Glacius Frostmaw had climbed the world's highest peak to forge an unbreakable weapon, and the ice at the summit obeyed him. He shaped a blade from it with his bare hands. But the edge stayed dull. Frozen water was not enough. To wake the weapon, he needed a heart of true power. He had heard the stories his whole life. Deep in the peak slept an ancient cube, cut from the scales of the permafrost dragon. That cube held the power he needed. He found the cube in a cave behind a wall of blue ice. It sat on a stone shelf, its crystal ridges sharp, its surface breathing faint cold. Glacius reached for it. The air froze solid around his hand. "Take it and the mountain dies," said a voice. Glacius turned. A small figure stood in the cave mouth, white hair wild, blue eyes burning. This was Oskar Drumm, the ice demigod who had guarded the peak since before the orcs had names. Glacius's own grandmother had warned him about the guardian. He was smaller than a child and older than the ice itself. "I only need its power," Glacius said. "Not the mountain." "The cube is the mountain's heart." Oskar stepped closer. Frost spread from each footprint. "Others came for it. I buried them in the snow." Glacius did not reach again. He knelt instead, lowering his eyes to meet the small guardian's. "My people freeze in the low valleys. Raiders take what little we grow. I need a weapon that will not break. Not for greed. For them." Oskar studied him for a long moment. "You speak like your sister." Glacius stiffened. Skara had climbed this peak two winters ago and never returned home. "You knew Skara." "She sat where you kneel. She asked for the cube too." Oskar's face did not soften. "I sent her away. She would not raise a hand against me. She feared what the power would cost." "She's alive?" "She lives below the tree line. She grows a small tree there, one that blooms in the cold." Oskar pointed a thin finger at the cube. "Take the heart, and every tree on this mountain dies. Hers first." Glacius looked at the dull blade in his hand, then at the cube. He thought of his frozen people. He thought of his sister, alive after two silent years. He could not have both. He made his choice. He seized the cube. Ice exploded from the shelf. Oskar screamed and lunged, but Glacius pressed the cube against his blade. The dragon-scale power poured into the ice. The edge sharpened to a bright, humming line. The weapon woke. The whole cave shuddered. Cracks ran up the walls. Behind Glacius, deep in the peak, something groaned and began to shift. "You've killed it," Oskar whispered. "And when the mountain falls, it falls on her."

The cave shook, but Glacius held the blade. Dragon-scale power roared through the ice edge. The weapon shook in his fist. Light burst along its length. Cracks spread up the blade itself, thin and bright. The power he had stolen now wanted to tear the sword apart. If he could not calm it, his prize would shatter to slivers. He gripped the hilt with both hands. The dragon head at the pommel glowed white. Heat and cold fought inside the metal. His fingers burned. He tried to force the power down by strength. The blade only screamed louder. A crack jumped near the guard. He was losing it. "Strength won't hold it," said a voice behind him. Oskar stood in the ruined cave mouth. The ice guardian was smaller than a child, white hair wild, blue eyes cold. Frost still spread from each step. He had every reason to let the weapon break. Glacius had ignored his warning and killed the mountain. "Then tell me what will," Glacius said. His arms shook. Oskar's face did not soften. "You took the dragon's heart. It does not obey a fist. It answers a purpose. Give it one, or it will scatter you across the snow." Glacius thought of the low valleys. He thought of raiders and thin fields. He thought of his sister below the tree line, growing her small tree while the mountain leaned toward her. He stopped fighting the blade. He pictured the reason he had climbed at all. "Protect them," he said aloud. "Not break. Not burn. Guard." The blade's scream dropped to a hum. The bright cracks along the edge did not spread. They sealed. The metal cooled under his hands. The dragon head at the hilt dimmed to a steady blue. The weapon settled, tamed, whole and sharp and quiet. Glacius breathed hard. The sword was his now, truly his. It would not shatter. He had forged the unbreakable edge he came for. A groan rolled up from deep in the peak. Stone ground on stone. Ice fell from the ceiling in sheets. The cave was dying around him. Oskar watched him without pity. "You have your weapon. And the mountain has its wound. It is falling." He pointed down, past the broken wall, toward the slopes below. "It falls where your sister sleeps." Glacius looked at the tamed blade, then at the guardian. The power that woke the sword had cracked the whole peak. He could not undo it. He could only run ahead of it. He turned from the cave and started down the shaking mountain, blade in hand, toward the tree line and Skara.

