Crystal sat in silence, holding her breath in, as not to alert the Huffgrunts below. They moved in slow lumbering strides, their thick hides shifting with each test.

  She was perched next to Sorn on a small cliff, hidden behind some shrubs. It had been two weeks since their departure from the Ice Fortress. She had spent that first week in a haze, unwilling to do anything. On the long treks, she was lost in her own thoughts, and once they had found a cave to camp for the night, she sat alone, curled in a corner, watching the blazing fire but never feeling its warmth.

  Such behavior was uncharacteristic of her. She prided herself on being a simple girl. Whenever she was faced with a difficult question, rather than trying to answer it, she would instead find a path that better allowed herself to answer it. For example, regarding Keilan’s sacrifice, rather than trying to make her conclusion, she knew it would be better to strike at the right time and find an answer another way.

  This type of approaching things had always worked for her.

  Now, she had been faced with a circumstance that no amount of added context or processes would help her understand. She truly felt lost.

  For this reason, she had decided to stop being a moping burden, and so she volunteered herself for more of the early morning hunting and scouting shifts. She turned her gaze towards Sorn, as he sat there shivering. Going south also meant a decrease in the temperature. It hadn’t been bothering any of the Ice Elementals much, so Sorn was the only one suffering amongst them, even though he tried to act like it didn’t bother him. It was clear that the thin uniform he wore wasn’t going to cut it in the long run.

  Regardless, he had chosen to leave the comfort of the fire in the cave to venture out with her, claiming that he wanted to “warm up for today’s travel as early as possible.” Especially in the past few days, she had grown a further appreciation for Sorn. People who were truly empathetic were hard to come by in the Ice Fortress, and Sorn was very outwardly worried, especially for her and Oden.

  Of course, he couldn’t understand her situation a bit. But she still appreciated him nonetheless.

  Her thoughts began to wander further, and her mind repeated that same hour. The hour in which the Emperor had shown his true colors to her. She could confidently say now, after pondering on it for this long, that she was certain a more horrible, decrepit individual did not exist in this world. And it hurt more that this person was once someone she respected, someone she once aspired to be.

  Sometimes, she questioned if that event actually took place, if it was an illusion, or if everything from that moment was just a figment of her imagination.

  She shook her head, waving away the thought.

  She needed to stop victimizing herself. That’s exactly what her father, the Emperor…. No, what her father Aelon would do. Anyway, she didn’t have it nearly as bad as Oden.

  Thinking about the Marauder made her heart pang. She didn’t even want to imagine what it was like to be him right now. At first, he had wanted to go back and save his sister. However, Kaen had received a message from Eight:

  —— “I know you’re worried about your sister, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to save her. Because you can’t. There is nothing you can do. Rather than going back and subjecting yourself to a death sentence, you should train and get strong. Then once you’re capable, take revenge on everyone you hate.”

  The message had given Oden a dilemma. No one knew how much Kaen’s words could be trusted. It was clear that he hadn’t been making this “Eight” character up. Crystal had encountered him herself many years ago, and Kaen’s description of his appearance matched her hazy memories. The “VIII” tattoo in particular was the most telling tale. Also, his message to Crystal repeated the message that the book had given her.

  —— “If you wanted to learn what happened to Draco, just go south.”

  That is why, no matter what, she’d go south. She was convinced Draco, and maybe her other brother Rhaen knew the truth behind the Emperor’s horrible actions and had left. And Crystal desperately wanted to know— why hadn’t he taken her with him?

  Pondering further upon the Emperor made her body shiver even more than Sorn was.

  Seeing him talk about his ideas as if they weren’t even remotely evil. He was self-indulgent to the absolute maximum. She had spoken of the past, of things she could barely care about when he hadn’t said a single word about the young girl behind him. It was as if at that moment, she wasn’t even worthy of mentioning. She didn’t want to hypothesize what he had been doing with her. At best, he had deemed her to be part of his twisted art projects. And at worst—

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  She squeezed her legs, letting her mind be consumed by pain. This was the exact opposite of why she came out here. She had to go back to the present and focus on what was in front of her.

  She watched as two of the Huffgrunts battled with each other, their hulking forms snarling as they struggled for dominance. The fight was a vicious sight as they threw each other onto the ground. She had never seen a Huffgrunt herself until now. They had supposedly once been bears, but they had been preying too much on the goats and Rabballs in the north, and they were driven southward into a climate they could not withstand.

  They had adapted, likely using the “Blessing of the Island”— resulting in their kin growing larger and more fearsome. They also became cannibalistic, using each other to fill their own hunger. Their fur, once a shade of pure white was now streaked with lines of deep blue, forming a jagged arrow that ran from their backs to their chests. Only the strongest survived. The rest were nothing more than meat.

  In these harsher conditions, the group’s sources of food had grown scarcer, and their gathering expeditions had begun to take longer, and they had been encountering strange species, some of which they previously had no idea about.

