"You wanna play with magic!?" a young girl of about sixteen years growled while walking towards Zeal.
The temperature around her dropped as she extended her palms out, her skin suddenly turning slightly white, covered in snow that had appeared out of nowhere.
At first, it was subtle, a shimmer in the air, like frost catching moonlight. Then came the sound: a crystalline whisper, delicate and sharp, as if the wind itself had begun to freeze mid-breath.
From the center of each palm, a single pixel of ice blinked into existence, no larger than a grain of sand, but impossibly bright, pulsing with ancient energy.
The pixels multiplied, spiraling outward in fractal patterns, each shard locking into the next with mechanical precision. Thin veins of frost raced up her forearms, glowing faintly blue beneath her skin like rivers of magic while reflecting the moonlight deep in the silent forest.
The snow around her feet lifted, swirling in a slow cyclone, drawn into the forming weapons as the spears began to take shape.
First, as skeletal frames of jagged frost, then solidifying with a deep, resonant hum.
Ice layered itself in sheets, folding like origami, each fold sharper than the last.
The tips elongated into needle-like points, glistening with a deadly elegance.
"I am your witch and it's your duty to obey every single word I say," she muttered, taking a step forward while heading towards Zeal, freezing the ground beneath her feet like a snow princess.
Her presence was felt all-over as the frost bloomed outward like a curse awakened; silent, swift, and merciless.
Each step she took painted the forest floor in pale blue ruin, veins of ice unfurling like serpents beneath the soil.
Grass stiffened mid-sway, captured in crystalline stillness.
Fallen leaves curled into silvered petals, brittle and gleaming under the moonlight.
The air itself recoiled. A hush fell, thick and unnatural, as if the forest dared not breathe.
Mist rose in coils around her figure, drawn to her presence like moths to flame, swirling in slow, reverent spirals.
Her silhouette shimmered through it; elegant, terrible, divine.
The mirror polished Ice surface reflected the crescent moon hanging like a watchful eye above them, its light fractured by the spreading frost that casted the fractured halos across the trees.
Zeal staggered back, the cold biting through his clothes, through his skin, through the marrow.
The ground beneath him cracked with each step, ice chasing his heels like a predator.
He retreated, and retreated again until when the rough wood of the cabin pressed against his spine.
"Huh... it has really come to this," He chuckled, his voice barely a breath against the cabin's frostbitten wood.
The grain felt ancient beneath his fingers, as if it had witnessed too many nights like this—too many hearts split open beneath moonlight.
This was supposed to be their night.
A night carved from the bones of old grudges, where witches and warlocks stood shoulder to shoulder with the beasts they once feared.
Not to cast spells. Not to summon storms, but to learn how not to destroy each other.
Seventeen years of uneasy peace had led to this camp—this fragile experiment in coexistence of vampire, werewolves and witches.
And tonight, after a year of silence, restraint, and watching their kind walk tightropes over buried rage, they were meant to celebrate.
Zeal, and Irine.
Their witch-warlock bond.
Sacred.
Rare.
A tether spun from trust and chosen fate, like a mate among werewolves.
A vow that said: I see you. I stand with you. I will not turn away.
But Irine had turned away.
She had been fooling around with Derek, the liquid alpha of the Silver Moon Pack. And when Zeal reached for her, when he tried to pull her back from the edge of something that could never be undone, the moment shattered.
Not with fury.
Not with fire.
But with the quiet cruelty of disappointment.
Now the night held its breath.
Now the stars blinked cold and distant.
Now the bond they forged meant nothing, and it was evident allover Irine's aura.
"You don't get to speak!" She shouted, her voice slicing through the frozen air like a blade of ice. "I chase power, and you are nothing!" She screamed, her voice piercing through Zeal's heart like a thousand blades.
The spears in her hands trembled then rose, lifted by unseen force.
They hovered above her shoulders, spinning slowly, their tips glinting with moonlight and menace. The runes along their shafts pulsed, whispering ancient syllables into the silence.
And with a single wave of her hand, the spears shot forward.
They tore through the air with a hiss so sharp that it sounded alive, like something venomous and vengeful had been unleashed.
Zeal's eyes widened, breath caught in his throat.
Too fast.