Glacius came off the last slope with the mountain breaking behind him. Below the tree line stood a small hut of packed ice, and beside it a cherry tree in pale frost. His sister worked at the tree's roots, packing snow, blind to the wall of stone rushing down. Skara. Three winters he had not seen her face. He shouted her name over the roar. She turned. Her blue eyes found him, then the wave of rock above him. "Run," he called. "The peak is falling." She did not run. She grabbed a spear leaning on the hut and set her feet. "You did this," she said. Flat. Certain. She looked at the sword in his hand, at the dragon head glowing blue on its hilt. "You took the heart. I left it there for a reason." "I came to get you out," he said. He reached her as the ground split. A crack tore between his boots. The earth dropped on both sides. Skara stumbled. Glacius caught her arm, but there was no solid ground to stand on. Ice and dirt broke loose beneath them and slid toward the drop. He had her. He had nowhere to put his feet. Skara looked down at the falling slope, then up at him. "You can't carry me on air, brother." He looked at the sword. The blade he had forged to protect them. Strength had not tamed it. Purpose had. He drove the point straight down through the shifting ground. "Guard," he said. The dragon head flared white. Cold shot out from the buried blade. The loose slope beneath their feet froze hard, a plate of solid ice bridging the crack. It held. Boulders struck the frozen shelf and shattered above them. Glacius pulled Skara flat against the ice and covered her head. The mountain poured past on either side and did not touch them. When the roar faded, the slope was changed. The old peak was gone, sheared to a broken ridge. Their frozen shelf stood above a field of raw stone. The cherry tree was buried. The hut was gone. Skara pushed off the ice and stood, breathing hard. "You saved my life," she said. She was not soft about it. "With the thing that nearly killed me." Glacius pulled the sword from the ice. "It holds now. It protects." She stared past him at the shattered ridge, and something set in her jaw. "Then it comes with us," she said. "My brother is up there. Not this one. The warlord took him and sealed him in a glacier fort on the far ridge. The seal closes in three days." She met his eyes. "You broke one mountain. Help me break into another." Glacius looked at the blade, then at the ruined slopes he had made. He had come for a weapon. Now he had a road, and a debt, and a sister who would not wait.

By dusk on the second day, Glacius and Skara crouched behind a ridge of packed snow. Below them stood the glacier fort, walls of blue ice and cracked stone, sharp spikes rising from every tower. Their brother was inside. The seal would close by morning. Glacius saw the great front gate and started forward. Skara caught his arm. "Wait. You don't know what's in there." "I have the sword," Glacius said. "I'll cut a path." "To what? A dead end? A guard post? You charge in blind, our brother dies." She pointed at the walls. "Guards on every level. One door. We need to see inside first." Glacius stopped. She was right. He had broken a mountain by rushing. He would not break his brother the same way. "Then we find eyes," he said. Skara pressed two fingers to her lips and gave a low whistle. Snow shifted behind them. A giant elk stepped from the trees, white fur thick, antlers dusted with frost. It lowered its head to her hand. "He grazes these slopes," Skara said. "He knows the ways the warlord's men use." She had lived three winters below this ridge. She knew its animals and its paths. Glacius watched the elk paw the snow. It walked to the fort's east wall and stopped at a low drift. Beneath the drift ran a narrow channel, worn by melt, wide enough for a body. It slipped under the ice wall and out of sight. "A drain," Skara said. "It runs under the wall." They followed it on their bellies. The channel opened into a hollow beneath the fort, a space of frozen pipes and dripping stone. From there Glacius saw the whole inside. Stairs climbed each level. Guards stood at three landings. At the top, a single cell glowed with pale sealing light. A tall young orc sat behind the bars, head down. "Throk," Skara breathed. Glacius counted the guards. He marked the stairs, the blind corners, the one lit window near the cell. Now he had the map. He knew where his brother was and every step between. Then a guard above them stopped. He tilted his head. He had heard the drip of water change. He leaned over the rail and looked down into the hollow. His eyes found them. "Intruders!" he roared. A horn sounded. Boots hammered the stairs. The sealing light at the top flared brighter, faster, as if the alarm hurried it. Glacius drew the sword. The dragon head woke blue on the hilt. "We know the way now," he said. "We climb. Fast." Skara set her spear. "They know we're here." "Good," Glacius said. "Let them come down. We go up." He went first, up the stairs, toward the cell and the closing seal, no longer blind. The fort was no longer a mystery. It was a race.

