The frost -laced throne room of the Northern kingdom shimmered under a cold, pale light. Icicles hung front he vaulted ceiling like jagged teeth, and Elara's breath fogged in the thin air as she stepped forward, her footsteps muffled by the frost - laced stone beneath her boots. The silence here was heavier than darkness - ancient, expectant, like the kingdom itself has been holding it's breath for centuries.
Thalvorian, the ice king, sat upon a jagged throne of carved glacial crystal, one leg draped over another, his expression unreadable and cold as death. He looked as if he had been carved from the very ice around him. His silver hair fell in waves past his shoulders, glinting like strands of moonlight. His skin was pale - too pale - as though light passed through it rather than reflected off it, and yet he looked no less powerful for it.
But it was his eyes that betrayed the truth of his nature: a piercing ice blue, rimmed faintly in shadow, sharp as glass and colder than a northern wind. They held age - unspoken, ancient, bitter - and something more dangerous: memory.
He wore a cloak of deep midnight, it's hem trailing frost behind him. Silver veins shimmered through the heavy fabric, woven in patterns like cracks across a frozen lake. At his throat, a black dragon clasp bit into the fur - lined mantle, holding it in place.
Beneath the cloak, his armor glimmer with dark elegance, forged from frost - glass - metal from the depth of the Northern mountains, said to be unbreakable, enchanted by witches long erased from the world.
But even in all that cold - there was a flicker.
Just under his left eye, mostly hidden by his hair, was a mark - a faint ember - hued scar, the shape of a broken flame. It pulsed subtly, like a coal refusing to die, as if his very skin was warring against his icy nature.
Thalvorian never touched it. Never acknowledged it. But it burned, quietly.
"You came," he said, voice smooth and slow, like ice cracking over deep water.
Elara stood straighter, lifting her chin. "You sent the summons. I don't ignore opportunity." "You have no idea how I sneaked out of the palace, no one knows I'm gone." She muttered the last part, barely for anyone to hear, but Thalvorian still heard her.
"A wise choice," he rose, and the ice beneath his throne groaned in protest. "Tell me... What is it you seek, daughter of the south?"
Elara didn't flinch. " I seek power. A throne. One that has been handed to my sister by fate and foolish kings. I want it torn from her hands. I want her undone."
He stepped down from his dias, walking in a slow circle around her, the cold deepened with every step.
"You speak boldly of ruin and blood. Do you understand what you are asking me to do?"
" I understand enough," she said. " You hate the south. You hate the king. Help me and them both."
There was silence, brittle and sharp as ice.
"I do hate the king," Thalvorian said. "But not for the reasons you assume. Maltherion stole more than a throne. He stole a birthright. Mine."
Elara turned slightly, eyes narrowing. " You knew him before?"
"I knew his first breath," Thalvorian whispered, voice suddenly quieter. "His first cry."
A cold wind swept through the hall, rustling Elara's cloak like dry leaves. She froze.
"Then...who are you to him?"
He moved closer, steps soundless. She barely breathed as he leaned in, his lips brushing the air near her ear.
"I am what he buried. The blood he denies. The brother he believes dead."
She blinked, recoiling slightly as the truth sank in. A brother? The king -Maltherion- had a brother? How was that secret buried so deep? And why has no one spoken about it?
"You... you're the heir to the Southern throne?" She asked, trying to piece together the storm behind her eyes.
"I was," he replied. "Until fire and frost divided us."
He walked back to the frost carved map of the realms, his guantlet - clad fingers tracing the jagged mountain ranges that separated the North from the South.
"They feared what we were - two born of flame and frost, a twin flame meant to bind kingdoms or destroy them. My mother hid me away. Maltherion's father claimed the throne alone."
Elara's lips parted slightly. "But that would mean you're -"
"The true heir," he cut in, softly. " Forgotten. Exiled. Left to freeze while my brother bathed in golden halls."
There was no hatred in his voice - only something older. Deeper. The kind of pain that turned fire to frost.
"You and I share a desire," he said at last.
" To see Maltherion broken. But my reasons are older than yours.... Colder. I will give you what you need - armies, spells, relics long thought lost - but in return, you will bring the fire bearer to me."
Elara blinked, " Xandria?"
" She will be the pawn in this game. The only way to break Maltherion is through her. The King's grand Gias is no gift. It is a curse meant to bring down a king. I've watched kings of the South go down because of the grand Gias. It does not give you power, it gives you a weakness."
" Xandria is Maltherion's weakness?"
" Yes. He loves her to a fault. And that's what we will use to bring him down. Only her flames can counter his flames." Thalvorian smirked.
"So Xandria is the fire bearer?" Elara asked, still confused.
" No," he said, the icy glow in his eyes sharpening. "Maltherion. My twin. My mirror. My mistake."
She took a deep breath. The weight of what he asked settled like frost in her bones. "You don't want revenge. You want to end him."
Thalvorian's eyes didn't waver. " He carries what should never be his. The fire in his blood is mine. The crown he wears - mine. And soon, the world will remember that frost does not forget.
Elara stared at him with disbelief. She saw the anger that flashed through his eyes.
"Xandria is going to pay for all that she had stolen from me." She whispered silently.
She could not wait to see the shock on Xandria face when everything comes crashing down.