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The Frozen Hearts groan around them.
Every sound in the ice caves is magnified: the clatter of boots on frost-slick stone, the rasp of breath clouding white in the bitter air, the crash of water tumbling somewhere beyond the cavern walls. Even the hum of Chroma itself seems sharper here, echoing in ways that set teeth on edge.
The Chromatic Veilleur is waiting.
It towers near the cavern’s heart, the red glow of its lantern painting the ice walls in bleeding light. Its body is a lattice of black vines, endlessly curling and shifting, never still, as if the thing is held together more by will than form. The vines on its back writhe like a nest of serpents, and when it moves, it is silent, no scrape or footfall—only the rustle of leaves in a place that should have none.
Its eyes—two lantern-red coals—fix on the intruders.
“Spread out,” Lune hisses, her hand rising to trace sigils that sparkle briefly in the cave’s gloom. “Don’t let the vines catch more than one of us at a time.”
“I don’t like the look of that lantern,” Sciel mutters, scythe gleaming faintly as she swings it into position. “Feels like it’s watching back.”
Verso twirls his dagger, smirking despite the tension. “I’ll just cut it down and we’ll see how well it stares then.”
“Overconfidence,” Monoco rumbles, staff grounding into the stone with a hollow echo. His mask-face turns toward Maelle. “Stay behind us.”
“I can help,” Maelle says quickly, drawing her rapier. Her breath puffs in shaky clouds. The ice underfoot makes her nervous, the way her boots slide if she doesn’t balance perfectly—but she forces her shoulders square. “I’ll be fine.”
The Chromatic Veilleur raises its lantern.
A pulse of light spreads through the cave, a glow that sets the icicles shimmering like glass blades. The vines writhe outward, lashing toward them with sudden, vicious speed.
The fight erupts.
Sciel intercepts the first tendril, her scythe slicing through the vine with a wet snap. Lune hurls a bolt of pale fire that scorches the air, sending the cut vines writhing back. Verso darts low, ducking under one lash to drive his sword toward the lantern itself—but another vine slams into the ground beside him, forcing him to twist away.
“Not that easy!” he calls, breathless but grinning.
Monoco’s staff rings as it strikes, the bell’s tone reverberating through the chamber. The sound staggers the vines for a heartbeat, just enough for Maelle to dart forward and thrust her rapier into the Chromatic Veilleur’s flank. The blade pierces between vines, finding soft, pulsing matter beneath. She rips it free, black ichor splattering against her boots.
The Chromatic Veilleur lets out no cry, no sound of pain—only that lantern glow intensifies, pulsing faster.
“Keep the pressure on!” Lune commands, already weaving another sigil.
The fight drags, tense and cold. Every vine severed regrows, every strike answered by another lash. Frost rains from the ceiling, shattering around their feet as they battle in a blur of steel, flame, and Chroma. Finally, with a unified strike—Sciel’s scythe hooking the lantern arm, Monoco’s staff cracking across its spine, Verso and Maelle thrusting forward—the Chromatic Veilleur staggers.
It falls to its knees. The lantern slips from its grasp and shatters on the ice.
The body of vines begins to unravel.
At first, Maelle thinks it’s just dying. But then the unraveling spreads outward, tendrils dissolving into a black mist that fills the chamber. The glow of the shattered lantern pulses one last time—and with it comes a wave.
It rushes out in a sphere, not heat, not cold, but something fouler. A Blight.
Maelle scrambles, diving behind a large, icy rock just in time before it erupts out in a miasmic wave. Because of this, she’s mostly unscathed, aside from some skinned knees when she hit the ground.
But the others—
Sciel crumples, scythe clattering against the ice. Her knees hit the ground first, then her hands, her body racked with violent shivers.
Lune drops her sigil mid-cast, the glow dying in her palm as she clutches her stomach and stumbles back, face twisted in sudden pain.
Verso staggers against the wall, dagger slipping from his grip. His smirk is gone, replaced by tight-jawed horror as his legs buckle beneath him.
Monoco sways on his feet. The staff slips from his wooden grasp, bell echoing once as it falls. He steadies himself with both hands against the ground, but his mask tilts low, his whole form trembling with an unfamiliar weakness.