Too close.
Too late.
All he could do was clench his jaw, squeeze his eyes shut, and brace for the agony.
The first spear struck his thigh, the second his chest, lifting him off the ground in a blur of motion and pain.
His body slammed into the cabin wall, splintering wood and shattering silence. The structure groaned, then collapsed atop him in a cloud of dust and frost.
He lay buried beneath the wreckage, pierced and broken.
But Irine didn't flinch.
She clasped her hands together and frost erupted from her palms like a tidal wave of winter. It surged toward the ruins, engulfing the shattered cabin in a cocoon of ice. The wood froze mid-collapse, locking Zeal in place—trapped, bleeding, silenced.
Zeal blinked as he watched her walking away. The spears had done their work, his thigh torn, his chest pierced, his body trembling with every fading heartbeat and yet, Irine was unbothered by this.
The mist parted for her like a curtain, and the moonlight followed her steps.
The celebration was still alive, music, laughter, flickers of firelight in the distance.
He had hoped—prayed—that Irine would turn back.
That something in her would flicker.
That the bond they shared would whisper to her soul and remind her of who they were.
But she didn't turn.
She walked away.
And that broke him more than the spears ever could.
Irine had been his world once.
His childhood friend.
The only light in the orphanage's gray corridors.
The only one who saw him—not as a burden, not as a shadow—but as someone.
They had laughed beneath broken ceilings, shared stolen bread and whispered dreams.
She had held his hand when no one else dared, and even when she suggested for the witch-warlock bond, he had said yes without hesitation because to him, it wasn't just sacred. It was her.
Zeal couldn't imagine how fast she had changed. A year ago, she was warmth wrapped in mischief, but after finding out that she was a witch and summoned to the camp, she was now a frost wrapped in firelight.
His vision blurred, the edges of the world softening like melting snow.
The stars above him pulsed and faded.
His eyelids grew heavy, pulled down by pain and memory.
He tried to move, but his limbs were ice.
He tried to speak, but his voice was buried beneath blood and silence.
He knew no healing spells, those belonged to her kind, not his.
And so he lay there, broken, bleeding, forgotten.
Life slipped from him like breath on a winter wind.
And in those final moments, he didn't think of the spears.
He didn't think of the cabin.
He thought of her laugh.
Of the way she used to look at him like he mattered.
Of the night she promised they'd never be alone again.
And now this... Dying like this. It was so ironic.
But just before the darkness could claim him completely, Zeal saw a movement.
A shimmer in the air—like heat waves dancing on cold stone—distorted the space ahead.
Then, from that shimmer, a figure emerged.
Blurry at first.
But unmistakably human.
A woman.
She wore a long, sweeping hat that shadowed her face, the brim jagged like torn parchment. Her cloak billowed unnaturally, as if stirred by winds that didn't exist.
She didn't walk, she simply appeared, standing a dozen paces from his broken body, her presence slicing through the silence like a blade.
Zeal tried to speak, but his throat was dry, his lungs burning.
She raised one gloved hand and, without a word, threw something toward him.
It spun through the air—a small, dark orb, no larger than a baby's fist.
It landed beside him with a soft thud, pulsing faintly with a black-crimson glow.
Then she spoke.
"If you want to live... touch the orb."
Her voice was clear, sharp, and cold.
Not a whisper. Not an echo.
A command.
Zeal blinked, his vision swimming.
He didn't know who she was.
Didn't know if she was real.
But he was dying.
And dying men don't get the luxury of hesitation.
With a groan that scraped the edges of his soul, he stretched his trembling hand forward.
Fingers bloodied, bones screaming, he touched the orb and, suddeny, It cracked.
A jagged line split across its surface, and from within, a black-purple mist erupted—alive, hungry, ancient.
It surged toward him, curling like smoke, then dove into his mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes.
Zeal gasped, his body convulsing.
His head grew heavy, as if the weight of the moon itself had settled behind his eyes.
His vision spun, colors bleeding into one another, and his eyelids began to fall like curtains at the end of a play.
But just before he could completely lose his consciousness
[Congratulations. You have been granted the Trinity Hex curse]
A dark black background computerized screen with crimson writings suddenly materialized in front of his eyes