Freya Valdis's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

Aezrath's silence had trapped him. But a cornered god still holds power. He raised one hand, and the cold in the hall grew teeth. Freya lifted her cracked lantern. The blue flame in it burned harder, matching him. At the edge of the hall stood a stranger, one of the god's own servants. He was thin and gray, half-frozen where he leaned against the wall. Aezrath turned toward him. "I will not give you my seat," he told Freya. "But I can build a new one. All it takes is a life." Freya understood too late. He meant to kill the servant. A death would feed a new seal, and a new seal would lock the sky again. If he sealed it now, her leverage over him vanished. She would lose the road back to the cosmos. Aezrath spread his fingers. Frost crawled across the floor toward the servant. The man could not move. Ice climbed his legs. "Stop him," Moira said. She stood apart, feathers of blue and gold drifting from her crown. She was Aezrath's own sister, and she had shown Freya every hidden road. But now she only watched. "I see the outcome. I cannot change it. You can." Elsa clutched the carved pixie to her chest. Torrent Iron stepped forward, water churning inside his metal frame, but the god's cold slowed him mid-stride. Freya ran. Her freezing touch could not warm the man. It could do the opposite. She slammed her palm to the floor. Her frost was faster than Aezrath's. It shot across the stone and locked his ice in place before it reached the servant's chest. The two frosts met and cracked against each other. Aezrath pushed harder. Freya felt his power pour through the floor, older and deeper than hers. Her arm shook. The ice crept forward again, inch by inch. So she stopped fighting his cold and turned it. She wrapped her frost around his and dragged it back toward him. The seal he was building needed the servant's death. She gave it nothing. The gathered power had no life to take. It broke apart. The backlash struck Aezrath. Frost burst up his own arm and froze it solid to the shoulder. He staggered. The blue fire in his eyes dimmed. Freya pulled the gray servant free of the ice and pushed him toward Elsa. The man lived. The new seal was dead before it formed. The sky above the hall stayed open. Aezrath cradled his frozen arm. He could not seal the heavens now. He could not cast her out again. But he was not finished, and his hate was plain. Moira came to Freya's side. "You saved the man," she said. "And you kept your road open. But you have wounded a god in his own hall. He will not wait quietly for you to take his seat. He will come for you first."