“Wait—no—” Maelle stumbles toward them, panicked, reaching for Sciel first. “What’s happening? What did it do to you?”
Sciel coughs, blood flecking her lips. “Blight… wave…”
Maelle’s heart hammers. She looks to Lune—always Lune, who should have an answer—but Lune is pale, her lips bluish, eyes fluttering.
“I can’t—Maelle—” she chokes out, then doubles over, retching into the snow-dusted ice.
Verso’s voice cuts ragged from where he slumps against the cavern wall. “Don’t—don’t touch us! If it spreads—” His words dissolve into a hacking cough.
Maelle’s rapier slips from her fingers. It clatters uselessly onto the ice.
“No! I can’t just—just watch!” she cries, her voice breaking. Her hands tremble as she kneels beside Sciel, not knowing what to do, what to touch, what might make it worse. Her own lungs burn faintly, but not like theirs, not like this.
The cavern is filled now not with battle cries but with the sound of their labored breathing, their groans, the echo of suffering bouncing off frozen walls. The air stinks of blight, acrid and choking.
Maelle is the only one left standing.
Trying to get her head on straight, one by one, she half-drags, half-guides the others out of the cavern, their weight like anchors against her shaking arms. She sets up a crude camp in a shallow alcove carved into the mountainside, a hollow shielded from the worst of the wind. It isn’t much, but it’s shelter.
By the time she gets them all laid down, her breath is fire in her throat, her muscles trembling from exertion. Her hands are raw from gripping armor and fabric, her knees bruised from slipping against the ice. But the others—they’re so much worse.
Sciel lies curled on her side, sweat standing out against her pale brow even in the bitter cold. Every breath rattles her chest. Her scythe is beside her, forgotten, the blade dull with frost.
Verso slumps against the wall, his head tilted back, jaw clenched to fight the pain tearing through him. The cocky spark in his eyes is gone, replaced with a fevered glassiness.
Lune is shivering violently, teeth chattering as if she’s freezing, but her skin is burning hot to the touch when Maelle brushes her hand against her forehead. She startles, snatching her hand back, horrified.
Monoco doesn’t even move. He sits slouched forward, staff across his lap, mask tilted toward the ground. His wooden frame groans faintly when he breathes, the sound uneven, strained.
Maelle swallows down the knot in her throat. “Okay… okay. I’ve got you. I’ll— I’ll take care of you.”
Her voice trembles. She hates it.
She scrambles into motion, throwing together a crude fire pit from scattered stones, fumbling with her flint until sparks catch. The flames are weak against the mountain cold, but they’re light, and the light makes it feel less like the world is ending.
Next, water. She shatters icicles from the cave mouth, melting them in a dented tin over the fire. She remembers watching Lune brew healing teas, Sciel mixing herbal poultices, but she has none of their skill. All she can do is press the warm water into their hands, coaxing them to sip.
Verso tries, but it spills down his chin. Maelle wipes it away with her sleeve, heart aching.
Lune resists, teeth clenched, muttering nonsense through her fever. Maelle hushes her gently, tipping the water against her lips until she swallows.
Sciel barely stirs. Maelle presses the tin to her lips anyway, whispering, “Please. Just a little.”
Monoco doesn’t drink. He can’t. His wooden hands twitch faintly, like a puppet whose strings are tangled, then fall still again.
Tears sting Maelle’s eyes, but she blinks them furiously away. She can’t cry. Not now. She has to be strong.
She wraps them each in her own cloak, her own blanket, even her spare shirt, anything to keep their shivering bodies warm. She rubs Sciel’s arms to stir warmth back into them, tucks Lune in like Lune would do for her. Her own body aches. Her hands won’t stop shaking. The terror won’t stop gnawing at her chest. But she forces herself to move, to do something.
Finally, when they are as settled as she can make them, she sinks down beside the fire, clutching her rapier against her chest like a lifeline.
The flames flicker across her face, across their fever-slick features. The sound of their ragged breathing fills the cave.
And Maelle whispers into the stillness, a promise spoken more to herself than anyone else:
“I’ll keep you safe. I don’t care what it takes. I’ll keep you alive.”
The fire crackles. Outside, the Frozen Hearts howl.
