LXXIV
By the time we reached the great river, it had become something unrecognizable. It wasn't a single flow anymore. It was a wide, roaring expanse, splitting and re‑splitting into tributaries that braided across the land like living veins. Everything was fed by the glacial melt. The water rushed away from the glacier in multicolored rapids, reflecting the aurora above. Green currents, blue currents, and a shimmer of gold and red ochre beneath the surface. It looked like the sky had melted and poured itself into the earth.
Rolan stood at the bank, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. He didn't like it. The horses didn't like it either—Stone‑Wind stamped and snorted, Sura's ears pinned flat. Even the hat‑man's cat lifted its head, pupils narrowing to slits as if it sensed something deeper in the water.
The river was uncrossable. Too wide, currents too fast to cross. Downstream, the tributaries would split again and again, feeding the plains with water that had once been ice. But here, at the glacier's edge, the river was a barrier. We would have to follow it until it narrowed, or go all the way to it's origin, to the glacier.
The temperature dropped sharply.
We pulled on more furs. Thick pelts wrapped around our shoulders, our legs, our heads. Rolan helped tie mine tighter, making sure no wind could slip through. He wrapped his own cloak around his face until only his eyes showed, dark and steady.
I tucked the hat‑man's cat form into a fur‑lined purse, soft and deep enough to keep him warm. He curled inside immediately, purring once before settling. I pulled the purse into the front of my parka, close to my chest, where my body heat could keep him alive.
The magic in the air drained him faster than usual, and cats were never adapted for this kind of cold. Rolan glanced at the purse, then at me, then nodded with approval. Smart.
We mounted the horses again; their coats already rimmed with frost. Sura's breath came out in thick white clouds. Stone‑Wind's mane stiffened with ice. Luckily they were a hearty breed and had lived through such chills before, their bloodline having adapted over millennia.
The aurora pulsed overhead, brighter than I had ever seen it, so bright it cast shadows.
We rode along the riverbank, following the roar of water. The land grew stark. No trees grew here, no shrubs as wind breaks, only brittle grass and cracked earth. The glacier loomed in the distance, a wall of blue and white that seemed to swallow the horizon.
The magic in the air shifted. It felt heavier. Denser.
Like the world was holding its breath.
Rolan kept glancing upward, watching the aurora. His posture was tense, alert. He didn't speak much, but when he did, it was clipped and serious.
"Ice‑Wall close."
I nodded, though my stomach tightened.
The cat stirred in the purse, pressing its head against my chest. Its whiskers twitched. Its ears flicked. It wasn't fully awake, but it was aware.
The glacier was calling.
And whatever waited inside it was getting closer.
I felt it before I saw it.
A pressure in the air, like the world was holding its breath. A faint ringing in my ears. The horses slowing on their own, hooves hesitant, nostrils flaring as if they smelled something ancient.
Then we crested the last rise, and the glacier revealed itself.
Sunlight struck the glacier and shattered into a thousand colors. Its surface wasn't opaque like I expected. It was clear, almost glasslike, refracting the land around it. The plains, the sky, the aurora, even our own silhouettes appeared warped and stretched across its ten‑story face. It was like staring at a frozen cathedral.
The aurora above intensified, ribbons of green and violet rippling like living things. The glacier caught the light and threw it back, magnifying it, charging the air with a hum that vibrated in my bones.
Magic. Old magic. The kind that didn't care about humans or tribes or journeys.
The kind that simply existed, vast and indifferent.
Rolan stopped beside me, his breath fogging in thick bursts. Even wrapped in furs, he shivered. His eyes stayed fixed on the glacier, wide and wary.
"Ice‑Wall."
His voice was low, reverent, afraid.
Stone‑Wind stamped nervously.
Sura pressed her flank against my leg.
Even the hat‑man's cat stirred in the fur‑lined purse, lifting its head just enough to peer out.
The glacier wasn't just ice.
It was a mirror made by the earth itself, a colossal wall of frozen crystal that refracted sunlight into shards of color. Not one mirror, a thousand, each pane of ice angled differently, each catching the aurora and bending it into impossible shapes.
Every shard hummed with primordial energy.
Not magic made by people. Magic older than tribes, older than the plains, older than the first mammoth bones buried beneath the soil.
The glacier's face stretched ten stories high, clear enough to see the land reflected inside it. Every reflection was warped, elongated, shimmering like a dream. The aurora poured across its surface, turning the ice into a living tapestry of green, violet, and gold.
It felt like standing before a god.
Rolan dismounted slowly, his breath fogging in thick bursts. He stared up at the glacier with a mixture of awe and fear. Even wrapped in layers of fur, he shivered violently.
The wind coming off the glacier wasn't normal cold.
It was bone‑deep, a cold that slid under furs and pelts, under skin, under ribs. A cold that felt intentional, like the glacier was warning us.
I pulled my hood tighter.
Rolan wrapped another pelt around my shoulders.
The cat burrowed deeper into the purse, its tiny body trembling from the force of the magic.
The aurora intensified overhead, rippling in thick bands that cast shifting shadows across the ice. Every movement of light changed the reflections, our silhouettes stretching, shrinking, twisting.
The aurora pulsed, brighter than I had ever seen it, so bright it cast shadows.
We rode along the riverbank, following the roar of water. The land grew stark. No trees grew here, no shrubs as wind breaks, no brittle grass and cracked earth, just white earth and ice. The glacier loomed in the distance, a wall of blue and white that seemed to swallow the horizon.
The magic in the air shifted. It felt heavier. Denser.
Like the world was holding its breath.
Rolan kept glancing upward, watching the aurora. His posture was tense, alert. He didn't speak much, but when he did, it was clipped and serious.
"Ice‑Wall close."
I nodded, though my stomach tightened.
The cat stirred in the purse, pressing its head against my chest. Its whiskers twitched. Its ears flicked. It wasn't fully awake, but it was aware.
The glacier was calling.
And whatever waited inside it was getting closer.
The wind didn't just blow anymore.
It took hold.
It wrapped around us like invisible ropes, pulling at our furs, tugging at our limbs, dragging us toward the glacier's mirrored face with a force that felt both physical and… aware. Sura braced her legs, Stone‑Wind snorted and reared, but even the horses couldn't fight it. The air itself had hands.
Rolan shouted something—lost instantly in the roar. The earth shook with the weight of magic and nature.
The cat in my parka pressed itself deeper into the fur‑lined purse, trembling, its tiny body vibrating with the power saturating the air. The aurora above pulsed in thick bands, each wave syncing with the pressure dragging us forward.
Then the glacier opened, and world changed instantly.
Sound dulled like being under water, light sharpened into shards we squinted our eyes in the glare. Cold became a presence, not a temperature.
We stood inside a vast corridor of ice and mirrors, each wall reflecting the aurora in impossible angles. The glacier wasn't solid—it was a labyrinth of frozen chambers, each pane of ice acting as a window into something else.
I saw animals frozen mid‑stride like a zoo trapped in the ice walls, a mammoth calf,
a sabretooth cat, a giant elk with its antlers spread like a crown, and many more I could not recognize stood in frozen effigy.
I saw people too, tribal hunters, wanderers, some not even fully human, but proto human, preserved in the ice like statues. Their faces were peaceful. Their bodies intact. Their spirits… waiting.
The glacier was a museum of the world's past, curated by something ancient.
Rolan walked beside me, his breath fogging in thick bursts. He touched the ice once, then jerked his hand back as if burned. The horses followed, hooves clicking softly against the frozen floor, their reflections stretching impossibly long across the mirrored walls.
The cat peeked out of the purse, eyes glowing faintly.
We turned a corner.
And he was there.