She was seven years old again, the sky still dark, the stars fading. Her boots crunched across the fresh snow as she raced across the Elthian Tundra, a pale wisp darting across a sea of white.
Her mother had always said she was born with ice in her veins and wind in her lungs.
She remembered her father's voice calling after her. "Kara, not so far this time!"
But she never listened. She was too curious, too wild, too eager to discover what lay beyond the next ridge or frozen ridgeback.
Her mother, Karena, would always laugh and shake her head when her father worried.
"She's from my blood, Pherin. She's not meant for fences and farming. She's a Vakia, and that means she was born to walk dangerous roads."
Karena had once wielded a rapier in defense of a city long lost to time. Kara used to play with the old blade in the barn, pretending to duel mastodons and slay giants.
It was that same reckless spirit that led her, one morning, over a stretch of snow that looked solid.
It wasn't.
She stepped forward—and vanished.
The fall down the glacial crevice had stolen the breath from her lungs. She remembered the sharp crack of ice beneath her body. The darkness. The cold that wrapped around her like a second skin.
She screamed.
No one answered.
She screamed again.
The hours dragged. She cried until her tears turned to frost, her voice hoarse, throat raw. She knew no one would come—not until night. It was always night when she returned.
But this time… she might never return.
When the stars finally shone above Elthia, her mother had grown quiet, her laughter gone.
"She should have come home," Karena whispered.
Pherin ran to the guard. A search party formed. Lanterns bobbed like fireflies through the dark. And when Captain Rephin finally peered over the edge of the crevice, Kara was no longer screaming.
She was whispering.
"Help."
He'd never moved so fast in his life. He dropped down, wrapped her in his cloak, and cradled her against his chest.
"I've got you," he said. "You're going home."
She blinked.
Now she was nineteen, bow on her back, sword on her hip. The tundra no longer frightened her. She knew its dangers. Knew its secrets. She was a scout for the Elthian city guard, patrolling the borders for signs of movement—signs of their greatest threat:
The Frost Giants.
And one day, she saw it.
A storm on the horizon. No wind. No snow. Just the slow, steady tremble of footsteps. Massive ones. The mountains shifted in the distance. The ground groaned beneath their weight.
She ran. She ran faster than she had ever run.
But she was too late.
Gelgarr the Avalanche, standing fifteen feet tall, his skin a hue that of greyish blue ice, etched with runes that glow dimly like a blue flame in the dark. Muscles ripple beneath the icy garb, shaped by centuries of brutal survival and endless war. His crown is not forged but carved—an icy diadem grown from the frozen bones of the highest peak. His eyes are twin voids of glacial night, devoid of warmth, fixed in a gaze that paralyzes even the bravest with primal dread. Astride his beast Frosttusk, the Alpine Monarch, loomed like a living glacier upon the battlefield—a colossal mastodon swathed in frost and myth. Born of ancient glacial ruins, bearing the aura of primordial winter. His tusks, eternally sheathed in un-melting ice, curve like scythes forged by nature itself—capable of cleaving stone and sundering steel with ease. His dense pelt of frozen fur armoring his body, crackling with the latent energy of storms yet to come.
They shattered the walls of Elthia like they were parchment. Sending rocks and wood flying through the streets, hitting several buildings and the people in the street trying to get to safety. The battle raged for four days and four nights. Men, women and children fell by the dozens.
Captain Rephin died on the second night, the wounds he sustained from his fight with the Alpine Monarch were too grievous to heal and the effects of the creature's tusk had already begun to take hold. A bitter cold creeping across his body, encasing him in ice before shattering into shards and dissipating into a light blue ember cascade that drifted into the sky.
Only half of the regiment remained and most of them were terrified, half of them deciding their fates before the battle was over and the other half speaking about running from the battle; but Kara… Kara would not flee.
She screamed a war cry that echoed across the snow. Her arrows flying fast and true. When Frosttusk charged, she met it—piercing through the thick matted fur, hitting its heart with three arrows and with a final thrust of her sword the once feared beast lay motionless on the ground.
She felt the thundering footsteps; heard the roars of rage, her cold eyes meeting the sight of Gelgarr charging towards her, bloody club in hand. A split second passed as her eyes scanned the city before finding a chance of salvation. Her swift feet carried her through the field of death before her and though her body screamed for relief, her muscles threatening to give out with every step, still she ran until she reached the bottom of the tower. Then she climbed.
One tower left standing. As she began her assent, she could taste the blood in her mouth; feel the frost on her face; and still she climbed.
Kara turned and gazed out over her razed city, rage ripping through her like fire. And as Gelgarr, in all of his fury, barreled towards her she drew back her final arrow.