But Maelle stays awake, trembling and stubborn, the lone sentinel for the ones she loves.
An hour passes. The sun starts to descend, painting the frozen mountains in shades of red until they look like they’re dyed in blood.
The others don’t get any better.
The fire burns low, guttering against the wind that creeps through cracks in the rock. The air smells like damp ash and fever.
Maelle sits hunched by the firelight, her knees drawn up, Lune’s leather-bound journal trembling in her grip. It’s soaked in snowmelt and sweat from being pulled from Lune’s satchel, but it’s all she has. The others are still—too still—and she can’t stand it. She can’t.
The journal is scrawled through with neat notes, sketches of plants, spells, fragmented thoughts in Lune’s looping hand. Ink has bled across the pages in dark streaks. Maelle turns them carefully, one by one, her hands shaking so badly she leaves fingerprints on the margins.
Her lips move soundlessly as she reads, voice barely a whisper, eyes flicking over the section on Blight and its symptoms.
“Fatigue… fever… discoloration of veins…”
“Mild cases resolve with sunroot or chroma cleansing…”
“Severe infection… vine-like lesions under the skin… risk of death.”
Her heart twists painfully.
She glances at Sciel—at the pale sweat on her brow, at her clenched jaw—and then at Verso, whose breath comes too shallow. Lune’s arm is twitching, small tremors wracking her body every few minutes. Monoco hasn’t moved in over an hour; the red glow that pulses faintly beneath the carved seams of his wood has dimmed to almost nothing.
“Don’t you dare,” Maelle mutters under her breath, her voice breaking. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
She flips the page, desperate.
Lune’s handwriting is looped neatly in between sketches of vines.
“Veilleur Blight—residual corruption. Transmitted by exposure to lantern spores. Viciously persistent.”
“Only one recorded counteragent—‘Heartmelt Lily.’ Rare. Only found near glacial cliffs of the Frozen Hearts, blooms within ice pockets or at waterfall bases.”
Maelle freezes. Her pulse thunders in her ears.
“Heartmelt Lily… anti-corrosive… purges Blight from bloodstream within hours.”
“Handle with gloves—sap burns skin.”
“Petals emit faint golden luminescence—wilt in sunlight.”
Her breath hitches. She reads it again. And again. And again, like she can’t trust her eyes. A cure.
Her chest feels too tight to breathe. For a moment, she just sits there, staring at the neat ink letters that suddenly mean hope. Then she looks up, her gaze sweeping across the huddled forms of her companions.
Sciel mumbles weakly, shifting. Lune lets out a soft, incoherent sound.
Maelle swallows hard and looks back at the journal.
She can barely see the words; her tears blur them. She wipes at her eyes angrily with the back of her hand. “Pull it together, Maelle,” she mutters under her breath. “You’ve got something now. You’ve got a way.”
She runs her fingers down the page, tracing Lune’s neat diagrams of the plant: long, curling petals like glass, a root shaped like a coiled spiral, notes about habitat and toxicity.
“Grows near cliffs,” she whispers. “Waterfall bases… wind exposure…”
Her mind starts to race, piecing together the terrain outside—the sheer drop they passed, the frozen rivers below, the roaring white spray in the distance. The cliffs of the Frozen Hearts. She knows the kind of danger that place holds—thin ice, avalanches, Nevrons lurking under the snow—but she doesn’t care.
Her heart is hammering so fast it hurts.
She flips another page, scanning through the ink. Lune’s notes shift from plant studies to spellwork, and then to personal entries, things she must have written in the quiet hours between battles:
“Monoco complains that I organize my thoughts too much. He says chaos is good for the mind.”
“Maelle’s been smiling more lately. I think she’s starting to heal.”
“If anything happens to me, tell them I’m proud of them. Tell her she’s stronger than she believes.”
Maelle stops cold.
The words sink into her like a knife.
Her vision swims. She shuts the book quickly, pressing the cover to her chest as though she can hold the weight of those words inside her heart without breaking.
The fire pops, startling her.
She looks over again—at Sciel’s trembling hand, at Verso’s pale face—and her breath shudders out. She crawls toward them, one by one, checking for fever, for breath, for movement.
