"You could have missed a few meals, you know?"
Silas' jab barely escaped his chapped lips, the howling wind swiftly carrying his words away into the white void. Each syllable formed a cloud of crystallized breath that was torn to shreds by the gale before it could fully form. The old man was staggering through snow that reached mid-calf, each step a battle against exhaustion, while struggling to support the massive burden that was Goro.
The giant's wounded leg had grown numb, the icy elements threatening to claim it for themselves. Blood no longer flowed freely from the gash—the cold had congealed it into a dark crust—but the damage was done. With each laborious step, the limb dragged through the snow, leaving an uneven furrow in their wake. Goro felt the chill settle deep in his bones, causing him to shake down to his very core. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, and his skin had taken on a bluish tinge that stood out starkly against the endless white surrounding them.
He chuckled, the sound more like a half-cough that rattled in his chest:
"What a sorry state I have found myself in. I swore I'd never add to the burden you carry."
Silas exhaled slowly, feeling the cold air assault his lungs like a thousand tiny needles. Frost had formed in his beard, tiny ice crystals clinging to the silver hairs. His muscles screamed under Goro's weight, shoulders and back, threatening to buckle, but he adjusted his grip on the giant's waist and pressed onward.
He opened his mouth, each word deliberate and clear despite his fatigue:
"Look alive, friend. Your efforts allowed us a few more moments of life. And freedom."
Silas was not just saying this to make Goro feel better, either. Since they had left the prison, Goro had supported both Rhys and Silas, acting as both a shield and a sword. When the gravity user had nearly caught them, it was Goro who had stood his ground, buying them precious seconds. When Rhys had collapsed, it was Goro who had carried him without complaint, mile after punishing mile.
Even during the prison escape itself, Rhys's plan—which endangered them in the end, what with him setting all those Marauders free from their containment cells—would have most likely failed without the mountain of a man. Goro had cleared the path when the guards closed in. His strength had been their salvation time and again.
Goro looked around at the blizzard, eyes narrowed against the stinging snow, trying to make out any kind of shapes or landmarks but was only met with a swirling white wall that seemed to press in from all sides. A glint of hopelessness dimmed the light in his eyes, usually so fierce and determined.
"A few moments indeed. We should begin searching for the boy…I mean, Master Rhys."
After hearing the giant stumble with his words. Silas chuckled weakly.
"O ye of little faith."
They slowed down considerably, both men hunched against the relentless assault of wind and ice, eyes scanning the pristine expanse of snow for any sign of their unconscious companion. The blizzard made visibility nearly impossible; anything beyond arm's length was just gradations of white and gray, shadows moving within shadows.
"I'm sorry but…" Goro began, his words coming in broken fits between chattering teeth.
"I still need a little more convincing from the young man."
"Then why did you bow to him back in the prison?" Silas countered, the memory sharp despite their dire circumstances.
Goro shifted his weight, wincing as pain lanced through his injured leg. Fresh blood seeped from the wound, instantly freezing into tiny rubies on the snow.
"I was merely following your lead. I'm still questioning why you chose to give yourself to him. He's like an unsolved puzzle."
The nobleman thought he heard a sound then, cutting through the monotonous howl of the wind—something strange and out of place, like water sizzling on hot metal. He tilted his head, listening through the storm, then adjusted their direction to follow it. As they trudged through the snow, the going slightly easier now that they moved with the wind rather than against it, he spoke carefully, measuring each word:
"The ancestors of the Montclair family were one of the first major clans to arise in all of Gehenna."
His voice took on a professor's cadence, drawing strength from the familiar rhythms of history and lineage.
"Do you know why, even after eons upon eons had passed, empires rising and falling like the tide, we still maintained relevance and power?"
Goro didn't answer aloud. He silently ruminated, thoughts swirling in his mind like the snow around them. The question wasn't rhetorical, but the giant was deep in his own internal struggle.
Silas suddenly stopped, bringing the limping giant to an awkward pause. His shaking hand shot out, pointing towards something in front of them and spoke:
"It's simple, really."
Goro squinted in that direction, eyes stinging from the cold, trying to make sense of the sight before him through the haze of exhaustion and pain that clouded his mind…
And he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
The blizzard blew mercilessly in every direction, a howling maelstrom of ice and fury, but at its centre was an impossible calm. It didn't dare touch the still form that lay there. Rhys's unconscious body rested on the ground as though placed there deliberately, not thrown as Goro had done so himself. A beautiful black flame with licks of violet and crimson burned gently around him, casting eerie, dancing shadows across the snow. It created a perfect radius of protection, a boundary the storm could not cross.
Most astonishing of all, the snow had all but boiled away within that circle of strange fire, leaving patches of green grass revealed beneath—a little spring island surrounded by dreadful winter.
Steam rose where snowflakes ventured too close to the boundary, instantly vaporizing with that same sizzling sound Silas had followed.
Goro stared, transfixed by the impossible scene. His pain momentarily forgotten, he straightened slightly, the weight of disbelief warring with the evidence before his eyes.
Silas wore a satisfied grin on his face, the expression transforming his weathered features. Ice crystals caught the strange light in his beard, making it shimmer with colours that had no place in this colourless world.
"Faith… and foresight,"
It was as if those three words explained everything.
And so they limped toward the circle of otherworldly warmth.