"For Rephin. For Elthia."
The arrow found its mark—through Gelgarr's eye.
The giant roared and turned away, defeated but alive.
Kara collapsed with the falling stones of the tower—but she lived.
She was named Captain of the Guard the next day. The Huntress of the Silver Citadel.
Recovery was a long and aggravating road for her unable the shake the constant reminders everywhere she looked. The wall, the 500 knights that were lost not to mention the 100 civilians as well, but most of all Captain Rephin the one person she held in such high regard was lost.
He was stern yet fair when it came to her training, though he did piss her off at times it wasn't without reason. Thinking about it was painful and Kara felt a tear well up in her eye before quickly wiping it away.
"This is not the time for this." Kara thought to herself. "There are more important matters that need my attention at the moment."
A meeting of the council was to take place to make and revise the plan to rebuild Elthia and the recovery from the siege. It would be a long and grueling road but not an impossible task, for the next 25 years the plan was put into action and the road to recovery began.
The sieges continued on and off for years, just small skirmishes here and there but nothing as impactful as what happened that day.
The storm outside had grown into a steady, relentless drumbeat. As the snow and wind slammed against the high arched windows of the Council Hall, and the crackling fire offered little warmth against the cold crawling through the ancient stones. King Caladorn Vaelorin sat at the end of the long oak table, his crown resting beside a worn map marked with inked circles and lines that told stories of advancing foes and failing walls. Lady Faenora stood nearby, silent, her eyes narrowed on the flickering shadows cast by the torchlight.
The heavy doors creaked open, and Knight-Captain Kara stepped through, her armor covered in snow now beginning to melt in the warm air, her expression grim.
"You summoned me, Your Majesties?" she said, bowing slightly. Her voice was steady despite the exhaustion lining her face.
Caladorn looked up from the map. "Report."
Kara unfastened her cloak and tossed it over the back of a chair. "Their siege lines have tripled. Scouts confirm a small force advancing behind the northern ridge. They've brought trebuchets this time."
"How long until they move?" Faenora asked, her voice quiet but laced with urgency.
"Three days, maybe fewer. They're building fast. Efficient. They know our terrain better than they did last winter."
Caladorn's fingers curled around the edge of the table. "They'll strike the eastern curtain wall first."
"They always do," Kara replied. "And this time, it won't hold. The cracks beneath the battlements run deeper than we thought. If they hammer it with stone long enough, it'll collapse."
"What do you recommend?" Faenora asked.
"Iron braces along the inside of the wall. Double the sentries. We should also lay fire trenches beneath the southern causeway. If they bring mastodons, we light the path and bring it down beneath their feet."
"That will take every smith and laborer we have," Caladorn muttered. "We'll leave other defenses exposed."
Kara didn't flinch. "Better to defend one breach properly than fail at three. The east falls, Elthia falls with it."
Faenora's gaze sharpened. "And the people? They'll see fire being poured beneath their own streets. What message does that send?"
"That we're fighting," Kara said. "Not cowering. Let me speak to them. They'll listen. Not because I wear your crest, but because I've stood on the walls beside them. I know their names. I know who we're fighting for."
Caladorn was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the fire. Then he looked up.
"You're willing to take the burden of their fear, and their trust?"
"I already have," Kara replied. "But I'd rather carry it openly than watch the city break beneath it."
Faenora turned to Caladorn, then nodded once. "Let her speak. Let her lead. Get the reinforcements underway."
"And if they breach the wall?" the King asked softly.
Kara met his gaze without hesitation. "Then they'll find more than rubble. They'll find the Honor guard waiting—steel drawn, fire in its heart and the Huntress...."
The room began to distort, time twisting around her, the room seemed to slow down then speed up being reduced to rubble and the King and Queen turning to skeletons before returning to normal. The high arches of the hall shattered like glass and something opened up. Strange creatures materialized before her, a menagerie of twisted and shatter shapes. They turned towards the King and Queen raising their blades as Kara lunged forward, jumping on the table and sprinting to their aid, "Your Majesties!" Her voice a distant echo in time repeating over and over as it flowed through time at some points sounding muffled.
With a sudden jerk she felt herself being pulled back, a jolt of pain shooting through her back as she fell flat on to the moist ground, the hot humid air hitting her face as her voice finally returned to normal. The humidity felt like it was suffocating her, so thick it was almost unbearable. She lay there in the dark unsure of what happened, the silence overwhelming. A faint sound of humming in the air and a large, distorted spire looming in the distance.
"What is that?" She mumbled, "why do I feel so drawn to it?" she said, lifting herself to her feet and wiping the dirt and leaves from her armor.
"Maybe I can get some answers."