Glacius reached the second landing and swung the sword at a guard. The blade cut the air, but no frost trailed it. The dragon head on the hilt sat dark. Its blue eyes had gone dull. He had spent the last of its magic freezing the mountainside to save Skara. Now the sword was only sharp steel, and the fort was full of armed men. "The blade's dead," he told Skara. "No power left." She drove her spear into a guard's knee. "Then swing it like a club. We climb." Two more guards blocked the third landing. Glacius fought them with strength alone. His shoulder took a spear tip. He gritted his teeth and shoved the man over the rail. But higher up, the cell's sealing light burned brighter. Without the sword's fire, he had no way to break through the frozen bars in time. He stopped, chest heaving. The plan had a hole in it, and he had no way to fill it. Then the dragon head flickered. One eye lit, faint blue. Glacius stared. He remembered the cave, the moment he stopped forcing the blade and gave it purpose instead. The magic had never come from anger. It came from why he fought. He pressed his hand to the cold hilt. He thought of Throk, the brother he had not seen in three winters, waiting behind that light. "For him," he said. "Only for him." The hilt warmed. The dull eyes brightened. Frost crawled up the crystal blade and hardened into a bright edge. The sword had not needed the mountain to recharge. It needed him. This power had slept inside the weapon since its forging, and his intent had woken it. Glacius climbed the last stairs two at a time. The sealing light poured white through the cell window. Behind the bars sat Throk, tall and thin, wrists raw from the irons. He lifted his head. His pale eyes went wide. "Glacius?" His voice cracked. "You came for me." "Get back," Glacius said. Throk pressed himself to the far wall. Glacius raised the burning blade and struck the sealed bars. Frost met frost. The magic split the ice with a crack like a breaking lake. The bars shattered. The sealing light guttered out. Throk stumbled through the gap. Glacius caught his arm and held him up. For a moment neither spoke. Then Throk gripped his brother's shoulder, hard. "I knew you'd break something to reach me," Throk said. Skara reached the landing behind them, spear bloody. "Together now," she said. "We go down." But boots thundered up from below, more than before. The warlord's whole guard had woken. The stairs they had climbed were now full of men. The seal was broken. Throk was free. And the only way out led straight through them.

