Morning had the color of old tin.The village square looked like a mouth missing teeth, and our house—the small, honest thing we'd taught to breathe—wore guild banners like shackles.
A decree was nailed to the door with a ceremonial spike:UNLICENSED ALCHEMY — SEIZURE OF ASSETS — GUILD PROTECTION ACTThe ink smelled smug. The paper smelled like someone else's victory.
Klaus stood between the officers and what used to be our doorway, jaw locked.Ragnar had a split lip and the cheerful fury of a man still deciding if he'd enjoyed the fight.Kayra kept her hands hidden beneath her cloak, fingers pressed flat over the alchemy book she'd stolen from fate.
Lucifer perched on a fencepost, legs dangling, grin tired. "Nothing says gratitude like foreclosure," he murmured. "Did they practice the font?"
The mark under my sleeve began to burn—soft at first, then sharper, like breath on an open wound.Shadow stirred within it, whispering silk against bone:"Let them take the walls, not the roots."Her voice slid through my nerves like cold smoke.I steadied my breathing until she retreated to patience.
"Step aside," the guild bailiff said, a man whose beard had never met humility.Four guards leveled spears. Their armor shone in that fragile way rented things do.
"This is our home," Klaus said.
"Correction," the bailiff replied kindly. "This was your home. It belongs to the guild now, along with any derivative work—recipes, apparatus, and the like."His eyes drifted to Kayra's cloak, to the shape of a book no one was supposed to see.
Ragnar's fists clenched. A guard lifted his spear; the shadow beneath him quivered like an insult looking for a mouth.Shadow pushed at my skin again. "Let me cut the debt from their breath."
Not yet, I told her silently.Pain bloomed through my arm as she obeyed.
The bailiff smiled with practiced mercy. "Surrender your equipment. The guild offers leniency—keep the clothes you wear and three blankets."
Lucifer clapped once. "Truly, saints walk among us."
The man frowned at the sound—his eyes darted toward the noise and saw nothing.Good. Let confusion earn its keep.
By noon our house was an empty frame learning wind.They catalogued everything: jars, tools, even the shrine's runestones.Each rune flared once in protest as it was pried loose, as if remembering who'd loved it.
Kayra's mouth trembled. Klaus turned away. Ragnar spat in the snow.
When the last cart creaked down the road, the air smelled of iron and unspoken curses.Neighbors watched through shutters with the careful stillness of people auditioning for safety.
I stood in the skeleton of our home. The tattoo on my forearm glowed through the fabric—faint violet, a heartbeat miscounting itself."It lives in us now," Shadow whispered. "Not in stone."
"Better that way," I murmured.
Lucifer tilted his head. "You talking to me or your passenger?"
"Both," I said.
Ashes and Departure
We returned after dusk. The village slept the way the guilty do—quiet but unconvincing.Frost crawled up the doorframe.Our little altar still held a single ember, breathing slow.
"Last time," I told it, kneeling.The mark on my arm brightened; Shadow pressed outward, her shape rippling under my skin.
"Home dies clean," she said. "Let me bury it."
I placed my palm on the stone. The rune beneath and the rune inside met like mirror and reflection.Light didn't flare—it folded, whispering through my veins as Shadow's essence braided with mine.The altar sighed, then imploded into fine gray dust that didn't scatter.The world went very still.
"Better ash than stolen," I said.
"Better ash than worship," Lucifer answered softly. "Onward."
The Shadowwake
Down at the docks, moonlight skated across the frozen river.A half-rotted longboat waited—guild property abandoned to winter.Its spine was cracked but proud.We loaded our remaining life: the book, three blankets, a sack of tools, and more silence than luggage.
Klaus untied the lines with soldier's precision.Ragnar shoved us off with the pole, grinning through his teeth.Kayra curled near the prow, arms around the book as if it were fire.
Lucifer stepped onto the rail, coat flaring. "By the powers vested in bad timing," he declared, "I christen thee Shadowwake."
The river accepted us without comment.
The mark under my sleeve pulsed, syncing to the current.I felt Shadow stretch inside me—tethered but free enough to taste the cold."The river remembers other exiles," she murmured."Then it can show us the way," I said.
