepped back, withdrawing his hand. Yami staggered, mouth working soundlessly. No words came. No curses.

Only a final, broken shriek as his form twisted one last time and dissolved into formless shadow, crumbling into nothing as the miasma scattered like ash caught in a void-born wind.

And just like that, Yami turned into a miasma. The very first form Caspian had seen him.

"You little—" Yami rasped, his voice distorted and crumbling as his form dissolved into thick miasma. He lunged, one last desperate strike in a haze of shadows and wrath—but the boy merely flicked a finger.

And Yami vanished.

Erased—not destroyed, not slain, but removed, as if the world itself had rejected his existence.

"He’ll linger nearby," the child murmured, voice faint, almost distant. Then he turned to Caspian, the void still swirling in his eyes. "Never let your guard down again, Your Highness."

Caspian collapsed to his knees, breath catching in his throat. Every chain, every curse, every invisible torment melted away in an instant.

The pressure that had threatened to crush him was gone.

The cavern trembled with residual power, groaned under unseen weight—then fell still.

And in the center of the silence stood the boy, upright, unwavering. But his form had begun to flicker. Wisps of Yami’s lingering shadows curled toward him, seeping back into his skin like ink returning to a well—reclaiming what had once been stolen.

And in the next moment, the child’s body began to shrink.

It started subtly—his shoulders drawing inward, his spine curving ever so slightly as the air around him warped. Then, like a ripple pulled into itself, his entire form began to fold in, limbs retracting, bones softening, the sheer, incomprehensible force that had surged through him now collapsing like a dying star.

The boy—no, whatever he had become—was returning to something smaller. Something quieter. The divine pressure that had filled the cavern like an impending catastrophe faded with each passing breath. His power withdrew, silent and reluctant, like a tide pulled back into the ocean, until only the husk of its source remained.

In mere seconds, the towering figure of chaos and stillness had unraveled.

And in its place—falling, limp and weightless—was a tiny infant.

So fast. So impossible. Yet Caspian saw it all. Felt it like a strike in his chest.

He moved before thought could catch up.

One moment, he was on his knees. The next, he had leapt forward, his arms scooping the small, fragile body mid-air with the precision of instinct and desperation colliding. He landed with a stagger, kneeling once again, but now with something warm and impossibly small curled against him.

The infant’s head nestled against the bare skin of his chest, still faintly glowing from the battle’s remains. Soft, impossibly light. And still.

Caspian looked down. His breath hitched.

The child did not look like a creature born of a demon.

No curling snarls, no hellish aura, no monstrous fangs or demonic markings remained. Just the smooth curve of rounded cheeks, faintly flushed. Lashes dusted like feathers on closed eyes. Tiny hands curled close to his chest. An almost... peaceful stillness.

A quiet not born of exhaustion—but of innocence.

Caspian blinked, his brows drawing in slightly. Something about the baby’s horns—they were smaller than before. Fainter. As if the moment the child returned to this form, the world itself was trying to pretend that power had never existed.

"Did it retract as well?" he muttered under his breath, fingers trembling slightly as they hovered over the faint stubs of the baby’s horns.

And then, something unfamiliar tugged at his face—a smile—a relief.

It crept along the edge of his lips as he stared—measured—the child’s face with something close to reverence. He traced the curve of the brow, the delicate nose, the pout of lips.

"You truly look like your mother," he whispered. Not a statement, but a truth that wrapped around his chest like silk and steel.

Then, as if in response, the baby stirred.

Tiny fingers twitched, then opened—grasping for something blindly. One of Caspian’s fingers drifted too close, and in that moment, the infant’s hand closed around it.

And time itself seemed to pause.

From the point where the baby’s tiny fingers curled around his, a sensation began to spread—slow, sure, and impossibly familiar.

Frost bloomed.

Not the brittle, biting kind that heralded death, but something gentler. Softer. A quiet, elegant spiral of cold unfurling like a whisper across his skin. It curled along the ridges of his knuckles, wound over the bones of his hand with a touch that felt... old. Intentional. Like the echo of a lullaby long forgotten.

It didn’t sting—it’s just there as though trying to make itself known.

Caspian’s breath caught in his throat. The faint smile that had begun to form on his lips faltered, folding into something far more complicated. Something quieter.

His gaze fixed on the child—on that impossibly small hand wrapped around his finger with such innocent strength.

And beneath that innocence, he felt it.

Connection.

Caspian’s eyes darkened, shadows of recognition flickering in their depths. The cold spreading from the child’s touch was not foreign. It was not stolen. It was not inherited from Yami or shaped by the ruinous magic that had nearly torn the cavern apart moments ago.

It was Caspian’s. His mana. His thread. The signature of his own soul.

And the baby knew it.

Caspian swallowed, his chest rising and falling in a shallow breath.

"This mana thread..." he whispered, the words thick in his throat, as if speaking them would summon truths he wasn’t ready to face.

Slowly, his eyes lifted, drawn irresistibly to the child’s face. Soft. Peaceful. As if none of the chaos had ever touched him. As if he hadn’t just erased a monster with the flick of a finger.

"—is r-really mine."