Chapter-2 (When the Ice Screams)

When the Ice Screams

❄️ FLASH RECAP ❄️

The marble floor cracked beneath James' knees as the Abyssal Ice awoke - an Ether-Engine so cursed, priests whisper it froze an entire generation.

Now branded a plague-carrier, he stumbles through Rudenberg's alleyways, each breath frosting the air as the city's fear turns to violence.

Only a nameless beggar stands between him and the mob's stones, offering shelter that smells of mildew and forgotten things.

❄️ Act 5: The Escape

"What... the hell?"

Noah Chambers’ voice echoed like a rock breaking glass.

Silence swept the chamber inside the Ancient Engines Archive, fractured only by the howl of chilling wind that hadn’t existed moments before.

James stood still.

His hand slowly lowered from the sarcophagus, trembling faintly. The blue light that had erupted from his palm dimmed, but the cold remained. Deep. Anchored. Real.

“Potency... zero.” “That’s... that’s the Abyssal Ice.” “Cursed... It’s the Plague.”

The voices that followed weren’t whispers—they were panic made vocal.

A priestess stumbled backward, nearly dropping her Ether-crystal. Another ran to trigger the defence wards while two others stared as though they'd seen a ghost claw its way into the Archive.

James blinked. His breath misted in front of him—slowing, freezing.

His eyes didn’t flicker in fear. They flickered in blank confusion.

Because nothing made sense. Why were they backing away? Why were Adam’s water-serpents gone? Why did even the priestesses tremble?

Ruby took a step back, her wings of light flickering erratically. “That… that’s not a Zero. That’s a funeral bell.”

Chambers' face twisted into a cruel grin. “Of course he’s the Plague. Like mother, like spawn.”

James' lips parted—but no words came. Only air. Sharp and thin and tired. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t breathe. The room had become something else—bigger, colder, collapsing inward.

He looked down at his fingers. Pale. Cracked. White frost webbed between each digit.

Teacher Weathers stepped forward, the light from his mechanical eye dimming. “This is not a gift,” he announced sharply, voice reverberating. “This is a threat.”

Adam roared, “What the hell are you saying? You saw what his Engine did—it’s reacting because he’s scared. He didn’t ask for this!”

Weathers didn’t even glance at him. “A threat doesn’t have to ask. It just is.”

James’ heart splintered into a soundless scream.

The next moment was glass.

Crack— SHATTER.

The Archive’s central platform imploded into a spiral of ice. Not an attack. Not a spell. A reaction.

Void-blue frost exploded outward in jagged fractals. It raced across stone and brass, snapping gears mid-spin and freezing conduits mid-flare. The banners hanging from the rafters shattered like frozen paper.

“PROTECT THE STUDENTS!” a priestess shrieked.

Fire-based knights pushed forward, igniting defence glyphs. But even their flames guttered out before the frost. One woman’s Ether-sword shattered on contact, fragments clinking as they fell.

Ruby raised her shield and shielded three junior students, lips pressed in barely-contained fear.

And Chambers? He laughed—but it was shaky. “Guess trash really is contagious.”

Adam moved for James again, but the air between them hardened into spiked walls of ice. “He’s burning through himself,” Adam shouted. “He doesn’t know what’s happening!”

Weathers activated the Archive’s containment field—runes swirled in the ceiling, attempting to compress the cold.

But it wasn’t enough.

James gasped.

His body convulsed from the Ether overload. His knees buckled.

He wanted it to stop. He just wanted to go back to the moment before the sarcophagus—before truth took everything.

A dozen Archive Knights surged forward.

“SUBDUE HIM!” their captain screamed. “Contain the Plague!”

James looked up—his mother’s name echoing in the abyss of his mind.

You were supposed to become her justice.

Noah's words echoed again—“Like mother, like corpse.”

That was the final blow.

The air around James convulsed. His entire outline flickered in the cold light. Ether surged. Ice howled—and then— he ran.

Except the word wasn’t ran. It was moved. With speed no one could follow and frost under every footfall.

He fled the Archive through a wall of half-formed gear inscriptions, sliding along his own crystalline path. Alarms rang across Rudenberg.

The city didn't just see the explosion of winter.

It felt it.

As snow fell from a cloudless sky and air froze in lungs, people whispered.

“It’s the Ice-Plague.” “It’s back.” “The cursed one has returned.”

Because this wasn’t just another student gone rogue.

Everyone in Rudenberg City had heard the stories.