The boots came louder. Glacius stood at the top of the stairs with his brother beside him. Throk was tall and thin, his wrists still raw from the irons. Skara guarded their backs, spear ready. Three winters Glacius had not seen his brother. Now he had one path down, and the warlord's whole guard filled it. "I can fight through," Glacius said. But he counted the helmets rising toward them and knew the truth. Too many. His sword would not hold against all of them. Throk grabbed his arm. "Not that way. There." He pointed to a shape set high in the cell wall. It was the dragon cube, the scaled block Glacius had once carried from the summit, sealed here behind glass. The warlord had taken it as a trophy. Its surface glowed faint blue. "It powered the seal," Throk said. "They hung it here to lock me in. It still holds cold enough to freeze a river." Glacius understood. The blade drew power from purpose. The cube was raw power itself. He pressed his palm to the glass. The chill bit through his skin. "Get behind me," he told them. Skara pulled Throk to the wall. Glacius drove his fist through the glass and gripped the cube. Cold roared up his arm. It was not like the sword's slow warming. It poured into him like a flood through a broken dam. His vision went white. He felt the frost fill his chest, his throat, his bones. The cube cracked in his grip and drained empty. He opened his eyes. Frost sheathed his arms. His breath came out as a storm. The lead guard reached the landing and swung. Glacius raised his hand. Ice burst from his palm and threw the man back down the stairs into the men behind him. He walked down. Guards charged and he swept his arm across them. A wall of ice rose from the steps and pinned them to the rails. Where he set his feet, frost spread and hardened. The stairs became a slope of solid ice. Men slid and fell and could not stand. Skara stared at her brother. "Glacius." Her voice was low. "You're changed." He did not feel the wound in his shoulder anymore. He felt the whole fort's cold answer him. He raised both hands and the great doors below froze and shattered. Light poured in from outside. "Move," he said. His voice carried a hum under it now. They ran down the frozen stairs. Guards clawed at the walls and could not follow. At the broken doors Glacius turned and breathed once. The stairwell filled with ice from floor to ceiling. No one would climb after them. Throk looked at his brother's frost-covered skin, his glowing eyes. "What did you become?" Glacius flexed his hand. Frost curled from his fingers. The cube was gone, spent inside him. He held its power now, and it did not fade. "Something the mountain can't kill," he said. "We go home. Then I finish the blade."

The three ran from the shattered fort onto open snow. Behind them Glacius heard shouts. He looked back. Not the trapped guards, but a line of riders spilling from a side gate. The warlord's men had survived, and now they hunted. Glacius counted a dozen mounts closing across the white flat. Throk stumbled, still weak from the cell. There was no cover for miles, and Glacius knew the truth. On foot, they would not reach home. "Keep moving," Skara said. She did not slow. She jerked her chin at a shape ahead, half hidden in a drift. A great elk stood there, white as the snow, antlers dusted with frost. It watched them without fear. "Mine," she said. "Three winters I kept it." She whistled once. The elk lowered its head. The riders gained. At their front rode a huge man with a black beard. His eyes were white, blind, and fixed on nothing. Yet he pointed straight at Glacius. "There," the man called. His voice cut across the wind. "I hear the ice on him. That's the one." This was Khar Ironforge, the warlord's war-leader. He did not need sight to hunt. Skara pulled Throk onto the elk's back. "Ride," she told him. "Take the tree line." Throk gripped the fur. "What about you?" "We hold them," Skara said. She turned to Glacius. "You have power now. Use it." Glacius stopped running. He faced the riders and spread his hands. The frost in his chest answered. He drove both palms down. Ice tore up from the snow in a rising wall. Two horses hit it and threw their riders. But the wall was thin. Men rode around its ends. The power came fast and left faster, and Glacius felt it drain like water through his fingers. Khar swung down from his horse and walked forward on foot. He drew a heavy blade. "Blind man fears no wall," he said. "I follow the cold." Glacius understood. His power had a sound, a hum Khar could track. So he made it silent. He dropped to a crouch and pressed both hands flat to the ground. He did not throw the ice. He grew it under the snow, slow and quiet, spreading beneath every hoof and boot. Then he clenched his fists. The whole field of snow locked to glass. Horses crashed down. Men slid and could not rise. Khar stood alone on the ice, sword up, turning toward a hum that was no longer there. "Run out of tricks?" Khar called. Glacius did not answer. He backed away over the frozen ground and reached the elk. Skara pulled him up behind Throk. The elk bounded for the tree line. Below, the warlord's men clawed at the ice and stayed pinned. Khar stood among them, blind, listening, left behind. The hunt was broken. Now the mountain, and the blade, waited above.

