The thaw came slowly, like a secret the earth was reluctant to share.
In the weeks that followed the battle at the Black Vale, the snows receded. The rivers loosened their icy grip and began to murmur again, timid and uncertain, as though relearning the sound of their own voices. Smoke rose from the valley where entire forests had been burned to ash, and strange blossoms—half white, half crimson—pushed through the charred soil. They were not of any kind known to men. Some said they were born of frost's tears; others whispered they grew from the blood of gods.
Corren walked among them in silence. His clothes were torn, his beard thick with weeks of travel, and the once-sharp edge of his axe had dulled to a weary sheen. His eyes, though, burned brighter than they ever had.
He followed the river south, past the ruins of the marshlands, until the smell of salt reached him—the scent of the sea near Hollowfen. His home. Or what remained of it.
The village had changed. Where once stood timber huts and fields of reeds, now rose barricades of stone and scavenged metal. The people who greeted him did so with suspicion, hands tight on their weapons. He had been gone too long, and rumor had outpaced truth.
"It's him," a fisherman murmured. "The hunter who went after the witch of frost."
"Did he slay her?" another whispered.
Corren didn't answer. He simply walked through them, past the watchfires, to the heart of the village where the old shrine stood. The altar there had been split down the middle, as if struck by lightning.
He stood before it, laying his axe across the stones.
A voice broke the silence. "You came back."
He turned. Elder Maren's daughter, Arla, stood there, cloaked in furs. Her hair had gone white at the temples, and grief had carved her features into something brittle. "I thought the mountains took you," she said softly.
"They tried." His voice was rough with disuse.
Her gaze dropped to the axe. "And her? Did you find her?"
He hesitated. "I found what she became."
Arla's breath caught. "Then the stories are true."
"Stories never tell it right," he said, lowering himself to sit by the altar. "They call her witch, or monster, or savior. But she was more than any of those."
He told her what he could—of the lake that cracked open, the beast beneath the ice, the merging of woman and wild. Arla listened without interrupting, though her eyes glimmered with fear and awe.
When he finished, she whispered, "So it's over?"
He looked out toward the horizon, where mist rolled in from the sea. "No. The world changed that day. The bindings that held the old magic are gone. You can feel it, can't you?"
Arla shivered. "The storms have been strange. The beasts restless. The trees hum at night."
Corren nodded. "It's her. Or what's left of her. She became the balance the world forgot."
"And you?" she asked. "What will you do now?"
He stared at the axe lying across the altar, the metal still cold from mountain frost. "I think I've done enough breaking. Maybe it's time to build."
She studied him quietly. "You loved her."
He didn't answer. But his silence said everything.
That night, the wind shifted. It came from the north, heavy with the scent of pine and ice. Corren stood outside his small cabin, watching the stars ripple across the sky. Somewhere out there—beyond the mountains, beyond even the reach of gods—he felt her presence.
Then the sound came. Faint, almost imagined: a howl carried on the wind, low and melodic, filled with sorrow and strength. It was the same song that had haunted him since the glacier shattered.
He smiled faintly. "Still watching me, aren't you?"
The wind answered with a whisper of snow.
Days passed.
Hollowfen began to heal. The marshes returned, the crops thawed, and the villagers spoke less of curses and beasts. Yet something in the rhythm of the world had undeniably shifted. Seasons no longer obeyed the old patterns. Frost came and went without warning. Rain glowed faintly blue beneath moonlight. Children were born with strange birthmarks—spirals of light on their palms that pulsed when storms passed overhead.
Arla came to Corren often for counsel, though he had no wisdom to give her. The old laws no longer applied. The priests who had once ruled by fear were silent now, their temples cold and lifeless.
One evening, as dusk fell, a traveler arrived at the village gates.
She was tall, cloaked, her face hidden beneath a hood of woven silver thread. When she spoke, her voice was calm and clear. "I seek the hunter called Corren."
The guards hesitated, but something in her bearing made them step aside.
Corren met her by the shrine. "You found him," he said, wary.
The woman pulled back her hood. Her hair was pale as moonlight, her eyes an impossible shade of blue. "You don't recognize me," she said softly.
His breath caught. For a heartbeat, he saw Liora in her—the same poise, the same intensity—but the face was not hers. It was younger, unscarred, untouched by pain.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"They call me Ashenborn," she replied. "I was sent by the Shape."
He stiffened. "By her?"
The woman nodded. "She walks the northern reaches now, beyond the spires. The world bends where she passes, but she does not destroy. She mends."
Corren's throat tightened. "So she lives."
"In a way," the woman said. "But she is not what she was. The Shape has many faces now—one for each place the wild remembers its heart. And she told me to find you."
"Why?"
The woman reached into her cloak and withdrew something wrapped in silk. When she opened it, the breath left his body.
It was Liora's talisman—the carved antler and bone charm that had glowed before the ice split. Its runes were dim now, but it still pulsed faintly with warmth.
"She said you would know when to use it," the traveler said.
He took it in shaking hands. "What does it do?"
"She didn't say. Only that when the world loses its way again, the Shape will call to you through it."
He stared at the charm for a long moment, then closed his fingers around it. "Tell her… tell her I kept my promise."
The woman smiled faintly. "She already knows."
When Corren looked up, she was gone. The wind carried no trace of her passage.
That night, he dreamed.
He stood once more in the frozen valley, though it was not cold. The stars were closer than they had ever been, pulsing with life. Across the surface of the lake—whole again—he saw her reflection.
Liora walked toward him, barefoot, the water rippling beneath her feet. Her eyes were calm, her hair unbound, her body made of light and frost.
"You never stopped hunting me," she said with a smile.
He stepped forward. "I wasn't hunting. I was following."
"Then you've learned," she whispered.
The wind stirred, carrying her voice through the air. "The Shape isn't just me, Corren. It's everything we touch, everything that breathes. It's the song between fear and wonder. And it needs keepers—those who remember both sides."
He frowned. "Why tell me this?"
"Because the next storm is already rising," she said. "And this time, it won't be frost or fire. It will be choice."
The dream began to fade, but her voice lingered, softer now:
"When the talisman glows again, you'll know the balance has broken."
He woke before dawn, heart pounding. The talisman on his chest burned faintly blue.
Outside, the horizon was no longer calm. Clouds gathered above the sea, swirling in strange patterns. The wind carried a hum—the same deep note that had once pulsed beneath the ice.
He rose, strapping his axe across his back. The time for rest was over.
As he stepped into the storm, he whispered to the wind, "All right, Liora. Show me where the next hunt begins."
And the sea answered.
Far off on the horizon, where lightning danced upon the waves, a figure moved through the mist—half shadow, half light. Watching. Waiting.
The Shape had returned.
And the world, once again, trembled on the edge of becoming.