Chapter 7: Bones Ice Beneath

  He didn't look back.

  The woman's house was behind him -- blood, silence, memory.

  Now there was only the cold. And the long walk north.

  The City had become a shadow -- ruins, hounds, scavengers -- all fading into the blur of survival. What came

  next wasn't peace. It wasn't safety.

  It was nothing.

  The Frozen River lay ahead.

  No one really knew where the Witch was. But every version of the myth said the same thing: she lived beyond

  the Frozen River.

  He had heard tales whispered by dying men and desperate wanderers: a river so wide it cut the world in half,

  frozen since the war, never thawing. A place where even sound froze. Where light moved wrong. Where

  silence had weight.

  They called it Skjraheim. The Shardlands. Gelure. The Bleeding Frost.

  But to those who lived near it, it had only one name:

  Death.

  The river stretched for miles, locked in ice year-round, untouched by season. Too cold for snow. Too still for

  birds. Too quiet for anything with a soul. Few who crossed it returned. And those who did came back...

  different.

  But Nikolai only knew the rumor: the Witch was somewhere beyond it.

  That was enough.

  So he moved.

  Through frost-bitten ruins, across dead plains, past skeletal trees that reached up like fingers clawing from

  graves. Sometimes, he saw distant shapes -- maybe human -- but neither side drew closer.

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  Out here, people were worse than beasts.

  Once, he passed a transmission tower -- humming faintly, though no lines ran from it. Another time, a crawler

  half-buried in permafrost, frame shattered, cockpit looted. Every step felt like trespassing in a place the earth

  itself had abandoned.

  He rested when he could -- behind broken ice slabs jutting from the ground like ribs. No warmth. No cover.

  Just less wind.

  His canteen froze solid by morning. So did the food.

  Even breathing hurt.

  His lips cracked. Fingers bled. The coat he wore barely held the cold out. And sleep? Only stolen seconds,

  curled in shadow, blade in hand.

  Didn't matter. Couldn't stop now.

  Some nights, he nearly gave in. Nearly let the cold finish what the wild had started. But something always

  pulled him forward.

  A whisper. A reason.

  Step after step.

  Once, he caught himself wondering if this was what dying in slow motion felt like. Not dramatic. Just quiet. A

  little more gone each hour.

  Then, one day, the white broke.

  It happened fast -- a crack in the horizon. A jagged line of bare trees, pale and sharp, rising like glass from the

  mist. Not quite a forest. More like a graveyard with branches.

  The land beyond the river.

  It didn't stretch far, but it was unmistakable. The trees stood perfectly still, their bark silver-gray. Nothing

  moved. Nothing made sound.

  He stepped forward.

  Then his knees gave.

  His breath caught.

  The cold had finally taken hold.

  The last thing he saw was the frozen grove rising toward him.

  Then -- nothing.