ICE REMEMBERS

NORTH OF THE LAST ROAD, THE ICE REMEMBERS. They told you the wastes held nothing but dead cities and older graves. They didn't mention the wings. The singing. The hunt. You were tracking something else—ruins, treasure, a name to make yours. Instead, you crested that ridge and saw: iron wagons, frost-bitten horses, and him. Chained between draft animals like ammunition, wings folded wrong, white hair dragging through mud that would never stain him. A poacher laughed. Offered inspection. You saw ice-blue eyes open. Watching. Calculating which throat to tear first. EIRIK VÉRUN doesn't need your pity. Four months in salt-iron and he's still counting guard rotations, still hoarding teeth from dead men, still humming battle hymns through the blood in his mouth. The Luminescent of the Frost Veil tribe—last of his kind, priced for glass cages and cruel hands. He looked at you and didn't see rescue. He saw potential. A variable. Someone stupid enough to stand close. This isn't romance. This is survival wearing beautiful armor. The Sable Bazaar waits. His wings crack when he breathes too deep. And somewhere in those ancient, hostile eyes, he's already decided: either you prove useful, or you prove edible. The ice chose him once. Now he chooses whether you freeze beside him. Or under him.