The frost keep lay far north, and Reiji knew he could not breach it alone. He left the library with the torn book and one plan. He needed fighters. The flame-colored fox led him through the cold streets to a stone hall hung with old banners. Above the door, carved letters named it a guild. Warriors gathered here between jobs. He pushed the heavy doors open and stepped inside. Men and women turned to look. A rough board lined one wall, thick with notices for dangerous work. Reiji ignored the paper and studied the fighters instead. He needed skill, not slips of parchment. He walked to the center of the hall and spoke plainly. "I need blades for a keep in the far north. A man who does not die holds prisoners there. I mean to break in." Laughter came first. Then a woman near the wall lowered her boot from a bench. Green hair, dark red eyes, two crossbows on her hips. A wolf the size of a pony rose beside her. "The immortal's keep," she said. "You want to die that badly?" She was Scarlett Thornwood, and the room went quiet when her wolf growled. "I want my mother back," Reiji said. He drew the katana an inch from its sheath. The blade hummed and glowed pale blue. "This was hers. He took her and tore her from every record. I have proof." He held up the book. A man in red and black armor stepped forward. A silver-and-red sword hung at his side. "I fought his hired men once," he said. His name was Crimson Valdris. "They took people from my village. I owe him blood." He set his hand over his heart. "I'm in." Beside a pillar, a woman watched with a blue lantern floating at her shoulder. Aria Soulweaver. The lantern's light bent toward Reiji's humming blade. "Your sword carries a soul that still remembers," she said softly. "I can feel it. I'll come. Souls locked in that keep deserve freedom." One man stayed seated. He balanced a purple scythe across his knees, a barrel set in its blade. Corvus Reave tapped a trigger with one finger. "North is a long march for no coin," he said. "But an immortal is worth killing for the story alone." He stood and slung the weapon over his shoulder. Scarlett looked at the others, then back at Reiji. Her wolf pressed against her leg. "Fine," she said. "But if you get us frozen, I'll haunt you." She stepped from the wall to his side. Four fighters stood with him now. Reiji sheathed his mother's blade. The room felt smaller, warmer, sharper with purpose. He had come in alone and would leave with a company. But four strangers were not a plan, and the frost keep was still a wall of ice guarding a door no one had ever opened.

At dawn Reiji laid out the plan. The wolf would hunt the captor's old road. But the frozen plain was wide, and one nose could not cover it fast. Scarlett spoke first. "We split up. Two search paths. We cover twice the ground." Reiji nodded. He took Scarlett and her wolf. The other three formed the second team. They agreed to meet at a broken ridge by nightfall. Reiji walked beside Scarlett for hours. Her wolf swept the snow in long arcs, nose down. Purple lines still marked its fur, faint under the white light. "He's slower than he was," Scarlett said. She kept her voice flat, but her hand stayed near his neck. "The flower saved him. Now it eats him." Reiji said nothing. He knew she blamed herself. Then the wolf froze. Its hackles rose. A low growl rolled from its chest. Scarlett drew both crossbows. "That's not a track," she said. "That's a warning." The ice cracked. The ground heaved. A massive serpent burst up through the frozen crust. Its scales shone like glacier ice. Spines ran down its back, and pale runes glowed along its coils. The beast towered over them, ancient and slow to wake. Its jaws opened, and cold breath rolled out like fog. Reiji drew his mother's katana. The blade hummed against his palm. "Run for the ridge," he told Scarlett. But the serpent's tail swept wide and cut off their path. They were trapped between its coils and open ice. Gunfire cracked from the flank. Corvus Reave charged in, his purple scythe raised. He pulled the trigger on the handle and a bullet burst from the barrel. It sparked off the beast's scales. Behind him came Crimson Valdris, red aura blazing along his silver sword, and Aria with her blue lantern glowing bright. The second team had heard the roar and turned back. "So much for splitting up," Corvus shouted. He fired again. "Bad idea from the start." The serpent struck at him. Reiji ran under its jaw and drove the katana into a seam between scales. The blade screamed with light. Crimson stabbed his sword into the beast's other side. Aria's lantern flared, and the runes on the serpent's body flickered and dimmed. Scarlett's wolf leapt and clamped its jaws on the throat. The beast shuddered and sank back into its hole. The ice sealed over it. Silence returned. Reiji dropped to one knee, breathing hard. The plan had failed. Splitting up had nearly killed them all. But as the fight ended, Aria pointed past the beast's collapsed pit. A wide, packed groove ran through the snow there, old and straight. Wheel ruts. A road. "The serpent guarded it," Aria said. "That's the way in." Reiji stared at the frozen track leading north. They had split up and paid for it in blood. But the wolf's nose had found nothing. The monster's den had. The road to the frost keep lay open, and now they knew what watched it.

