Thump!

  The ground shivered beneath them.

  Thump!

  Again, the earth trembled, but not like a quake. This was heavier. Slower. Like something ancient had begun to move again after ages of stillness.

  Each Thump! sent a pulse through the snow, tiny white crystals bouncing slightly where they had settled. The nearby icicles hanging off craggy stones trembled gently, a faint tink! sound joining the icy wind that blew like a whispering ghost.

  Emma, crouched low behind her icy stone, her left hand pressed gently into the frost to steady herself. Her other hand was near her leg, fingers twitching faintly as if trying to gather focus. Her unique white eyes narrowed just slightly, trying to see through the swirling curtain of icy snow. The wind was shifting, curling left and right like it couldn’t decide whether to flee or stay.

  Then she saw it...

  The glowing blue sphere, the same one that had hovered near her before, was now drifting forward slowly, swaying gently as if it were being pulled. Its soft luminescence flickered in the snowstorm, casting glimmers onto the white flurries that passed it. The shimmer left a trail like a comet’s tail, strands of sparkling dust that disappeared moments after forming.

  And then,

  A shadow...

  At first, it was just a shift in light. A blot in the swirling white.

  But then the silhouette came clearer with each thunderous step. Through the half-blinding snow and flickering wind, a figure began to take shape. It loomed tall... massive, even its sheer bulk bending the very weight of the air around it.

  It was humanoid... or at least close to it. A broad muscular frame like a human, but twisted in proportions. Its limbs were heavy, thick, and its posture was low, hunched forward like an animal grown weary of standing tall.

  The back... its back was covered by a shell. Not armor. Not rock. A shell, like that of a tortoise. But it wasn’t smooth or simple. It was strange. Rich, almost made from earth. Not frozen stone or snow, but soil.. Thick, dark, and fertile. Somehow, impossibly, that soil was alive in this fruit filled of frost.

  And on that soil-covered shell…

  Trees.

  Real trees.

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  Fifteen to thirty in number. Some tall and straight. Others short and gnarled. Their branches stretched upward, thin and spindly, touched by ice. Most were bare, lifeless sticks grasping at the sky. A few still clung to pale leaves that rustled slightly with each step the creature took.

  But even stranger were the things dripping from the leaves.

  Not sap. Not water.

  They were symbols. Transparent, glimmering symbols of text that oozed like liquid from the edges of leaves. Words.. if they could be called that, spilled gently through the air, forming a soft mist of shining script that drifted lazily toward the wind.

  Emma’s breath was caught somewhere in her throat. Her unique white eyes widened slightly in curiosity as she didn’t blink. She simply stared as it walked like the land was its own..

  With every Thump! the ground iced over more. The snow beneath its feet didn’t just crunch... it froze solid, turning to brittle frost that cracked and shimmered.

  The glowing blue sphere, still hovering, had now drawn near the creature.

  Then it did something unexpected.

  It began to move faster around the figure. It floated in spirals, then loops, as though dancing around the creature’s towering form. Its glow pulsed, then split. From one orb, it became two.

  Two became four.

  Then four became eight.

  They shimmered and scattered like glowing motes in a slow, deliberate storm, floating around the creature’s shell-covered back, their trails weaving in and out of the branches.

  Emma’s fingers pressed deeper into the snow. Her breath fogged the air in short, shallow bursts.

  Now, there were twenty-eight of them.

  Twenty-eight spheres of blue light.. floating, drifting, orbiting like moons around a dying world. They moved in precise patterns, never straying too far, as if bound to the creature by some silent thread.

  And then she saw it.

  The lights… they weren’t just floating aimlessly.

  They were feeding....

  ***

  Thump!.... Thump!... Thump!

  The ground trembled again. Snowflakes jolted upward with each heavy footstep, scattering into the sharp, swirling air like disturbed feathers in a blizzard. The sky remained pale misty gray, a ceiling of silence stretched far above the jagged white peaks that loomed like quiet giants. The icy wind dragged its breath slowly between frozen rocks and crevices, letting out a long sigh that carried cold and something more.

  something ancient...

  Emma turned her head slightly.

  Her silver-white hair shifted with the movement, strands of it fluttering gently against her cheeks before curling back down. Her unique white eyes, calm yet curious, were focused on the towering figure walking in the distance, the massive being whose presence demanded the mountain’s silence.

  She leaned her head close to Jett, her voice barely a breath.

  “Is this… what we’re hiding from?” she asked, eyebrows lifting just a little, tone caught between curiosity and mild confusion. “It doesn’t feel dangerous.”

  Her voice was soft, but not weak. Her eyes didn't reflect fear, only a strange sense of wonder.

  Jett didn’t respond immediately. She stayed crouched, one hand resting on her knee, the other bracing herself against the ice-covered stone beside her. The wind tugged gently at her dark hair, and her pale gray eyes narrowed as she studied the creature ahead.

  Then, calmly, she replied.

  “We’re not hiding from it because we’re scared,” Jett said, her tone quiet, low, like someone explaining something sacred. “We’re hiding because we don’t want to… disturb it.. I don’t want to hurt it.”

  Emma tilted her head, eyes flicking back toward the creature. The blue spheres still hovered around it, gliding in slow, spiral motions. The air around the being shimmered faintly with the soft glow of magic and snow light...