The elk carried them past the tree line and up the white slope. Snow thinned to bare ice. At the top waited the frozen peak, and its cavern mouth glittered with pale crystal. Glacius slid from the elk's back. He knew what stood inside. The same guardian who had warned him before, on the day he took the dragon's heart. Skara and Throk hung back. This was his to finish. Glacius stepped into the cavern. Cold light bounced off frozen walls. A small figure stood at the far end, white hair wild, blue eyes bright as the ice around him. Oskar Drumm, the demigod who guarded the summit. He had told Glacius that greed would kill the mountain. He had been right. Now he blocked the last stretch of ancient ice, the ice Glacius needed to finish his blade. "You came back," Oskar said. "The mountain is already dying. Yet you want more." "I need the peak's ice," Glacius said. "For the weapon. Only that ice is old enough." "And I stand here." Oskar spread his small hands. Frost crawled up the walls toward Glacius. "Take it by force, and I will fight you." Glacius drew the sword he had forged. Its dragon eyes glowed faint blue. He raised it, then stopped. Force had brought the collapse. Force had nearly buried Skara. He lowered the blade. "I won't fight you," Glacius said. "You were right about the mountain. I paid for that." He held up his bare hand. Frost formed there without the cube. "I carry the power now. The cube is spent. Whatever I take, I take once, and no more." Oskar studied him. The crawling frost slowed. "You have changed," the demigod said. "The one who came before grabbed and ran. You ask." "I ask," Glacius said. "One block. Enough to finish the blade. Then the peak is yours alone." Oskar was quiet a long moment. Then he stepped aside. Behind him, deep in the cavern, a single pillar of clear old ice caught the light. "The mountain gave everything else," Oskar said. "Take this and no more. Break your word, and even a spent orc will not walk down again." Glacius laid his hand on the pillar. He drew a slow breath and pulled the cold into a single block. It came free clean. The pillar closed smooth behind it. He held the ancient ice against his chest. "Go," Oskar said. "Finish what you started. Then let this peak rest." Glacius carried the block out into the wind. Skara looked at his hands, then at his face. "He let you pass," she said. "He let me pass," Glacius said. The guardian was behind him now. The last ice was in his arms. Only the forging remained.

Glacius carried the ancient ice down to a flat shelf of rock below the cavern. Skara and Throk followed. He set the block on the stone and knelt beside it. He no longer needed a forge. The cube's power lived in his hands now. He pressed both palms to the ice and pulled the cold into a shape. The block cracked along a line. Glacius did not fight it. He guided the fracture, the way Oskar had taught him to ask rather than grab. Frost peeled back in sheets. Underneath, a blade took form. Crystal edges. A hilt curved like a dragon's skull. Two eyes woke in the guard and glowed pale blue. The sword was finished. Throk let out a slow breath. "You did it," he said. Glacius lifted the blade. It hummed against his grip. Then it went cold and heavy. The dragon eyes dimmed. The runes along the steel faded to gray. He waited for the pull of purpose to feed it, the way it always had. Nothing came. The weapon had drained itself in its own making. "It's dead," Skara said. She did not soften it. "You finished the blade and it has no fire." Glacius turned the sword in the light. Under the peak, the ground trembled. A crack ran up the cavern mouth behind them. Oskar stepped out onto the shelf, small and grave, his blue eyes fixed on the sword. "You took the last old ice," the demigod said. "The peak spent everything to give it. Now the mountain is finishing its fall." Glacius stood. "I kept my word. I took one block and no more." "You did," Oskar said. "But a blade forged from a dying mountain carries the mountain's death in it. It will hold no power until the peak rests. And the peak cannot rest while it falls." Another crack split the rock. Snow slid past the shelf in a white sheet. Skara grabbed Throk's arm. "We need off this ridge," she said. Glacius looked at the guardian. "How does the peak rest?" "The cube's heart must return to the summit," Oskar said. "Not the stone. The cold you carry. You took the mountain's power into your own body. Give it back, and the fall stops. The blade wakes. But you give it all." Glacius understood. The frost in his hands was the last of the dragon cube. Return it, and the mountain lived, and the sword woke true. Keep it, and he stayed a frost-wielding being while the peak crumbled and the blade stayed dead. He held the cold sword in one hand and looked at his brother and sister on the shaking rock. "Then I climb back up," Glacius said. Skara's jaw tightened. "You'll be ordinary again." "I'll be alive," Glacius said. "And the blade will be real." He turned toward the summit. The choice was made. Only the climb remained.