Sciel’s pulse flutters beneath her fingertips—weak, but there.
Verso groans faintly when she brushes his hair from his eyes.
Lune murmurs something feverish and reaches blindly for Maelle’s hand. Maelle takes it without hesitation, squeezing tight.
“I’ll find it,” she whispers. “I swear I’ll find it. Just hold on.”
Her voice trembles again, but it’s steadier than before.
She moves back to the fire, clutching the journal and setting it open beside her. The candlelight trembles over the pages, over the sketches of the Heartmelt Lily, making the golden ink shimmer faintly like sunlight through snow.
Outside, the storm howls. The sound of the wind rushing through the cliffs almost drowns out the shallow, fragile breaths behind her.
Maelle stares at the flames. Her reflection dances in the metal of her rapier, pale and sharp-eyed and tired. She traces her thumb along the edge of the blade, grounding herself in its cold.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, she’ll go.
But tonight, she stays awake, reading and rereading the same paragraph until the words burn into her memory. Every small detail about where the flower grows, how it looks, what dangers guard it—she commits them all to heart.
She copies Lune’s sketch onto a scrap of parchment with a shaky hand, her handwriting cramped and uneven. She underlines the words only found near cliffs three times.
By the time the fire burns to embers, her hands are blackened with soot and her eyes sting from exhaustion.
Still, she turns, checking on them again. Sciel. Verso. Lune. Monoco.
Her family.
And as she sits down beside them, wrapping her arms around her knees and watching the last flickers of flame, she murmurs hoarsely to the dark:
“You’re going to be fine. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix all of it.”
Her voice fades into the storm, almost a prayer.
The journal lies open beside her, the words Heartmelt Lily gleaming faintly in the light.
Tomorrow, she’ll go.
But tonight, she guards them all until dawn.
The dawn comes gray and colorless—if it can even be called dawn at all. The sun never rises properly in the Frozen Hearts, only shivers weakly behind the clouds like a fading ember.
The air is brittle. Cold that bites straight to the bone.
Maelle moves quietly, careful not to disturb the others. The cave is dim and heavy with the sound of labored breathing. She kneels beside each of them one last time, her breath visible in the pale air. Sciel’s fevered face glows faintly orange in the firelight; Lune is curled beneath her cloak, hair clinging to her forehead. Verso’s hand is resting limply against the ground, and Monoco—still motionless, his wood dull and dark.
Maelle’s throat tightens.
She adjusts Sciel’s blanket, then carefully tucks Lune’s journal into her own satchel. Her rapier’s hilt gleams faintly as she slides it into its sheath. She’s layered her clothes—the wool cloak, Lune’s spare gloves, Verso’s scarf still smelling faintly of oil and frost.
“Don’t you die before I get back,” she whispers under her breath, forcing a small, shaky smile.
Then she turns and steps outside.
The wind hits her like a wall. The breath leaves her chest in a violent gasp as the cold seizes her lungs, but she doesn’t stop. Snow sweeps across the glacier plains, glittering faintly in the wan morning light. The Frozen Hearts stretch endlessly ahead—blinding white and sharp silver, jagged cliffs like the teeth of some massive beast rising in the distance.
Maelle pulls her cloak tight and starts walking.
Her boots crunch through the snow, the sound lonely and rhythmic. Her breath fogs in front of her face, and she counts each exhale, forcing herself to focus on it.
One. Two. Three. Don’t think about the cold. Don’t think about what happens if she fails.
Lune’s notes echo in her mind:
“The Heartmelt Lily blooms where water meets ice. The cliffs nearest the falls are dangerous—thin ice and sudden drops. Proceed with caution.”
She glances toward the horizon. The faint sound of distant rushing water threads through the wind—the glacial falls. That’s where she needs to go.
She adjusts the strap of her satchel and trudges onward.
The terrain grows rougher. Snow becomes uneven, broken by jutting ice shards and frozen cracks. The wind moans through them, ghostly, almost like voices. Maelle keeps her head low and presses forward, her cheeks stinging raw.
Every so often, she stops to mark her path with a small strip of cloth tied around a rock or branch—just in case she gets turned around. The last thing she can afford is to lose her way out here.
Her fingers ache, her knees burn from the cold, but she keeps moving.
