Crunch… Crunch… Crunch…

  The sound of boots sinking into snow echoed faintly through the white silence. Minutes had stretched into hours since Emma and the rest had been walking along the manmade path that wound across the mountain toward Xin Region.

  Snow fell endlessly, veiling the carved trail in shifting layers of white. Even here, at the pinnacle of the snowy mountain, the storm hadn’t weakened. Instead, it grew harsher, thicker flakes, stronger winds, the kind of storm that seemed determined to bury every step they made.

  Emma narrowed her unique white eyes at the path ahead, though she could see almost nothing beyond a few paces. The heavy mist of ice had been her constant companion since the moment she awoke in this fruit. Sight itself felt like a luxury denied her.

  Jett had assured them earlier that Xin Region was only a day’s journey ahead. Yet with the way the endless white swallowed all distance, Emma found herself doubting. Her hands brushed the sides of her dark ash skirt as she sighed quietly, eyes fixed on the endless blur of snow.

  The path itself was cut into stone, sometimes straight, sometimes winding. At times, the group pressed against towering blocks of ice to hide, their breaths hushed. For along these frozen paths wandered the world golems.

  Emma’s eyes always lingered on them when they passed. Enormous beings, hulking and frost-ridden, their shape only partly humanoid, muscular torsos with a hunched back that rose into something like a tortoise shell. But their skin wasn’t skin at all; it was jagged frost, ancient and rough, and every step they took left the ground crackling in a sheath of chilling ice.

  Emma found herself strangely captivated by the sight each time. She counted the world trees as the golems walked, studying the twist of their trunks, the strange differences in design. None were alike. Each golem seemed carved from a different imagination, and their silent march always stirred something strange in her chest. Hiding from them wasn’t boring... it was the most fascinating part of the journey.

  But the storm.

  The storm never ended.

  Her steps dragged slightly as she sighed, breath slipping out in faint clouds. She lifted her gaze upward, to the endless white, and wondered tiredly to herself:

  Does it even have an end?

  The thought was flat, born of sheer boredom. They had been walking for hours, and the snow seemed intent on proving that they might just walk even longer.

  But just at that moment when they were walking

  Whoosh!

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  A sudden gale surged through, fierce and biting, spinning the snow sideways. The icy wind came in waves, carrying a sharp whistle as though the mountain itself exhaled. Emma lifted her arms instinctively, shielding her face as her hair whipped in silver strands.

  From above, the sky rumbled.

  A sharp Crack! of light-blue lightning split through the thick cloud, its glow vanishing almost as quickly as it appeared. The air grew heavier, darker, the snowstorm thickening into a suffocating mist. The color of the sky shifted, turning from pale gray to a cold whitish-blue, until at last it settled into a dark, dim sky, blurred and heavy with frost.

  Then came the rain.

  Pitter-patter… Pitter-patt.. Patt! Pat!!

  Drops fell onto the snow, striking cold surfaces in breaking rhythms. They broked against Emma’s shoulders, her skirt and her hair. The rest of the group pulled their coats tighter, blocking the droplets away as they kept moving forward.

  Emma lifted her palm, curious. A single drop landed there with a soft plink! She closed her fingers around it, her small hand curling tight. Slowly, she opened her palm.

  What she saw made her sigh.

  It wasn’t water. Just ice. A frozen raindrop.

  “Even the rain is frozen…” she muttered softly, her voice nearly lost beneath the hiss of the storm.

  Her breath had barely escaped before another voice cut through the noise.

  “It seems,” Jett spoke from the front, her pale-gray eyes fixed ahead beneath strands of black hair, “that we’re close to an almost-blooming Flower of Frost.”

  Liz turned at once, shaking icy droplets from her twin buns, her long ash coat scattering snow as she brushed her shoulders. “What’s that supposed to be?” she asked, brows furrowing with curiosity.

  Jett didn’t look back. She only adjusted the fold of her long light-brown coat as she stepped forward, her voice calm and certain.

  “I’ll explain. Let’s keep moving first, and wait at the location it's blooming,.”

  Jett began leading the way as she walked at the front, her boots crunching against the snow, each step certain, as though she alone knew where the path was supposed to end. Her dark hair clung damply against her cheeks, strands whipping loose whenever the storm howled harder.

  Behind her, Emma trudged on, the hem of her dark ash skirt whipping against her legs. The violent gusts threatened to lift it higher with every blast, and more than once she had to grasp the fabric tightly with both hands, her knuckles pale, to stop it from flaring upward. Her unique white eyes narrowed against the mist. The storm had grown crueler the further they walked, and each step seemed heavier, as though the air itself wished to pull her down into the snow.

  Jett glanced over her shoulder, her pale gray eyes flicking toward Emma. She slowed for only a fraction of a second. Pink light, soft but distinct, shimmered across her palm, coalescing into tiny motes that spun like dust in sunlight. In the span of a breath, those motes bound together, shaping themselves into a coat.. thick and fluffy, its surface carrying the faint sheen of creation. She stopped only long enough to extend it toward Emma, her expression calm, though her gesture carried quiet thoughtfulness.

  Emma blinked, then reached out with one hand. “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice nearly swallowed by the storm. She slipped the coat on over her shirt and skirt, her shoulders relaxing instantly as the fluffiness wrapped around her. The strangest part wasn’t the thickness of the coat, it was the way the storm itself seemed to stop touching her body. The violent gusts no longer clawed at her inner clothing; the icy droplets no longer soaked through. It was as if the storm had been pushed back, forced to lash only against the outer coat.

  A small, smile tugged at her lips. The relief was enough that she picked up her pace, boots crunching faster against the frozen earth to close the gap between herself and the others.

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