FROST
Chapter 88: When The Cauldron Sleeps

Chapter 88: When The Cauldron Sleeps

Inside the chamber located at the bottom-most part of the Academy—so far below the ground it was said even sound refused to travel—ancient seals pulsed faintly against obsidian pillars carved with forgotten tongues.

The walls, lined with ever-burning runes, flickered erratically as though even the enchantments were straining against the energy gathering within. The floor itself, once smooth white marble, was now cracked in spiraling veins of crimsoned ice, crawling outward from the orb where Silvermist was held.

She hovered mid-air inside a translucent sphere, the containment orb glowing with layered enchantments—sigils that twisted like serpents in molten light.

But even they flickered, fracturing like glass about to break. Inside, Silvermist’s eyes were shut, her hair fanned out like threads of moonlight suspended in water, and her breaths were shallow—each exhale visible in the air, misty and laced with frost.

Surrounding the orb were five master sorcerers in ceremonial white cloaks—each one marked with sigils of resistance and purification. But the sheer force of the mana erupting from her had them staggering, arms extended toward the orb in a synchronizing stance of containment.

Their cloaks whipped violently as if caught in a magical gale, their boots scraping against the marble as the weight of her energy pressed harder.

One of them cried out as sparks singed his palm. Another had to bite his tongue to keep focus as blood began to drip from his nose.

"This is bad. Her mana is not responding to the ancient runes," Theo growled, stepping forward, sweat running down the side of his brow despite the freezing air around them. The glowing sigil on his own glove pulsed crimson—struggling to maintain its link. His usually even tone was now taut with anxiety.

He snapped his head to the three medical mages at the base of the platform, each seated around an arcane console made of floating glyphs. They were furiously inscribing sigils mid-air, their voices layering in a chant to reinforce the containment field.

"Yusuke, press on with the extraction!" Theo ordered.

Yusuke—tall, sharp-eyed, and calm under pressure—turned to him in protest. "But we are not allowed to tamper with apprentices’ mana, Theo. The High Circle—"

"To hell with the High Circle!" Theo shouted, and his voice reverberated through the chamber like thunder cracking through mountains. "If we don’t act now, her core might collapse—and take half this facility with her!"

Yusuke’s blonde hair, tied in a loose bun, whipped across his face as he braced against the surge of frost rushing from the orb. He looked toward Silvermist—suspended like a sleeping goddess inside a storm—and saw a shimmer of darkness threading her mana.

"It’s reacting to something. Or someone," Yusuke muttered, eyes narrowing as his hands hovered over the trembling console. The glyphs beneath his fingers sparked and scattered like startled fireflies. "Something else is pulling at her core. This isn’t just a surge... this is a call."

Theo’s jaw clenched. The blue glow of the chamber reflected off his silver-lined gloves, now quivering with the strain of the containment spell.

"Then we sever the line," he said through gritted teeth, his voice low and urgent. "Before it pulls her under."

"We can’t," came a strained voice to his left.

It was Althea—one of the three medical mages working tirelessly to stabilize the orb. Her old rose-colored hair fluttered against the raw air pressure surrounding the chamber. Sigils floated before her like fading stars, trembling at her fingertips, barely holding formation.

"You heard what West said," she pressed, her breath fogging the air. "This happened when they got too close to the Winter Guardian’s chamber. If we sever it now, we could be cutting off their link entirely. We’d lose her... and him and we can’t afford what the consequences are with that."

Theo turned, the shadows under his eyes deepening. "Well... y-you’re saying Frost is doing this?"

"You can’t be serious, Al," Annica, the third mage in red hair, snapped, her tone edged with disbelief as she struggled to keep her own casting stable. Beads of sweat rolled down her temple, vanishing into the white of her collar. "The Winter Guardian sealed himself away to protect Miss Evermore. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—be the one hurting her."

Althea didn’t answer right away. Her body trembled, not from fear, but from the raw effort of keeping the link intact. Sparks burst from her fingertips as the mana backlash grew more violent. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, but carried the weight of something ancient.

"You all must have already heard the origin of the Winter Guardian. Although it was deemed as a myth," she said, her gaze distant, but her hands still firm. "He wasn’t born in the light. He was forged from something darker. His existence was a compromise between a goddess and a demon. And what sealed itself in that chamber..."

She looked up, her eyes wide with realization, "...might not be the same one that swore to protect her."

Silence dropped like a stone through the room.

"And whoever—or whatever—is calling out now," Althea continued, "might not even be calling Miss Evermore at all."

She turned to look at the orb, where Silvermist writhed in silent agony, hair fully silver now, her pulse erratic and lost within the swirl of frost.

"It might be trying to reach whatever’s inside her. Whatever’s been waiting to break free."