The last time someone awakened the Abyssal Ice, the continent froze for seven months. Ports were sealed. Crops withered. Thousands died.

Now, it had returned.

And its host... was a fifteen-year-old boy who didn’t understand what he'd become.

James staggered through merchant alleys, every breath whistling shards into his lungs. His legs were seizing. Cold had claimed his fingertips. The Ether burn pulsed up his spine.

He reached the wide plaza outside the Old Tower Gate and collapsed to his knees.

Citizens screamed.

A fish-seller hurled a barrel. It exploded in splinters beside him.

“That’s the boy! The plague-boy!”

A child cried. A woman yelled to “Call the enforcers!” Others threw rocks.

James didn’t move.

He just stared at his hands.

“You were meant to be the sword.” “You were supposed to avenge her.” “You’re a curse.”

A wine bottle flew through the air—glass glinting like ice—

—and it stopped.

The hand that caught it was old. Weathered. Cracked.

A beggar stood before James now. Cloak in tatters, bones stiff, but eyes sharp.

“Leave him be!” he growled, stepping between the boy and the growing mob.

More people jeered. “You’ll freeze too, fool!” Another man: “Let the enforcers take him! Before the city turns to ash!”

The beggar snarled, “It ain’t his fault! He’s a boy. Not a curse.”

A man charged forward—but the beggar moved faster. With surprising strength, he grabbed James under the arm, dragged him to his feet, and whispered: “Move, kid. You’ve got no idea how many knives are waiting.”

Together, they vanished into the alleys of Rudenberg.

Down side streets and sewer grates, over railings and forgotten drainage steps. No one dared follow too far—the chill still hung in the air.

By the time they reached the crumbling alley where mold grew faster than gossip, James collapsed again. Breathing ragged. Eyes barely open.

The beggar leaned him against a barrel. “Frostbitten. Ether burned. Heart shattered.”

He grunted. “Welcome to my home, boy.”

James didn’t speak. He stared at his cracked palms. The dagger is still with me, he thought absently. I’m still alive. But for what?

The beggar sat beside him.

The sirens blared further out.

People shouted. The city hissed in fear.

The Ice-Plague had returned—and it had a face.

Rudenberg would not sleep that night. And neither would the boy whose heart had become winter

❄️ Act 6: Living with Truth

The frost had calmed.

Not vanished. Just... waiting.

The alley stank of damp stone, rust, and gutter oil. Pale mist curled along the floor like forgotten whispers. The boy sat hunched beside a cracked brick wall, his head low, eyes half-lidded. The city’s distant sirens had finally faded—but the chill in the air clung to the bones of Rudenberg.

The beggar watched him quietly, seated across a dying ember in a stolen brazier. His rags steamed slightly, wet from dragging the boy through side alleys to this place—this pocket of nowhere.

He scratched his chin, brow creased beneath strands of silver hair.

“You didn’t ask for help,” the beggar said at last.

James didn’t respond.

“You didn’t run from them, either. Even when the mob chased you. You looked back. Almost like you wanted them to finish what the Archive didn’t.”

Still no answer. Just that dull, frost-bitten stare.

The beggar leaned forward, poking the fire.

“I’ve seen a lot in this city. Magic. Monsters. Men who turn cities to cinders. But what I saw back there?” He jabbed a finger toward the street beyond. “That wasn’t power. That was pain turned inside out.”

James blinked slowly. “I didn’t mean to...”

The words faltered.

The beggar raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t mean to what? Breathe? Live?”

James clenched his jaw, the tiniest spark behind his clouded eyes.

The beggar sat back with a grunt. “So. You want to tell me what happened?”

James spoke with a voice like cracked porcelain.

“The Archive. The others. My coming of age. It was supposed to be... it was supposed to make sense.”

"And he told him—every shattered moment, from the sarcophagus’ glow to the frost in his veins.

The beggar’s calloused hands stilled. For the first time, his eyes lost their mocking glint, darkening like storm clouds over Rudenberg’s spires. Something ancient flickered in his gaze—something that recognized the Abyssal Ice.

END OF FLASHBACK:

‘You’re lucky,’ he muttered, thumb brushing the rim of his flask—a tarnished thing etched with long-faded runes. ‘The Archive prefers its relics frozen. But you? You’re still breathing. That means it wants you alive."’

James stared at his palms again, fingers trembling.

“I trained for ten years. I bled for that moment. I thought I’d get fire. Maybe shadow. Something I could use.” His voice fractured. “Not this.”