  The worst part of this journey was the fact that they were walking on unexplored land. They had no idea where they were going; they could only rely on the sun’s position to know that they were going south. But they had gone past the point of no return. She would walk south until her legs could no longer carry her, until her body froze into the snow and she became a part of the island.

  “Oh, she started—!” Sorn suddenly exclaimed, and Crystal was distracted out of her thoughts. The Huffgrunts had been a group of fifteen, but their numbers were rapidly dwindling. An invisible force was sweeping through them, cutting them into pieces faster than they could comprehend what was happening.

  The culprit was none other than Aria. She was using her twin sister's ice cloak to cover herself, making her impossible to see. Using that to her advantage, she dismantled the entire pack of poor animals with her twin daggers.

  Her cloak vanished as the final Huffgrunt fell. She was now visible, shifting her arms to her sides, her chest puffed out with pride. The wind caught her long blue pigtails, making them sway gently, their strands dancing in the cold air. She had been extremely surgical with how she had ambushed the beasts, being careful to make sure not a splatter of blood tainter her skin or clothes.

  Crystal frowned. They had agreed on a signal, and they were going to move as a group when they had finished scouting the den and habits of the creatures, but truthfully, she couldn’t expect such an impatient girl to do anything else.

  Then, she sensed an intense bloodlust approaching from behind her.

  “Woah!” Sorn yelled as he inched back, petrified for a moment. Before them was a large Huffgrunt, roaring upon being noticed. Its voice itself was so loud, it nearly broke her eardrums. Sorn was overwhelmed by it, understandably. His lack of experience made him susceptible to being ambushed when his guard was down.

  Crystal was different.

  Without missing a beat, a majestic bow of ice formulated in her hands, and the Huffgrunt’s face was blown off in one fell motion.

  With a wave of her hand, her bow disappeared, and she turned towards Sorn, who had composed himself and was now giving Crystal a blank look. He was playing off what had just happened.

  “Nice job,” he said simply.

  “Thanks,” Crystal smiled back, giving him a simple nod. Then, Sorn’s eyes shifted back to a look of astonishment.

  Crystal whipped her head around. She hadn’t sensed another malicious presence so what was—

  Sitting behind the deceased Huffgrunt was an innocent little critter. The Huffgrunt was sitting behind what was supposedly his mother, looking at the two of them with white, pale, pupil-less eyes.

  For Crystal, it was love at first sight.

  In a second, she had closed the distance between herself and the small beast, picking it up in her hands, her arms stretched out wide. The cub was quite small compared to all the other Huffgrunts she had seen thus far, it was only half of Crystal’s size. And in that moment, all her troubles had escaped her.

  “Ahhh, IT’S SO CUTE!” she exclaimed.

  Sorn stared at the two of them, making sure to keep his distance.

  “Uhhh, um— what are you going to do with it?” he asked cautiously.

  “Not it,” Crystal corrected, “him.” She put the cub back down on the snow, bending her legs to meet it at eye level. “Alright, I’ll be naming you Fred.”

  She reached to poke Fred on his nose, but the baby Huffgrunt lurched forward, attempting to bite her arm off.

  “No, that’s bad!” Crystal yelled as she pushed Fred’s head down, letting it sink into the snow.

  “I don’t think keeping it is a good idea,” Sorn said hesitantly, as if he were walking powerless into a Hufffgrunt den himself. “It’s probably too dangerous, shouldn’t we just leave it here?”

  “No, I’m keeping it,” Crystal said, the finality in her voice making it evident that this wasn’t a topic up for discussion. She let Fred rise again, giving him a chance to breathe. It began to turn its head towards its mother, but Crystal moved it back. “No no no, you can’t see that,” she instructed. She turned around, and the Huffgrunt climbed onto her back.

  She smiled at Sorn’s blank stare. “I’ve always been good with animals.”

  “Are we gonna be eating that one too?” Aria asked as she walked up to them. Behind her, Aira strode peacefully, her eyes widening in delight at the sight of the Huffgrunt of Crystal’s back. Next to her was Oden, who was dragging the dead Huffgrunts behind him using a makeshift ice net. He immediately faced away as he met Sorn’s eyes.

  “We’re not going to be eating him,” Crystal said as she frowned at her friend.

  “Uh huh. Then what’re you gonna do, keep him as a pet?” Aria replied.

  “Exactly!” As Crystal replied, Aira walked up to her, her arms wide. Fred jumped off of Crystal’s back, and landed on Aira, tackling her.

  “Aira!” Aria screamed out in concern, but Aira stretched her arm out from under the body, holding up two fingers to symbolize she was okay.

  Aria looked back at Crystal, her eyebrows raised. “Have you named him yet?”

  “Yes. We’re calling him Fred,” Crystal said proudly.

  Aria frowned, “That’s a terrible name.”

  “Let’s get going,” Oden cut in. He looked at Sorn, his eyes devoid of anything. “Help me bring these back.”