Glacius climbed toward the summit with the dead sword strapped to his back. Wind cut across the open slope. Behind him, Skara and Throk followed. He felt the cold in his hands, the last of the dragon cube's power, waiting to be given back. But that same cold spread past his own body. It wrapped his brother and sister in a thin frost shell that held the killing wind off their skin. He had not meant to shield them. The power did it on its own. Halfway up, Throk stumbled and dropped to one knee. His lips had gone gray. Glacius knelt and gripped his arm. Warmth was not the word. The frost that ran out of Glacius did not heat Throk. It matched the cold outside so the wind could not steal his brother's own heat. Skara crouched close, shaking. "It's keeping us alive," she said. "Your power. Take it off us and this slope will finish what the cold started." Glacius understood the trap. To wake the blade and save the mountain, he had to surrender the frost at the summit. But the moment he let it go, Skara and Throk would stand on bare rock with nothing between them and the wind. He looked up the last stretch. No cave. No shelter. Only ice and open sky. Oskar Drumm waited on the summit stone. The old guardian was small against the wide gray sky, his white beard stiff with frost. He watched Glacius climb the final steps with his siblings behind him. "You brought them into the wind," Oskar said. "You cannot give the cold back and keep them warm. Not both." "Then I bring them inside the cave first," Glacius said. "I climbed this peak twice for nothing before. I won't lose them to save a blade." Oskar shook his head. "There is no time to walk them down. The mountain falls now." The ground shuddered under his boots to prove it. Glacius made his choice. He pressed one hand to Skara's chest and one to Throk's. Then he pulled every thread of frost out of his own body and drove it into them. Not into the summit. Into his brother and sister. The cold sealed over them in a hard shell of ice, thick enough to hold the wind off long after he was gone. The rest of the power left his hands and sank into the stone at Oskar's feet. The shaking stopped. Deep in the rock, something settled. Glacius felt his own body turn ordinary. His skin went bare to the wind, and he shivered like any orc. The sword on his back woke. The dragon eyes in the guard glowed pale blue. The runes brightened. The blade hummed alive at last. But Glacius stood on the summit with no frost left in him, and the wind found his skin like a knife. He had saved his siblings and woken the blade. Now he had to get down the mountain alive.

The blade hummed alive on Glacius's back, but the wind cut through him now. His frost was gone. He had poured every thread into his siblings and the summit stone. Skara and Throk stood sealed in ice shells, safe. Glacius shivered on bare rock, and the cold reached deep into his chest. His hands would not close. His knees buckled. He had woken the sword and killed the mountain's fall, but the peak was still trying to kill him. Oskar Drumm watched from the summit stone. The old guardian was small, his white beard stiff with frost, blue light in his eyes. He had blocked Glacius twice on this peak. He had warned him about greed. Now he stepped forward and knelt beside the falling orc. "You gave it all away," Oskar said. "Even the part that kept you standing." "They live," Glacius said. His voice shook. "The blade lives. That was the trade." Oskar looked at the ice shells around Skara and Throk. Then he looked at the stone under his boots, calm now, no longer shaking. The mountain was restored. The guardian pressed one hand flat to the summit rock. "You returned what you took," he said. "The peak can rest. So it can spare a breath for the one who saved it." A thin warmth rose from the stone. It was not the killing cold. It was the mountain's own heat, held deep for ages. It curled up through Glacius's boots and into his frozen legs. His fingers moved. His chest loosened. The ice shells around Skara and Throk cracked, then fell away in bright shards. His brother and sister dropped to their knees, breathing hard, alive and free of the cold. Skara reached her brother first. She gripped his shoulder hard. "You're ordinary now," she said. "No frost left." It was not a question. "None," Glacius said. "I'm just an orc again." Throk laughed, ragged and real. "Then carry your own sword down." Glacius pulled the blade from his back. The dragon eyes in the guard glowed pale blue. The runes shone. It was finished at last, and it was truly alive. He held it up and felt its weight settle right in his grip. Warm, not cold. Ready. Oskar rose. His face was hard again. "The mountain is whole. My debt to you is paid. But you should know one thing before you leave." He pointed down the slope, past the tree line, toward the low country. "You immobilized the blind war-leader and his riders. Ice does not hold forever, and yours melted when you gave it up. Khar Ironforge walks free now. He tracked you by your magic once. He will not need it twice. He knows your faces." Glacius looked down the mountain. The blade was awake. His power was gone. And somewhere below, an enemy was climbing toward his family with nothing to stop him.