Hours pass. The clouds darken. The faint sun disappears entirely.
The Frozen Hearts feel less like a place and more like a dream—a cruel one. Endless white and gray. The horizon always shifting, never still.
Maelle slips once, catching herself on her hands, snow grinding into her gloves. She gasps as pain flares in her shoulder—still not fully healed from their last fight—but she grits her teeth and keeps going. She can’t stop.
“Heartmelt Lily—found near glacial cliffs or waterfall bases.”
She murmurs the line under her breath like a mantra.
Eventually, the ground starts to slope downward. The sound of rushing water grows louder, resonant and hollow, echoing through the canyons of ice. The cliffs rise around her now—towering walls of translucent blue, streaked with black stone and frozen streams.
It’s breathtaking and terrible.
The falls thunder in the distance, their spray freezing midair into tiny glittering crystals. The air smells clean, sharp, ancient.
Maelle stops, taking a moment to steady herself. Her knees tremble. Her fingers are numb.
She wipes her nose on her sleeve and presses forward toward the sound.
As she rounds a corner, she nearly slips again—this time catching herself against a wall of slick ice. She presses her hand to it, steadying her breath. The cold seeps through her glove instantly.
And there—down below, near the edge of the frozen river that leads to the falls—something glows faintly gold beneath the ice.
Her heart leaps.
She kneels, brushing away frost. The glow flickers, soft and warm against the frozen blue. A flower—curled tightly inside the ice, its petals faintly luminous, pulsing with slow light.
“The Heartmelt Lily,” she whispers, awe-struck.
It’s real.
But her awe fades quickly into panic. It’s encased deep in the ice—at least two feet down, maybe more. She can’t just grab it.
She looks around wildly, scanning for something—anything—to help.
There are loose rocks. Broken shards of ice. Her rapier.
She sets her bag down, draws the blade, and grips it tight in both hands. The metal is so cold it burns, but she swings anyway.
The first strike sends vibrations screaming up her arms. The ice barely cracks.
She tries again. And again. The sound echoes off the canyon walls—sharp, desperate.
“Come on,” she mutters through chattering teeth. “Come on, come on, please!”
Her arms ache. Her fingers feel stiff and useless. But the crack deepens. Water seeps into the fissure, glinting faintly.
“Almost there,” she breathes.
She pries at the crack with her blade. The ice groans, spiderwebbing beneath her. She drops to her knees, clawing with her gloves, not caring about the sting or the numbness.
When the final layer gives, it gives all at once. The ice splinters with a deafening crack, sending her sprawling backward into the snow. A rush of frigid air bursts upward—and there it is.
The Heartmelt Lily glows in her trembling hands.
It’s delicate and perfect, every petal translucent gold, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. Tiny veins of light run through its stem. It’s warm against her palms, almost alive.
She stares at it, dazed, tears freezing at the corners of her eyes.
“All right,” she whispers to herself, fingers trembling as she tucks the glowing flower carefully into her satchel, wrapping it in a spare cloth so the frost won’t touch it. “All right. That’s it. Got what we need. Now go.”
The relief is so strong it almost hurts. Her knees threaten to buckle beneath her as adrenaline drains away. Her whole body feels hollowed out, trembling with exhaustion and cold and the ache of muscles pushed too far. But she can’t stop now.
She turns back toward the cliffs.
The way home feels longer than the way there.
The snow has begun to fall again—thick, wet flakes that cling to her hair and cloak. The sky is dim, fading toward dusk. Her footprints from earlier are half-buried now, but she keeps to her sense of direction, following the faint slope upward, tracing the frozen rivulets she remembers crossing before.
Each step burns. The wind gnaws through her gloves and boots. She can barely feel her fingers, but she clings to her satchel as if it’s her heartbeat itself.
Don’t fall. Don’t stop. Keep going.
Her breath rasps through her teeth, white clouds blooming and fading in the dim air. The sound of her boots crunching in the snow is the only rhythm she has to hang on to.
Time blurs. The cold seeps deep into her bones, and at some point she realizes she’s muttering under her breath just to hear her own voice.