River Days
Days bled into each other—gray upon gray.Oars whispered against glass-still water.Frost webbed the gunwales.We ate bread that had forgotten wheat.
Sometimes I caught Shadow's reflection instead of mine in the river—silver eyes beneath the surface, calm and unreadable."Do you grieve?" I asked her once."I remember," she said."So do I."
Nights belonged to Lucifer. He balanced on the mast, singing fragments of myths that contradicted themselves.He never slept.When I did, I dreamed of shrines glowing under ice and of Shadow walking between them, her footsteps stitching light.
On the third evening a guild convoy passed. Their barges were sleek, their flags arrogant.They didn't hail us.Lucifer raised an imaginary cup. "To visibility, the curse of competence."
Klaus rowed harder.Ragnar muttered, "Could rob them.""Could drown," Klaus said."Could learn," I added."Could," Lucifer agreed.
We rowed north.
Frost's Gate
The first sign of Frostmere was sound—distant drums, slow and patient.Then the cliffs opened: walls of translucent ice veined with blue light, bridges arching like ribs.The city glowed from within, a heart trapped in crystal.
"Pretty," Ragnar whispered."Expensive," Klaus muttered."Ancient," Kayra breathed."Hungry," Lucifer corrected. "Cities are shrines that charge admission."
A gate of pure ice blocked the harbor, runes crawling across it like thoughtful snowflakes.Guards stood above—Ice Elves, silhouettes honed by winter.Their voices cracked through the air, a language made of breaking lakes.
I lifted empty hands. "Exiles," I said. "We have nothing but work."
The mark on my arm flared. Shadow pushed outward, her presence slipping through my outline like light through smoke.The elves stiffened as glyphs along the gate shifted in answer.One of them whispered a prayer I recognized only by tone.
The barrier opened, parting like ice remembering water.
We drifted through.
Frostmere swallowed sound.Even the oar strokes happened twice—once in the world, once in reflection.Market stalls clung to ledges; smoke coiled from vents; the air shimmered with ghost-light.Beauty and cold held hands here.
A skiff intercepted us.An elf officer stepped aboard, armor the color of midday. Her eyes assessed us, cataloging flaws.
"You will dock Lower Caverns," she said in accented human. "Three days grace. Then quota or leave."
"Quota?" Klaus asked.
"Coin, service, or invention," she said.
Kayra's fingers tightened on the book. Hope hummed quietly inside the binding.
Lucifer leaned on the mast, bowing with too much grace."We have one of those," he said. "Just needs heat, table, and an absence of inspectors."
The elf looked past him—through him—and shuddered.Her eyes found mine. "Your shadow is wrong."
The tattoo along my arm went cold.Shadow whispered through my throat, her words threading with mine:"Your reflection lies, frost-born."The elf flinched, then covered it with authority.
"Lower Caverns," she repeated. "Three days."
We followed the escort through channels lit by soul-lanterns until the Lower Caverns opened below the glacier—tents patched with prayer, fires of blue resin, faces drawn thin but unbroken.
Klaus steered us to a mooring. Ragnar jumped ashore, bowing exaggeratedly to the ice. Kayra stepped down last, her book clutched like a heart.
I tied off the rope. Frostmere's pulse thrummed underfoot.
Lucifer crouched on a beam above, smirking. "Welcome to the end of the map, kiddo. Let's see if poverty freezes slower up here."
"Plan?" Klaus asked.
"Work," I said.
"Fight," Ragnar suggested.
"Think," Kayra said, touching the book. "And build."
The mark pulsed once—approval, hunger, maybe both.Shadow whispered softly, "Even night can start over."I looked at the city's veins of blue light and believed her.
"Earn," I said. "And learn to stay."
The wind bit through our clothes.Lucifer listened to the drums again, head tilted. "Hear that? Opportunity has a heartbeat."
"It also has teeth," I said.
He smiled. "Delicious."
We stood there—four exiles, one trickster, and a spirit in my skin—while Frostmere decided whether to kill us or hire us.Then, because standing never fed anyone, we lifted what little we had and walked into the Lower Caverns, where names are rented and hope is brewed in small, careful kettles.