-

At first, it was cold.

Not the kind of cold that prickled the skin or made the teeth chatter.

This was deeper.

Bone-deep.

Soul-deep.

A silence so vast it roared.

Silvermist felt like she was sinking—no, being pulled. Downward, inward, through layers of herself. Her breath caught somewhere in her throat, but there was no pain, only the feeling of falling. No walls. No ground. Just an endless silver fog.

Her body didn’t move, but her mind reeled. She tried to call out—Sebastian, Ezekiel, West... Frost. But her voice scattered like stardust, soundless against the current.

"Frost..."

The name echoed back at her. Not from the world, but from within.

A heartbeat—no, not hers. Too slow. Too heavy. It shook everything.

Thud.

Thud.

It came again, each pulse stronger, colder, vibrating through the fog until it was no longer mist, but a storm of spiraling flakes—silver, black, crimson.

Her hands floated in front of her now, strangely translucent, as though she were being unmade thread by thread.

Light passed through her skin, refracted like sun through mist. Her fingertips shimmered faintly with specks of starlight, and the lines of her palms—the same ones she’d used to cast, to fight, to cling to life—now looked like fading echoes.

Strands of her hair—once a warm brown, like the color of desert sands at dusk—had turned ghostly white. They drifted around her face like silk underwater, catching the glow of something ethereal... below her. Or maybe above her. She couldn’t tell anymore.

There was no sky. No ground. Just layers of shifting space, suspended like fog over a forgotten lake.

Then came the voice.

Familiar. And not.

It scraped along her spine like a whisper through frozen glass.

Her own voice, but distant. Older. Touched by something primeval, like the first voice ever spoken into the void.

Just there, she knew who it was.

Silvermist turned her head slowly, searching through the shadows and strange glimmers that surrounded her. At first, all she saw was the hollow shell of terrain—a curvature of soil that looked like earth but moved like breath. The walls pulsed in and out, as though she were inside something living.

Then, without warning, her body fell—though there was no pull. No force. Just a gentle, inevitable descent, as if her essence had chosen to lay itself down.

She landed on her back, softly, into a surface that gave beneath her weight and then stilled—silent and smooth. No pain. No impact. Only the jarring realization that her body had moved, but her mind didn’t feel it.

A cold hush swept through her.

Slowly, she sat up, her palms pressing into the strange earth. Her fingers didn’t sink or slide; they simply existed on the surface.

She was cautious, lifting herself with measured effort, careful not to snag her limbs on the length of her now impossibly long silver hair. It trailed around her in wisps and rivers, curling at her feet like fog come alive.

Then she looked up.

And there she was.

Her.

Grinning.

She stood with one hip cocked, arms lazily crossed over her chest, as if she hadn’t just appeared in the heart of Silvermist’s unraveling reality. That grin—crooked, sharp—had always been unnerving, but now it held something deeper... something triumphant.

"It’s been a while," the other her scoffed, her voice echoing strangely across the frost-coated landscape. "I told you I’d eventually find my way out of here."

Silvermist didn’t answer. She couldn’t—not because she was afraid, but because words felt meaningless now, as if anything she could say would be swallowed by the bitter cold between them. She only stared, taking her in.

This version of her had once been a shadow—black eyes like dried ink, hair and lips dark as pitch, and skin pale enough to look brittle. A ghost. A cursed reflection of a choice never made. But now...

Now she looked alive.

Her features had changed—brown eyes that shimmered with soullight, brown hair that framed her face with deceptive softness, and skin that held a flush of warmth. It was her. The real her.

The Silvermist who once walked under suns and touched blooming petals with laughter.

But she wasn’t laughing now.

And just then, it struck her. The terrain, the weightless descent, the strange rhythm of the ground—it wasn’t just a dream or a pocket of memory. It was the Cauldron of Resonance.

The place where it all began.

Where she had first faced this other her. The place that once burned with molten fire and screaming echoes... now lay silent and frozen. The flames had long died. The ground, once seared and cracked, now glistened with frost, the air biting cold. Even the ancient runes etched into the stone pillars looked like they were encased in ice.

"What’s the matter? Surprise?" the other her chuckled, strolling toward her, her bare feet crunching against frost-laced gravel. She kicked a loose rock lazily, watching it skitter away into the mist.

"Well, you shouldn’t really be. Now that I’ve slowly reclaimed my body, you shouldn’t be feeling anything at all... not anymore."

She paused, tilting her head up with a mock-thoughtful expression. "No sadness. No rage. No hope. Cruel reality for you, isn’t it?" Her grin widened, almost hungry. "That’s right... Silvermist. Soon, you won’t exist anymore."

She leaned closer, her breath fogging between them, eyes gleaming with eerie glee.

"Just like Frost."

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