The manor's west wing was silent that evening, the kind of silence that pressed on the eardrums. Aldrin's footsteps echoed faintly against the marble floor as he made his way to his father's private study.
He had avoided this place for days.
The carved door stood half-open, a faint draft whispering through the gap. Inside, the smell of cold parchment and faint traces of frost lingered—as though the air itself had not warmed since his father's last day alive.
Aldrin pushed the door open fully.
Dust motes swirled in the wan moonlight filtering through tall, arched windows. His eyes moved over familiar things—the shelves lined with grimoires, the desk where his father wrote letters deep into the night, the frostbitten sigil of House Veyren etched into the wall.
He reached for one of the books, running his fingers along the spine. It was cold. Too cold.
"You've finally come."
The voice came from nowhere and everywhere—low, ancient, and sharp enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck.
Aldrin froze. "…Who's there?"
No answer—just the faint creak of a chair behind him. But when he turned, there was no one.
He tightened his grip on the book. "Show yourself."
The shadows by the far wall rippled. They deepened, folding into themselves until they formed the vague outline of a man seated in a high-backed chair. Pale silver eyes opened within the darkness.
"You wear his face," the figure said quietly. "But your gaze…."
Aldrin's fingers twitched toward the dagger at his belt. "Who are you?"
"Names," the figure murmured, "are only for those who survive long enough to remember them. For now, call me Seolfor."
The name felt heavy on Aldrin's tongue. "What are you doing in my father's study?"
Seolfor leaned forward, the darkness peeling back just enough to reveal the curve of a smirk. "This was our study long before it was your father's. And before him, hers—Velrisa Von Veyren."
The name hit like an icicle driven straight into Aldrin's chest. Velrisa—the first patriarch, the Frost Witch from the family's oldest tales. "That's impossible. She's been dead for centuries."
Seolfor's gaze lingered on him in unsettling silence. Then, softly: "So sure, little lord?"
The room grew colder. Frost began to crawl along the edges of the desk, crystallizing on the ink bottle until it cracked. Aldrin took a slow step back, but Seolfor's voice pinned him in place.
"I see it in you—the spark. Black ice in the veins. The same as your foremother. But raw… unshaped. Tell me, Aldrin Veyren, do you want the strength to keep your house alive? To crush those who conspire against you?"
The temptation in those words was sharp as a blade. "And if I do?"
Seolfor smiled faintly. "Then we strike a bargain."
A scroll of pale frost-etched parchment appeared in the air between them, floating weightless. Strange runes shimmered across it.
"In exchange for my power, you will walk the path I set before you," Seolfor said. "No hesitation. No retreat. In return, I will grant you Cryokinesis—the same craft Velrisa once wielded to carve her legend into the bones of kings."
Aldrin hesitated, the weight of the moment pressing down. He had already taken his father's life. He had enemies in every shadow. Without strength, House Veyren would crumble.
He took the quill, dipped it into the frost, and signed his name.
The contract flared with black light. In an instant, icy energy roared through his veins—cold and alien, but intoxicating. The frost around the room deepened to pitch black.
Seolfor's gaze sharpened. In that moment, Aldrin's stance, his quiet defiance, and the raw magic swirling around him pulled an echo from deep in Seolfor's mind—Velrisa, standing in the same room, centuries ago, eyes burning with the same unyielding will.
"…You may yet be worth the trouble," Seolfor murmured.
Aldrin clenched his fist, feeling the Black Ice hum at his command. "Then let's see if you're worth mine."
The shadows swallowed Seolfor whole, but his voice lingered in the frost-filled air.
"Your first trial begins soon, little lord. Don't disappoint me."