FROST
Chapter 38: The Ghost of a Forgotten Diety

Chapter 38: The Ghost of a Forgotten Diety

"Where have you gone, Peri?"

The voice rippled through the chamber—low, husky, and ancient—carrying the weight of centuries within each rasped syllable. It slithered across the marble floors, curling against the cold stone pillars that stood like silent witnesses to a time long before the world had forgotten gods.

The air inside the vast hall was thick — not with dust, but with something far heavier. Something that had lingered long before any mortal tongue had learned to name fear.

From the shadowed archway, she emerged — a woman carved out of twilight itself. Her hair, a river of liquid indigo, cascaded down her back, shimmering under the pale light that seeped through the cracks of the ceiling. The faint glow caught the strands like woven constellations, flickering with hues of deep violet and blue. Her skin was porcelain, but not the fragile kind—rather, the kind of pale that belonged to something untouched by time or ruin.

Her eyes—those charoite eyes—were the color of uncut gemstones, swirling with mysteries buried beneath endless layers of prophecy and deceit. They glistened as though they held every secret ever whispered into the night... or perhaps, every betrayal she had borne in silence.

The scent followed her—a lingering trace of something both divine and forgotten. It wasn’t perfume, but an essence... like rain on burnt lavender, or the last breath of a dying star. The kind of scent that made one wonder whether they should kneel or run.

Her footsteps echoed with measured grace, yet the weight they carried made the very air tighten. She walked as if the whole universe owed her an apology, but she was far too tired to ever ask for one.

The voice did not speak again, but she could feel it — watching, waiting — as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.

Periwinkle.

The youngest of the Guardians. The one everyone always forgot. The one everyone assumed was harmless. But there was something about her presence now — something darker beneath the porcelain exterior. A silent defiance blooming behind those gemstone eyes.

"I asked you a question."

The voice slithered through the shadows again — calm, but barbed.

Periwinkle’s eyes flicked toward the sound, but her expression remained tranquil — almost bored. She walked further into the chamber, each step deliberate, her delicate fingers trailing along the stone walls. The runes carved into them flared under her touch — faint traces of silver light blooming, then flickering out as if afraid to be seen by her.

"Where have I gone?" Her voice was soft — too soft — like the sound of silk being torn in half. "Isn’t it funny how you’re always the first to ask where I’ve been... but never why I left?"

A beat of silence stretched between them, heavy and oppressive.

The voice didn’t answer right away.

Periwinkle’s lips twitched—something close to a smile, but colder.

"You never notice, do you?" she continued, her gaze wandering along the carvings on the wall. "I’m always there, standing in the corner... listening... watching... pretending not to understand half the things you’re hiding."

Her fingers lingered on one particular rune, one that had been hastily scratched out. She traced the scarred surface slowly, as if she could still feel the magic buried beneath.

"You all think I’m the weakest link."

A whisper of wind stirred through the chamber — or maybe it was the breath of whatever ancient creature lingered beyond the veil, eavesdropping on this conversation.

"But the thing about weak links..." Periwinkle turned, finally facing the empty dark. Those luminous eyes narrowed, the faintest shimmer of defiance sparking behind her irises.

"...is that they’re always the first to break."

For the first time, the silence seemed to listen.

Even the shadows recoiled.

Periwinkle smiled—soft, delicate, but entirely wrong.

"You wanted to know where I’ve gone?" Her voice dipped lower, dangerously melodic. "I’ve been right here, all along... learning how to bloom."

And as she spoke, the rune beneath her fingertips flared to life — not silver, but crimson — bleeding into the stone like something long buried clawing its way back to the surface.

Suddenly, the voice broke into a low, mocking laugh — a sound both familiar and unsettling, like a melody twisted out of shape.

"Oh... you silly child."

The words slithered through the air, soft yet laced with condescension. They echoed louder, reverberating in the shadows until they became something tangible — a weight pressing against Periwinkle’s fragile mind.

From the depths of the suffocating dark, black smoke began to gather — thick, oily tendrils swirling like the remnants of a dying curse. It coiled around her in a slow, deliberate dance, as if savoring her helplessness. The scent of burnt incense and something faintly metallic clung to the air.

"I was the only one who ever saw your worth."

The voice lingered, turning richer, more distinct — no longer a formless whisper, but something shaped by memory. Familiar. Intimate. Cruel.

"I was the only one who reached for your crumbling soul... the only one who accepted you — and you think I would not see what you were up to?"

The smoke shifted, condensing into something almost solid. It stretched into vague outlines — broad shoulders, slender fingers — a silhouette molded from Periwinkle’s deepest ache. Then, as if the darkness had plucked the image straight from the shrine of her mind, the figure took on the shape of him. The man who had once made her heart bloom — and then left it to rot.

A sharp breath caught in her throat, but she didn’t pull away when the cold, spectral fingers tilted her chin upward — gentle, almost affectionate.

"Oh, my little flower..."

His voice turned softer now, brushing against her ears like a lover’s lullaby — the same voice that had once promised she could be so much more. His thumb traced the line of her jaw, a phantom touch that left behind nothing but the ache of what could never be.

"I wanted you to bloom for the right moment... not sneak into Moonstone Academy to throw tantrums at those clumsy little apprentices."

The mockery in his tone was sugar-sweet — the kind that dripped slow and sticky before it turned to venom.

Periwinkle’s heart twisted painfully, caught between fear and the terrible longing to believe him — even now.

She immediately yanked herself back, breath hitching as if she’d been scalded — refusing to drown in the heartless crimson depths that stared back at her.

"Not again."

The thought seared through her mind like a hot iron branding an old wound.

"Don’t—" she spat, her voice sharp, though the tremor betrayed how dangerously close she had been to succumbing. "Don’t play with me."