Glacius led his brother and sister down from the summit. The blade rode warm on his back, awake at last. But his frost was gone, and the low slopes held new danger. Oskar Drumm walked with them to the tree line, then stopped. "I go no farther," the guardian said. "The peak rests now. Watch the ground below. Your enemy climbs." He pointed once, then turned back toward the stone. Below the trees, riders spread across the snow. Glacius counted them from the ridge. A dozen men on horses, moving to close a ring against the mountain. At their center rode a huge figure with a black beard and blank white eyes. Khar Ironforge. The blind war-leader who had hunted them from the fort. He sat still on his horse, head tilted, listening. "He'll trap us against the rock," Skara said. Her voice was flat and hard. "No frost to stop them now. No way around." Glacius saw one shape between the enemy and open ground. A small hut of packed ice sat below, its frost-tinted panels catching the light. A single door, thick walls. "There," he said. "We hold the door. They can only come one at a time." They ran. Throk reached the hut first and threw his shoulder against the door. The three of them crowded inside the crystal walls. Khar's voice rolled up the slope. "I hear you breathing, orc. Come out. It ends here." Glacius drew the dragon-heart sword. The blade's eyes glowed pale blue. He remembered how it fed on purpose, not on cold. He fixed his mind on one thing: his family alive, down the mountain. The runes brightened in his hands. A rider dismounted and charged the door. Glacius met him in the narrow gap. Steel rang. The man was strong, but only one could fit through at a time. Glacius drove the awakened blade through the guard's armor and shoved him back into the snow. A second came. Glacius killed him too. Khar did not rush. He set his palm flat on the ice wall and listened to the fight inside. "Two dead," he said. "You fight better with the sword than with your magic." He drew his own great axe. "But you can't hold one door forever." Then Skara moved. She slipped through the hut's back panel, out of Khar's hearing, and cut the tether ropes of the tied horses. The animals bolted. The riders scattered to catch them, their ring broken open across the slope. "Now," Glacius said. He burst from the door with the blade high. The remaining men, unhorsed and confused, gave ground. Glacius and his siblings ran through the gap toward open country. Khar stood alone by the hut, axe in hand, turning his blank eyes to follow the fading sound of their feet. He did not chase. "I know your faces," he called after them. "I have the low country now. You'll come down eventually. I'll be waiting where the trees end."