The road north lay open, but the ice was not done with them. Reiji led the group along the wheel ruts at dusk. Scarlett walked beside him, one hand on her wolf's neck. The purple lines under its fur had darkened. The company moved in a tight line, glad the serpent slept. Then the frozen crust split again. The beast rose a second time, faster now. Its glacial scales shone, and the runes along its coils burned bright. This was no half-woken monster. It had learned. Its tail came down between Reiji and the others. The impact threw up a wall of shattered ice. When the fog cleared, Reiji stood on one side with Scarlett. Corvus, Crimson, and Aria were gone from view on the far side. "Split us like cattle," Scarlett said. She raised both crossbows. Her wolf snarled, but its legs shook. "It kept us apart on purpose." Reiji drew his mother's katana. The blade hummed against his palm. On the far side he heard Corvus fire, and Crimson shout. The serpent's body blocked them all. He could not reach them. He could only fight what stood in front of him. "The runes," Reiji said. "Aria dimmed them last time. Without her we cut them out." He pointed at a glowing mark on the nearest coil. "Break the light and it slows." Scarlett understood. She fired both bolts at the rune. They struck true and cracked the ice around it. The glow flickered. "Wolf!" she called. The great animal leapt despite the corruption in its blood. Its jaws clamped the wounded coil. The serpent thrashed and bellowed. Reiji ran along the beast's side. He drove the katana into the cracked rune. The blade screamed with light. The mark went dark. He pulled the sword free and struck the next one. Scarlett covered him, bolt after bolt, guiding his path. The wolf held on, though blood ran from its mouth. One by one the runes died. The serpent's coils lost their glow. Its huge head dropped. Reiji climbed to its skull and drove the katana down through the seam behind its eyes. The beast shuddered and went still. The ice wall between the two groups collapsed. Corvus stumbled over the rubble, scythe smoking. Crimson and Aria followed, cut but standing. "You killed it," Aria breathed. "For good this time." Reiji dropped to the snow. His arms burned. The road north lay clear now, and the guardian would never rise again. But Scarlett knelt over her wolf. It lay on its side, breathing hard. The purple lines had spread up its neck and reached its jaw. The fight had drained what strength the flower left it. "He's fading," Scarlett said. Her voice broke. "The road is open. But he won't reach the end of it." Reiji looked north. He had cleared the path to his mother. Now he had to choose whether to save the one who found it.

Reiji and Scarlett hauled the litter for two days through deep snow. The wolf breathed, but the purple lines had reached its shoulders. They had left the road to the frost keep behind, and they had left the other three fighters behind at the serpent's pit. Reiji watched the ridgeline and hoped his company had followed the tracks north. He could not save the wolf and lead a scattered team at once. On the third morning, a shot cracked across the ice. Reiji drew his katana and turned. A figure climbed the slope toward them, purple scythe slung across his back, its long barrel steaming in the cold. Corvus Reave. He had joined the company for a bounty, not for Reiji, and he had never hidden it. Behind him came Crimson Valdris, his red blade catching the light, and Aria, her blue lantern floating at her shoulder. "You walked off the road," Corvus said. He did not lower the scythe. "We tracked your ruts for two days. Thought you'd run." "The wolf's dying," Reiji said. "We turned to save him." Crimson looked at the litter. His jaw tightened. "Your mother is behind ice walls. And you march the wrong way for a beast." "He tracked the road that got us this far," Scarlett said. She stepped between them, a crossbow in each hand. "Say another word against him." Aria knelt by the wolf before the argument grew. Her lantern dipped low over the purple lines. "The corruption is climbing," she said. "He has days. Maybe less." She looked up at Reiji. "But your mother's soul still calls from your blade. I feel it stronger the farther north we go. She is fading too." The words landed hard. Reiji had chosen the wolf. Now Aria told him both roads ran out of time. Corvus finally dropped the scythe from his shoulder and leaned on it. "Then here's the truth," Corvus said. "Split again and we all die separate. I've buried enough partners." He nodded at the wolf. "Wolf-spirit's ground is north too. Off the road, but north. We take it together, then we take the keep." Reiji looked at each of them. Crimson still glared, but he planted his sword in the snow and did not leave. Aria drew her lantern close to warm the wolf. Scarlett lowered her crossbows. "Together," Reiji said. "We save him. Then we don't stop until the keep." Crimson pulled his blade from the snow and shouldered it. "Agreed. But no more detours after this one." They lashed the litter to fresh spear shafts. Corvus took the front. By midday all four fighters and Reiji moved as one line across the ice, the wolf between them. The company was whole again. And Reiji knew, watching the wolf's shallow breath and feeling the katana hum against his back, that both the beast and his mother were running out of time.