Please

The voice of the mage faded away as if swallowed by the wind. For a breath the snow fell in an almost respectful hush, the world reduced to gray and white and the soft grinding of the storm. Then, as if the frozen landscape had been waiting for actors to step into a play, two figures resolved out of the blizzard.

The first was unmistakable by posture and uniform. He wore the stiff, cruel cut of a general: high collar, heavy boots that sank into the snow, a long dark coat that shivered with frost. His face was a shadow under the brim of a military cap. The second figure was a woman, bent slightly with confusion, her hair pale and blond against the bleak world. She looked small and lost in that frozen expanse.

The general’s voice cut through the air like a knife. “It is absolutely forbidden to set foot in these zones,” he said flatly, as if reciting a law already written in blood. “I do not care whether you wandered here by accident or were led. You are trespassing. You will die for it.”

Lian’s chest tightened. He stepped forward without thinking. “Stop! Do not kill her!” he shouted, instinct and outrage driving him. But his words were absorbed by the cold. The general did not appear to hear him. The woman did not look at him. They moved as if they existed on some other plane of perception, and the world between them and the two figures felt thin and sharp, like glass.

Mira sank to the ground as if gravity had been turned up. She folded in on herself, arms wrapped around her legs, forehead tucked to her knees, and she murmured into the snow, a voice small and fragile: “This cannot be happening, this cannot be—” Her shoulders heaved. The sound was almost private, but Lian felt it like an impact.

Lian lunged, desperate to place himself between the woman and the general. He shoved with everything he had, mind blazing, body moving on reflex. He expected resistance, muscle and steel. Instead his hand passed through the general’s chest as if through steam. He staggered, fingers chilled and empty. The world tilted.

The realization slammed into him. This was not the present. This was a trick of the mage. He had stepped into a memory, a scene from another life being projected into their surroundings. The general’s rigid posture, the bitter contempt in his voice, the way the woman trembled—none of it belonged to the moment they had been living. It belonged to some past wound.

The general reached into his coat and pulled free a pistol. The metal looked ordinary, stupidly ordinary in that grand, terrible context. He aimed at the woman as if sighting prey. “Goodbye,” he said simply.

The report cracked like thunder. The sound sliced the air, bright and metallic. Snow drove into Lian’s teeth. The woman collapsed backwards, limbs folding into the white. For a beat the world held its breath; then wind redoubled, keening across the plain as if the landscape mourned the loss.

Mira curled inward, as if she could fold herself into smallness and vanish. The cold intensified around her; frost climbed her sleeves like fingers. Lian could feel it press into his skin, an encroaching numbness that smelled of iron and old regrets.

The general turned and walked away, boots leaving neat impressions as he retreated through the blowing snow, and then like a shadow easing into fog he was gone. The woman lay still, her blond hair fanned across the snow like spilled wheat. For a suddenly childlike, dreadful moment, a small figure scrambled from behind a nearby trunk and ran toward the fallen woman.

“Mama! Mama, get up!” the child screamed, voice ragged and bright in the hollow air.

She was a little girl, blond like the woman, face streaked with tears that froze on her cheeks. Her small hands flapped at the woman’s shoulders, urgent, pleading. But the woman did not stir. The child’s cry shattered and then, with the inevitability of a closing page, the vision dissipated. The woman and the child blurred into nothing; the image that had seared the storm faded like breath on glass.

Silence swallowed the space. The wind turned meaner, slashing at their clothes, and the cold seemed to dig deeper into their bones. Lian crouched beside Mira, heart racing. Her body remained curled, unmoving, as if the memory had wrapped itself around her and would not release.

And then the mage appeared, his laughter like thin icicles tinkling in a draught. He leaned against a chunk of ice as though posing, triumphant and syrup-smooth. “Do you finally understand?” he mocked. “I can access a person’s memories. The deeper the wound, the more turbulent the spirit, the worse the weather becomes. The storm feeds me, and I feed upon the chaos. When a soul is broken and raw, I grow stronger. Your companion is no longer in the right condition to fight.”

Lian and Kael both looked at Mira. There she sat, folded in on herself, a small shape of misery, and something inside Lian clenched. He could feel the memory still vibrating in the air, the little girl’s scream tucked into his bones. A new urgency took hold. This was no longer just a battle of strength. It was a war for the mind.

The mage’s voice cut again, smooth and cruel. “It is over for you. Your friend is trapped in the past. While she remains so, your chances are nothing. I will not chase you. I will wait until you melt under this cold despair and then the King will be amused.”

Lian swallowed, his breath sharp and visible. He should have been terrified. He should have felt the losing weight of the mage’s words. Instead the anger that had driven him up mountains flared. He looked to Kael. Her hands were white on the boomer, jaw tight, all the impulses of fury and protectiveness gathered into one held-back storm.

“Not yet,” Lian said. His voice was low but unbending. He forced his eyes away from the frozen tableau and back to the mage. “We are not done.”

The mage laughed again, a sound that made the very snow seem more brittle. “Hope is a thin thing in such a wasteland,” he said. “Try to warm yourselves with it.”

Kael moved before Lian could call her back. She stalked forward, boots cutting prints into the freshly powdered ground. The wind lashed at her, but she planted her feet and met the mage’s eyes. “You used her pain as a weapon,” she spat. “You will pay.”

The mage’s smile did not falter. “We shall see,” he replied. “We shall see.”

Around them the storm thinned a fraction, a beat of stillness. The fight had changed shape. It was no longer just about breaking spells or matching fire with ice. It was about pulling a friend back from the teeth of a memory, about standing between the world and the thing that wanted her to be lost. The three of them — bone-tired, terrified, furious — straightened, and in that line of breath and action, they understood the stakes fully.

The mage’s final words hung in the air, an icy challenge. “It's over for you.”
Lian did not answer. He could not afford to. Instead he turned toward Mira, knelt beside her, and spoke into the cold like a promise. “Mira, come back to us. Please.”