The beggar’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Abyssal Ice.” He tapped the brazier’s edge. “They call it cursed for a reason. It's not just rare, boy. It's remembered. Whole provinces starved when the last carrier lost control. Frost that crawls into the soul and never let goes.”

James looked at him, startled. “You... you know about it?”

The beggar grunted. “I’ve read things in libraries that no one was supposed to keep. Heard things whispered by drunk Ex-Knights too afraid to sleep.” He paused. “Some say the Engine isn’t evil. It just... reflects.”

“Reflects?”

“Shows you the truth you bury deepest. The colder the heart, the colder the echo.”

James flinched at that.

The beggar saw it. Pressed gently.

“So what happened to you, boy? What made you so cold inside?”

Silence. The fire crackled softly.

James didn’t answer. But he didn’t look away.

The beggar waited for a time, then stood and adjusted the rags around his shoulders. “I’ve seen grown warriors crumble from less. Yet here you are, frostbitten, shunned, hunted... and alive.”

James' voice was barely a whisper.

“I don’t know why I got it.”

The beggar nodded slowly. “Sometimes the Engine doesn’t give us what we want. It gives us what we carry. And sometimes, that’s a heavier burden than anyone deserves.”

He moved to the edge of the alley, peering out into the soft, falling mist of Rudenberg’s rooftops. The towers glowed faintly in Ether-light. But none of that warmth reached here.

James’ shoulders slumped. “I trained every day to make my mother proud. To avenge her. She was an Honoured Knight, betrayed and killed by them. They murdered her for what she believed in.”

His voice cracked.

“She died… and I got a weapon I don’t understand. That hurts me. That makes everyone around me afraid.”

The beggar turned.

“But you’re still breathing.”

James looked up, brow furrowed.

“You didn’t let them catch you,” the beggar said firmly. “You didn’t kill anyone in the Archive, even when you had the power to. That means something.”

James looked down at his chest, fingers brushing the dagger. His mother’s blade.

“I wanted to use this to cut them down. One by one.”

The beggar sat beside him, this time without flinching at the frost. “Then use it. Use it with meaning. With fire in your intent, even if ice flows in your veins.”

James didn’t speak.

For a long while, he just listened to the soft sounds of the city shifting—voices, metal, the ripple of far-off Ether conduits.

And then, finally—his hands stopped shaking.

He gripped the dagger tighter, and something like clarity passed across his face.

“I don’t know if I’ll survive this,” he said. “But I know one thing.”

The beggar raised a brow.

“I have to finish what I started. I won’t let this... this plague stop me.”

He stood.

Slowly. Painfully. With breath shallow from exhaustion.

But he stood.

He turned his frost-bitten palm upward, letting the chill hover there.

“They call it a curse.” “But winter always has teeth.”

❄️ Act 7: Return to the House of Winter

The hour was late—Rudenberg cloaked in silence and candlelight, its alleys softened by mist and moon. The whispers about the Archive had quieted into tension just below the surface, like frost beneath fresh snow.

James stood just beyond the beggar’s alley, the man’s patchy cloak resting over his shoulders. The frost in his veins had stilled—for now.

“I need to go,” he said, voice low.

The beggar exhaled through his nose. “To face whatever waits?”

James nodded. “It’s still my home.”

The beggar grunted and handed him the cloak with a flick. “This’ll keep the night from staring too hard.”

James slid it on. It wasn’t elegant, but it blended well with shadow. He hesitated.

“You never told me your name.”

The beggar gave him a sidelong glance. “One day,” he said. “When it’ll mean something.”

And with that, James turned and vanished into the sleeping city.

The walk back to the Rubenblood home was smoother than it had any right to be.

No guards. No torches. Just the occasional wind carving between narrow streets and guttering lamps humming over shuttered stores.

But James didn’t know that something sinister was following him in the shadows.

When he reached the front steps, the air around him warmed faintly, as if the house had noticed him.

It stood exactly as he’d left it—a modest two-story tucked between fading merchant manors. Not grand. Not poor. A house that spoke in quiet routine.

He lifted a hand to knock.

But the door creaked open first.

Arthur stood there, just as he always had—apron slung at his side, eyes calm, the lines on his face drawn in warmth and wear. He didn’t speak.

He only smiled.

James had always loathed that smile—gentle, detached, too still. A smile that had no right to exist the day his mother didn’t come home.

But now?

Now, that smile cracked something inside him.