The siblings ran through open snow until the trees thinned ahead. Beyond the last pines lay bare ground and a long white slope. Glacius slowed. He knew what waited there. The blind war-leader had ridden hard to reach the edge first. Now a single figure stood where the trees ended. Khar Ironforge waited alone. His massive frame blocked the gap. He held his great axe loose in both hands, head tilted, listening. The horses were gone. His men were scattered behind on the slope. He had come ahead by himself. "You made good time," he said. "I made better." "Let us pass," Glacius said. "No." Khar turned his blank white eyes toward the sound. "You took my sight at the fort. I owe you your head." He said it plainly, like a fact about the weather. Skara pulled Throk back among the trees. Glacius stepped forward alone. He drew the dragon-heart sword. Its eyes glowed pale blue, and the runes woke along the blade. He had no frost now. He had only steel and purpose. Khar heard the blade clear its sheath. "That's the sword," he said. "Not the magic. Good. The magic was loud. Steel is quiet." He moved, and for a blind man he moved fast. The axe swung. Glacius ducked and felt the wind of it. He struck back and hit only air. Khar had already shifted, tracking his boots in the snow. Glacius froze. He made no sound. He held his breath and waited. Khar stopped too. The two of them stood still in the white silence. Khar's head turned, hunting for a footstep, a breath, a heartbeat. Glacius fixed his mind on one thing. His family alive, past this last man. The runes brightened in his grip. Then Glacius shouted and threw himself right. Khar's axe chopped toward the noise. It bit deep into a pine trunk and stuck. In that half-second Glacius drove the blade in under the war-leader's arm, through the gap in his armor. Khar grunted. He let go of the axe. His hand found Glacius's shoulder and gripped hard, then slid off. He sank to his knees in the snow. "Quiet," he said. "You learned." His head dropped. He fell forward and did not rise. Glacius stood over him, breathing hard. The slope beyond the trees lay empty and open. No riders. No ring. He pulled the blade free and wiped it clean. Skara came out from the pines with Throk behind her. "He's the last of them," she said. She looked down the open country. "The low road is ours now." Glacius sheathed the awakened sword. The hunter was dead. But the blade still needed its true test, the one Oskar spoke of. To finish what he had forged, he had to carry it back to the summit and prove its edge against the ancient ice. The way down was clear. The harder climb waited above.

The hunter was dead, but the climb remained. Glacius left the low road behind and turned back toward the peak. Skara and Throk climbed beside him. The sword rode on his back, its dragon eyes dark. It was awake but untested. Oskar had told him the truth on the summit: a forged blade is not finished until it cuts the ice that made it. Until then, it was only a shape. They stopped one last night at Skara's ice hut below the tree line. Frost panels glowed pale blue in the dark. Outside the door stood her cold-blooming tree, its pink blossoms rimed with white. Skara touched a branch. "Three winters I grew this," she said. "I could have climbed. I turned back." She looked at her brother. "You didn't. Finish it." The next morning they reached the summit. Oskar Drumm waited among the wind-carved stones. The guardian was small and ancient, white hair whipping, blue eyes bright as cut glass. Frost ran across his skin in thin lines. He had blocked Glacius once. He had also saved his life. He watched Glacius climb the last stretch and said nothing at first. "You came back," Oskar said. "Most take and never return. You returned twice." He pointed to a wall of ancient ice, older than the mountain's memory, blue-black and hard as stone. "That ice broke every blade brought against it. The dragon slept inside it once. If your sword cuts it, the blade is true. If not, it stays a trinket." Glacius drew the sword. The runes woke and glowed green along the crystal edge. He had no frost magic left in his body. He had only intent, and Oskar had told him intent was the fuel. Glacius fixed his mind on the whole long road. His sister who had turned back. His brother freed from the cell. The mountain restored. This one cut to make it mean something. He raised the blade and struck the wall. The ice screamed. A crack split from the point of impact and ran up the whole face. The dragon eyes on the hilt flared bright blue. Then the ancient wall broke apart and fell in heavy sheets around his feet. The blade held. Not a chip on its edge. Oskar stepped forward and touched the fallen ice. "It cuts," he said quietly. "The forging is done. The blade is true." He looked up. "The peak can rest now." Glacius lowered the sword. His arms shook. Skara gripped his shoulder. Throk laughed once, sharp and glad. The weapon he had crossed a dying mountain to make was finished at last, proven against the oldest ice in the world. Then Oskar's face changed. He turned toward the broken wall. Behind it, deep in the split rock, something pale stirred in the dark. "You woke more than the blade," he said. "Something answered the cut."