The words dripped venom, but the way her fingers lingered just a second too long before flicking his hand away told a different story — a story only the dead would dare to whisper.

"If you weren’t just so stupid—" her breath quickened, the syllables cracking against the hollow silence, "—and declared war with the gods before I could destroy my brothers... I could have—"

Her voice faltered, caught between fury and something softer — something far more damning.

"I could have helped you."

The smoke flickered, as if the figure had inhaled those words like the sweetest offering.

"You could have still been here..."

Her lavender eyes — the kind that had once begged him to see her beyond the puppet strings — burned bright under the weight of everything she would never confess.

"...with me."

For a moment, the room tasted of old grief — bitter, metallic, and forgotten. But Periwinkle swallowed it down like the loyal little monster he had made her.

She turned her back on him, the gesture slow, deliberate — a queen dismissing her own heartache. The ethereal fabric of her dress swayed around her, the color deep as twilight, stitched from sins so ancient even the heavens had forgotten who they once belonged to.

The gods could swear they saw her weaving them herself — thin, delicate threads pulled from the souls she had quietly damned, each stitch a whispered betrayal.

"You always did make such pretty things out of broken pieces..."

The figure’s voice curled behind her ear — silk over thorns — but Periwinkle didn’t falter.

She merely lifted her chin higher, wearing her ruin like a crown.

"And you always did mistake me for something you could keep."

The figure’s smoke coiled around her once more — an embrace both possessive and suffocating. His presence slithered beneath her skin, threading into the fractures he’d left behind, as if he had never truly loosened his grip on her at all.

A velvet whisper brushed against the shell of her ear.

"Now... if you’d do me a favor, my little flower..."

His voice was honeyed, coaxing — but beneath the sweet cadence, there was something older. Something that spoke in forgotten tongues.

"Stay away from the Moonstone Academy — for now."

The shadows around them stirred, thickening as if they carried secrets of their own.

"My hounds have already begun their hunt... slinking beneath the academy’s barrier, undetected. Soon, they will carve through every spell and ward without ever cracking the moonstone buried beneath the earth."

His fingers — or what little remained of them — brushed along the curve of her throat, leaving behind a trail of phantom cold.

"That stone... the tear of the Moon... it is the only thing binding me to this wretched half-existence. Once it is in my possession, this broken body will be nothing more than dust — and I will walk this world again... whole."

The smoke pressed closer, curling against her lips like a breath poised to steal something vital.

"You wouldn’t want to slow me down... would you, Periwinkle?"

He said her name as if it still belonged to him — a long-forgotten vow carved into the marrow of her bones.

"You were always so good at waiting."

A cruel smile lingered in his voice.

"Wait for me."

Slowly, the smoke unraveled — dissolving back into the void like a whispered promise left to linger. His presence remained, clinging to the cold air, but Periwinkle was alone once more — if she had ever truly been anything else.

A long, slow sigh slipped past her lips, heavy with something too tired to be regret.

She lifted her hand, fingers gliding effortlessly through the shadows as if sculpting the very fabric of the unseen. At her silent command, a bubble shimmered into existence — fragile, silver-edged, and pulsing faintly like a newborn star.

Within its glassy surface, images flickered to life. The Moonstone Academy.

Apprentices — bright-eyed and foolish — followed East’s gentle guidance around the ancient fountain.

Periwinkle’s violet gaze narrowed at the sight of those small, hopeful souls gathered beneath the cracked marble spout, their hands outstretched toward the closed peonies now hovering on their hands.

The girl clenched her jaw as the blossoms slowly began to unfurl, spilling out delicate petals drenched in light.

Soft hues of gold, blue, and iridescent violet shimmered from within — rays of celestial energy rising into the sky like fragments of a long-forgotten hymn. Each one ascended higher... and higher... until they began stitching themselves into the jagged fractures she’d carved into the barrier only nights ago.

Periwinkle’s hand twitched a little — perhaps in amusement. She wasn’t really expecting anything from these stupid apprentices as the moment she set eyes on them, she never felt anything precious aside from a few.

Her eyes lingered on Cullen for a moment, lips tugging into a cryptic grin. "Ahh if there’s someone who could rival Silvermist’s interesting origin, it could be this kid."

She giggled, enjoying the little taunts she has been setting into the Academy to test the apprentices abilities and so far, they still do not add up into her expectations.

With a flick of her wrist, the image rippled — fading into another vision.

This time, the Earth flickered into view — suspended in a quiet, cosmic cradle. But the vision did not show the blue-green world that poets and gods once wept for.

The planet’s surface lay fractured beneath the weight of shifting climates — half of it scorched beneath a molten sun, the other half strangled by endless sheets of ice.

Cities stood crumbled beneath storms that had raged without rest for years. People wandered in endless dusk — wrapped in stained scarves, their breath curling into thin clouds as they scavenged through the ruin.

What little light remained seemed... wrong. A pale imitation of the sun’s warmth— something the Guardians are trying to mend.

"Everything’s running according to my plans," Periwinkle muttered, her lavender eyes lingered on the people below — their cracked lips and sunken cheeks — before she flicked her fingers once more, making the image dissolve into silver mists.

The vision obeyed... but not entirely.

Instead of fading into emptiness, the mists writhed — stubborn and thick, as if something unseen was pulling the strings from behind the veil.

Periwinkle’s brows knitted, her lips curling into a scowl.

The woman was still out there — hidden, slipping through her sight like a cursed thread woven out of spite itself.

"But why on earth..." she muttered through clenched teeth, her violet eyes narrowing.

"...am I not able to find that woman until now?!"

Her voice cut through the dark — sharp and venomous — but the mists gave no answer.