“Sciel’s going to scold me for going alone… Lune’s going to say it was irrational… Verso’ll act like he’s not impressed…” Her voice shakes with a faint, breathless laugh. “Monoco will say nothing at all.”
The words keep her moving. Each one another step. Another heartbeat.
The climb is agony. Her legs burn, her lungs ache, and the snow feels heavier with every passing hour. She slips often now—her balance failing as exhaustion drags at her—but she catches herself each time, scraping her gloves raw against the ice.
The cliffs finally level into familiar terrain—the slope leading toward the cave.
When she sees the faint flicker of the firelight glowing against the snow, something in her chest breaks loose. A sob catches in her throat, halfway between a cry of relief and laughter.
She runs the last few yards, stumbling through the snow, half-falling inside the cave’s mouth. The sudden warmth hits her like a wave, dizzying.
The fire is still burning, dim but steady. The air smells faintly of ash and damp wool.
They’re all still there.
Lune lies on her side, her skin pale and drawn tight. Sciel is slumped nearby, one hand half-curled in the fur blanket. Verso’s breathing is ragged but steady, and Monoco remains still, his bell-staff propped against the wall beside him.
Maelle’s knees give out. She sits hard against the stone, clutching her satchel to her chest, laughing and crying all at once.
“I got it,” she whispers. “I got it, I got it, I got it.”
Her breath comes fast and uneven. The cold has made her fingers nearly useless, but she forces them to move. She pulls out the Heartmelt Lily with shaking hands, unwrapping it gently.
It glows faintly gold in the firelight, casting delicate shadows across her face. Its warmth seeps into her palms like sunlight.
She sets it down on the flat stone beside the fire and rummages through their supplies with frantic, fumbling hands—Lune’s satchel, the small cooking pot, the last of their clean water, a handful of dried herbs.
Her heart pounds in her ears. She can still hear Lune’s voice in her head, the calm, methodical way she used to explain potion-making:
“Water first. Never boiling—just shy of it. Too hot and you’ll ruin the active properties.”
“Grind counteragents while it warms—leaves for balance, roots for potency.”
She mimics every step, muttering the words aloud.
She breaks the petals off the Lily one by one, each glowing faintly as she drops them into the pot. The water hisses softly as golden motes dissolve into it, turning the surface from clear to luminous amber. The air fills with a sharp, sweet scent—like pine sap and sunlight.
Maelle stirs with the tip of her dagger, watching the color deepen, the glow pulse.
“Come on,” she murmurs. “Work, please work…”
The scent thickens, filling the cave until it’s almost dizzying. The light brightens.
She ladles a cupful carefully, letting it cool just enough, then moves to Lune’s side.
Her hands are trembling so badly she nearly spills it. She braces herself, breathing deep, then tips a little between Lune’s lips. At first, nothing happens—just the sound of Lune’s shallow breathing. But then, slowly, her brow smooths, her breathing deepens.
Maelle’s heart lurches.
She sets the cup down, nearly sobbing with relief.
Then she does the same for Sciel, for Verso, for each of them in turn. Monoco is the hardest; she has to pour the liquid carefully into the groove of his carved face, where faint red light pulses beneath the wood.
When she’s finished, she collapses back beside the fire, arms limp, eyes unfocused. The exhaustion crashes over her like a wave, sudden and immense.
Her fingers are numb, her face stings, her eyes burn. She’s not even sure if the firelight flickering across the cave is real or if it’s just her vision blurring.
She sits there for a long time, silent except for her own breathing.
Then—
A sound.
A soft groan.
Maelle jerks upright, eyes wide. Lune shifts slightly, blinking. Her gaze is unfocused, glassy at first, but then she seems to register the shape of Maelle beside her.
“Maelle…?” she whispers, voice hoarse. “You look like death.”
A broken laugh bursts from Maelle’s chest. “You— you’re awake!”
“Barely,” Lune mumbles, her lips twitching faintly.
Sciel stirs next, coughing softly, color beginning to creep back into her face. Verso’s hand twitches. Even Monoco emits a faint, low hum—the sound of energy returning to his carved frame.
Maelle presses her hands over her mouth, tears spilling freely. She can’t stop smiling.
“You’re okay,” she says again and again, her voice shaking. “You’re all okay.”
