/// Prologue /// Jan ///

Jan could feel his best friend watching him for a majority of the day, whether it was a quick side glance or a particularly drawn out stare. He didn’t know what Ty was waiting for, but he knew he’d soon inform him on whatever he was hiding. In the meantime, Jan would focus on his studies—

“Are you planning on sitting around in your cottage through the night as well?”

Ah, there it is.

Jan sighed, fighting back a smile as he put down his pencil and pushed the flake he had been observing in its thin container to the side. He turned in his wheelchair, facing Ty. To Jan’s surprise, he was in a wrinkled white button shirt and trousers, his russet red hair sort of disheveled from running his hands through it. Ty wasn’t usually so unkempt, but Jan couldn’t lie—the look suited him in a way. He couldn’t help but wonder what the occasion was; wonder what Ty could have waited so long to tell him, and in this state for that matter.

“Well, not through the whole night.” Jan shrugged, lips turning upwards at Ty’s raised eyebrow. “I’m busy, you know that. The question is, of what matter have you come to meet me?”

“A man can be concerned every now and then. What you're doing isn’t exactly safe,” Ty said casually, but Jan could hear something strange in his voice, something tense and icy. Ty wasn’t generally a warm and welcoming person, his gaze only ever softening around Iris---the daughter of his father's best archer, a wonderful and thoughtful woman she was---or Jan himself. But today was different. Jan sat up straighter. “Yet you’re so sure of what you can do.”

“Are you implying that I don’t have the skills to develop a cure?” Jan’s brows furrowed, his tone only partially comical.

“No, no.” Ty put out a leather hand, parting the surprised dust particles in the air, then retracted it immediately as if forgetting himself. Uncertainty was evident in the way he stared at the body part for a moment as if he'd been questioning its actions. He inhaled through his nostrils, deciding to stroll around the tiny cottage, running his gloved fingers over the papers pinned to the walls. “I know what you can do better than anyone, Jan.”

The cottage itself was like Jan’s little art gallery, the many documents involving his research pinned to the walls in a multitude of different colors. Even as he grew older, Jan was always so terrible at art, and no better at drawing stick figures than he was at writing neat notes. But despite that, art had always seemed intriguing to him, a puzzle yet not, and he soon realized in his adolescent years that it could come in any form—any form. So he chose to turn science into his own artwork, his own world where his damned wheelchair meant nothing. Everything he did with a delicate hand, and viewed like a critic would a canvas. The walls covered in colorful basement paper and almost intelligible handwriting probably only he could read were proof of that, the wall that Ty was now exploring, almost as a distraction from his true intentions, whatever they were.

“I fear for you.” After circling around, he stopped at Jan’s desk, his eyes fixing on him. Jan could only stare, not sure he heard right. Ty always held his head up high, always made the littlest, most pitiful things appear powerful if he used them right. He was a leader, a fearless fighter and political master. He was . . . scared?

“You know what Snowfall is. It’s powerful, too powerful for this land to handle. Creating the cure would be phenomenal, but imagine what the other lands would do to get their hands on it.” Ty’s hands rested on the edge of the desk, his finger twitching,contemplating movement. 

Jan had thought about this, yes. But it didn't matter to him. Not when he could make a difference.

The image of his mother’s luscious, colorful flower garden appeared in his mind, her smiling face and swaying feet as she watered every flower in the early morning light, quietly sang the names of every one, names Jan had long forgotten yet held the sound of them in his heart. 

Then the image of her corpse in the infirmary, all whitened hairs and red, empty eyes.

He didn’t want any child to have to go through that, ever watch the people they loved die and wither away like roses in the winter. Snowfall was doing that to people. If he could cure it, cure the most deadly curse in Lassier there ever was, he’d save lives.

Did Ty know what he was telling him?

Before Jan could collect his thoughts, Ty had seized arms, his grip tight. “Listen to me. Lassier has never really been anything other than a technological powerhouse where innovation grows. But if you found a cure, Jan, what would we do when other lands come for it? God forbid, Flame and Ash, Shadow and Shape, Wind and Storm, even the Land of Ice and Snow? We are truly nothing without magic, and people are failing to see it!
     “But what if the so-called disease that brings death to our people is really a blessing from God? What if the people of Lassier’s bodies are just not strong enough to withstand the cold and merciless magic of the Ice and Snow? What if we could use your talent and modify them to be able to use Snowfall without dying? With magic, there would be so many possibilities! We could trample any Land from anywhere that came to harm us, to harm y—”

“Let go of me.”

Jan’s eyes were wide, and so were Ty’s as they stared at each other, both shocked at what he had said. But he didn’t stutter as he repeated, “Ty, let go.”

The change was slow, yet Jan had still not expected it---still not expected the hardness of his friend's gaze. His shoulders sagged. Ty’s expression darkened, the keenness in his sky blue eyes dying away until his face was statue stone.

Those sky blue eyes that Jan had always wanted to paint into the white of an empty canvas, those sky blue eyes that he’d spotted warmth in in the past few years he’d known his closest friend.

Those eyes that were now like a storm about to begin.

His arms went slack, his hands slipping off Jan as he stood straight. At this moment he really did look like his father’s son. “I see. Then I suppose I should leave you to your work.”

Neither of them said a word as Ty turned his back and walked out the door, and Jan reluctantly turned his wheelchair back to his research.