James collapsed to his knees before he realized he’d moved. A choked breath slipped free, and for the first time in days—weeks, maybe—he cried.

No frost.

Just tears.

Arthur stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him without a word.

Later, they sat by the hearth. James held a chipped mug in shaking fingers, something warm inside burning faintly against the cold inside him. He hadn’t spoken much—just fragments. The Archive. The sarcophagus. The scream of ice.

Arthur never interrupted.

“It’s Abyssal Ice,” James finally said.

Arthur’s eyes didn’t flicker. “I know.”

“You’re not surprised.”

“I’m your father. I’m not surprised by you.”

James swallowed hard. “Everyone else was afraid.”

Arthur’s gaze was firm. “You are not a monster.”

“But I froze an entire chamber—”

“You survived something that should’ve killed you. That’s not the same.”

James looked down into the mug. “They said Mom was cursed once. That she was the Plague too.”

Arthur’s silence deepened.

James pressed, “Was it true?”

“No,” Arthur said simply. “She never bore Abyssal Ice.”

“Then why—?”

Arthur shook his head. “Not tonight. The reason they feared your mother…The truth about her would paint targets on us both.”

James clenched his jaw, frustration bubbling like steam.

Arthur’s voice softened. “You’ll know when you’re ready to hear it.”

Time stretched. The fire dimmed a little, and James let the warmth soak in—not just the flames, but the quiet comfort in knowing someone hadn’t abandoned him.

Arthur stirred beside him. “They’ve missed you.”

James furrowed his brow. “Who?”

“Nolan and Cicily.”

James blinked.

Arthur continued, “They’re still studying at the Academy in Fganud. They sent you a dozen letters this year. Birthdays, festival wishes, even a sketch of the new uniforms.”

James flinched. “I didn’t open them.”

“I know.”

The words weren’t reproachful. Just factual.

“They asked me why you stopped writing back. I told them you were busy training.”

James exhaled, the shame curling inside like ice smoke. “I thought if I pushed everyone away, it’d be easier when—”

“When?”

“When I failed.”

Arthur looked at him, the grief quiet in his eyes. “You didn’t fail. You’re still here. That counts for more than you know.”

They sat in silence again.

❄️ Act 8: Who’s There

The fire burned low, casting flickering shadows across the wooden walls. James and Arthur sat in quiet silence—two figures bound by blood and distance, by words unspoken and those too heavy to voice.

James watched the fire, the tea lukewarm in his hands, the cloak pooled at his feet like the skin of some shadow he’d finally shed.

Then it struck.

A sharp stab—like frost-bitten iron—lanced through his chest.

He doubled forward, breath hitching, the cup shattering at his feet.

His father was beside him instantly.

“James!”

He clutched his ribs, gasping as pain threaded through his arms, spine, and neck. Veins shimmered beneath the surface—pale blue, as if the blood itself had been laced with ice.

His pupils dilated.

His breathing turned ragged.

The frost returned.

It wept from his fingertips. Curled up his arms. Crawled like guilt toward his throat.

Arthur’s eyes tightened. “No…”

He moved fast—too fast for a merchant—and pulled a leather case from the mantel drawer. From inside, he produced a vial: midnight glass, sealed with silver, and glowing faintly from within with golden swirls.

He knelt beside James and tilted his chin up.

“Drink this,” he said. “Now.”

James could barely speak. “What… what is it?”

“Aetherflux Elixir,” Arthur muttered. “Ultra-rare. Unstable. Effective.” His hand shook as he unstopped the vial. “It won’t cure you. But it’ll slow the frostbite. For a time.”

{{ Aetherflux Elixir — A rare alchemical tonic forged from stabilized Ether residue and phoenix root sap. Used to temporarily suppress internal Ether overload symptoms, especially in cursed or overclocked Engine wielders. It halts the body’s rejection just long enough to survive... or escape. }}

James hesitated only a second before drinking. The liquid burned going down—like molten sunlight—but within seconds, the frost at his skin hissed and retreated.

The pain dulled.

He gasped.

Collapsed against the couch.

Arthur stayed knelt beside him, eyes distant.

“I hope I never need this again,” he whispered.

James barely heard. “Again…?”

But his father only said, “It’s the Abyssal Cycle. You overused your core. First comes freezing. Then decay.”

James wiped cold sweat from his brow. “And after that?”

Arthur’s silence spoke louder than any answer.

Then—

A THUD slammed against the front door.

Both men froze.