Lune blinks at her through the haze of half-sleep. “You…found it, didn’t you?”
Maelle nods so hard it makes her dizzy. “The Heartmelt Lily. It worked. You’re all—” She chokes on the words, breath breaking. “You’re all going to be fine.”
Lune’s hand finds hers, weak but warm. “You’re incredible, Maelle.”
“I was terrified,” Maelle admits, laughing through her tears. “The cliffs, the cold— I thought I’d never find it.”
“You did,” Lune murmurs. “You always do.”
The fire crackles quietly. Outside, the storm has softened into gentle snowfall. The wind sighs through the entrance like a lullaby.
For the first time in what feels like forever, Maelle allows herself to lie back, staring up at the rough stone ceiling. Her chest still aches, her limbs tremble, but it doesn’t matter. They’re safe. They’re alive.
As she drifts, her thoughts scatter like snowflakes.
She sees flashes—the golden glow of the flower beneath the ice, the echo of her own footsteps through the blizzard, the moment the firelight hit their faces and they breathed.
Her eyes close.
The last thing she feels before sleep takes her is Lune’s faint grip around her fingers and the warmth of the Heartmelt Lily’s glow still lingering in the air—like sunlight that refuses to die.
The next morning comes slowly.
The cave is quiet except for the steady crackle of the fire and the soft sigh of wind outside. The storm has passed—the air is calm now, tinted pale blue through the mouth of the cave.
Maelle is the last to wake.
She’s slumped where she fell asleep the night before, wrapped in her cloak, her face smudged with soot and tears. Her hair is a tangled mess, her hands raw and red from cold, her lips cracked. She looks smaller somehow, curled up beside the dying fire—fragile in a way none of them have ever seen her.
Lune stirs first. The faint movement of her cloak sends snowflakes tumbling from her shoulders. For a moment, she blinks in confusion—her last clear memory was the wave of sickness, the dizziness, the pain behind her eyes. And then the memory comes rushing back. The Blight. The freezing darkness.
She gasps and looks around sharply—until her gaze lands on Maelle.
She freezes.
The faint golden glow of the Heartmelt Lily still lingers in the pot beside the fire, the last few petals floating in the cooled tea like embers. Lune doesn’t need to ask what happened. She knows. The memories of what Maelle had said come back to her.
The full realization of Maelle’s efforts hit her like a punch to the chest.
She crawls forward immediately, brushing the hair from Maelle’s face. “Maelle? Hey—” Her voice catches. She touches the girl’s forehead—warm, not fevered, just utterly spent.
Behind her, Sciel begins to wake too, coughing softly. She blinks, dazed, then sits up with a groan. “Wh—what happened? Why am I—”
Her eyes widen when she sees Maelle.
“Oh no,” Sciel breathes. “Oh, no, she didn’t—”
“She did,” Lune murmurs, her voice thick. “She went out. She found the cure. Alone.”
For a long, stunned moment, none of them speak.
Then Sciel’s maternal instincts surge like wildfire. She’s across the cave in seconds, kneeling beside Maelle, her hands fluttering like panicked wings. “Her fingers—look at them, they’re nearly frostbitten! She’s half-starved, gods— Maelle, sweetheart, wake up—”
Maelle stirs faintly at the sound of Sciel’s voice, her eyes fluttering open to slits. The light makes her wince.
“…you’re awake,” she croaks, voice rough and thin.
Lune lets out a shaky laugh that’s half sob. “We’re awake because of you, you idiot.”
“Mm,” Maelle mumbles, her eyes slipping shut again. “Good.”
Sciel huffs softly through her nose, trying not to cry. “Good? Good? You nearly froze to death for us, you reckless little thing.” She wraps her arms around Maelle’s shoulders, drawing her in gently. Maelle doesn’t resist; she’s too tired even to lift her head.
Verso wakes next, sitting up with a groggy grunt. He blinks around blearily, his hand pressed to his temple. “Feels like I got hit by a snowstorm…” He stops short when he sees the scene before him.
Maelle, limp in Sciel’s arms.
Lune crouched beside them, exhaustion still in her eyes.
The glowing remnants of the potion.
“…she did it, didn’t she?” he murmurs.
Lune nods faintly. “She saved us.”
Verso exhales through his teeth and scrubs a hand over his face. He looks both furious and deeply relieved all at once. “That’s our Maelle, all right. Scares the life outta me and saves it in the same breath.”
Even Monoco hums faintly from where he sits against the wall. His carved hands twitch, his bell-staff glinting softly in the firelight. “Her chroma signature was strong,” he says quietly, voice lower than usual, almost reverent. “It guided her.”
Sciel shakes her head, half laughing, half crying. “Guided her straight into hypothermia, more like.”
But even as she scolds, she’s moving with gentle precision. She strips off Maelle’s damp cloak, replaces it with one of their dry blankets, tucks it up to her chin. Her touch is tender, uncharacteristically so—like a mother bird fussing over a hatchling.
“Lune, darling, help me warm her hands,” she says softly.
Lune obeys immediately, taking Maelle’s icy fingers in hers and rubbing them briskly. Maelle flinches a little but doesn’t pull away.
Verso sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll get the fire going stronger.” He starts stacking more wood into the flames, coaxing it until the glow brightens.
Monoco leans forward slightly, his carved joints creaking softly. “She depleted herself,” he observes. “Every ounce of chroma and will she had, spent to cure us. A dangerous thing for one so young.”
“She’s always doing dangerous things,” Lune mutters, but there’s no anger in it—only awe.
As the fire grows, the warmth spreads. Maelle stirs again, squinting against the light. Her lips move faintly.
“…tea’s ready…” she whispers, voice almost delirious.
Sciel laughs softly through her tears. “Oh, sweetheart. You brewed it hours ago. It’s done its job.”
Lune brushes a strand of hair from Maelle’s face. “You can rest now.”
Maelle hums weakly, halfway to sleep again. “Did it work?”
“It worked,” Lune says, her voice trembling. “It worked perfectly.”
A tiny smile ghosts across Maelle’s face. “Good.”
Sciel shushes her, stroking her hair. “Hush now. Don’t you dare apologize, and don’t you dare move.”
Verso returns with a steaming cup of broth—the last of their rations stretched into something warm and fragrant. “She’s not eating that cold, though.”
He kneels down beside her and carefully props her up against his knee. “C’mon, little hero,” he murmurs, coaxing her. “Drink.”
Maelle mumbles incoherently at first, but when the smell of broth hits her, her stomach growls audibly. She manages to sip weakly. The heat must burn going down her throat, but she doesn’t complain.
“That’s it,” Sciel says softly. “There’s my brave girl.”
Lune lets out a strangled laugh. “She’s going to die of embarrassment when she wakes up properly and realizes you said that.”
“Then I’ll say it again just to spite her,” Sciel says with a grin.
The mood in the cave shifts slowly—tension dissolving into something warmer, softer. Relief fills the air like a balm. They move around her quietly, tending to her without needing to be told.
Sciel brushes out her hair, murmuring soothing words the whole time. Lune rewinds Maelle’s bandages where her skin is cracked from cold. Verso wraps another blanket around her shoulders, muttering about how she’s “half snowflake at this point.” Even Monoco lowers his staff so that the faint warmth from its bell-hum ripples through the air like a comfort.
Bit by bit, color returns to Maelle’s face.
By the time she drifts into proper sleep, the cave is glowing with gentle light and the faint scent of herbs and firewood.
The others sit nearby, watching her breathe.
Lune’s voice is soft when she finally speaks. “She shouldn’t have had to do this alone.”
Sciel sighs. “She wouldn’t have listened even if we’d been awake.”
“She’s too much like you,” Verso says, smirking faintly.
Sciel laughs quietly. “Don’t remind me.”
They lapse into silence again, the kind that hums with peace instead of fear.
Outside, snow falls in slow spirals—soft and soundless. The storm has passed, and morning light shimmers faintly on the horizon.
Inside the cave, Maelle sleeps under the blankets they tucked around her, warm and safe, surrounded by the people she nearly froze herself to save.
For the first time in what feels like days, there is no sickness, no fear, no sound but the crackle of fire and the steady, peaceful rhythm of breath.
And in her sleep, Maelle’s lips curve faintly upward—dreaming, perhaps, of golden flowers blooming through the snow.