Whispers in the Frost

The wind had settled only slightly, leaving Frosthaven eerily silent. Snowflakes drifted like pale ash from the sky, settling on rooftops and the frozen streets. Elias Thorne walked carefully through the village outskirts, his breath steaming in the frigid air. Every step was deliberate, his sharp eyes scanning the environment with the intensity of a predator. He had survived the storm, but something about this quiet… gnawed at him.

Something is wrong.

Even the animals seemed uneasy. A flock of crows circled the nearby forest, their cries unusually shrill. One of the horses in a nearby stable whinnied and backed away, ears flattened. Elias paused, tilting his head. He had noticed patterns before—tiny disturbances in what should have been a normal environment. And now, each subtle anomaly pressed at the edges of his mind, whispering a warning he could not yet name.

Elias (muttering): “Why… why does everything feel like it’s being watched?”

He crouched by a frozen well, noticing the water below ripple, though the air was still. A shadow flickered along the stone wall—no wind, no source. Just a darkness that moved independently, curling and slithering. His heart beat faster, but not from fear. From calculation. From observation.

This isn’t normal.

From behind him, the faintest sound of footsteps in the snow—a soft, careful crunch. Elias spun, scanning the perimeter. Nothing. Just the endless white stretching toward the tree line. And yet… he could feel it. Presence. Patience. Observation.

Unseen, in the distant treeline, Sköll and Hati crouched. Sköll’s eyes glinted like molten gold in the snow, tracking Elias’s every micro-expression. Hati melted into the shadows, silent as a frozen mist. Every movement, every breath of Elias was cataloged, analyzed, noted. The Templar’s plan was in motion.

Sköll (whispering): “He senses it… but not fully. Patience. Let him wander.”

Hati (softly): “And when he falters… darkness will claim him.”

Elias didn’t yet know their names, of course. He only knew instinctively that this place had changed. That the snow, the wind, the very silence was pressing against him like an unseen hand.

A shriek tore through the village—a woman’s cry from the northern edge, near the abandoned mill. Elias’s body tensed. Every neuron in his brain fired, analyzing the possible threat vectors, calculating distance, timing, and likely source.

He moved carefully toward the mill, aware of every shadow, every movement. The door was ajar. Inside, a faint shape writhed on the floor. At first glance, it seemed human—but the eyes… hollow, glassy, staring.

Elias (quietly): “What… happened to you?”

The figure whispered something, a sound that grated on his mind like ice scraping bone: “He watches… he knows…”

The voice was not human. The pitch shifted unnaturally, echoing as if a dozen speakers whispered simultaneously. Elias’s stomach turned, but he did not falter. He knelt beside the figure, inspecting for physical trauma. Nothing obvious. No wound. No blood. Yet the presence of something foreign pressed in on him, filling his peripheral vision with darkness that wasn’t shadow, and shapes that weren’t solid.

This… is no ordinary killer. This is something else. Something intelligent.

Suddenly, a loud crash came from the barn behind him. He spun around instinctively, drawing his hand as if a sword had been there—his mind calculating how he would fight with one. But there was only snow, swirling like a miniature blizzard inside the structure. Something moved in that white storm… something that was not snow.

Elias (thinking): Every instinct screams danger. Yet I cannot see it… I can only feel it. And it wants me to act, to panic…

His mind raced through scenarios: escape routes, attack strategies, environmental hazards. Every decision had consequences. One wrong choice, and he could be dead before understanding why.

Far above the village, Freyja watched from the cliffs, manipulating probability. A sudden loose plank, a subtle shift in footing, a distraction from the wind itself—each small event was calculated to make Elias doubt himself.

Freyja (softly, to herself): “Fragile… but intelligent. Excellent. Let him make mistakes.”

Skadi, hidden in the forest, nocked an ice arrow. “One step wrong. He’ll feel the bite of frost before he even knows it exists. But not yet. Let him learn.”

Elias took a deep breath, shivering in the cold, his hands numb. He glanced at the abandoned well again, noticing small runes etched faintly into the stone, previously unnoticed. His sharp mind recognized the pattern—arcane. Dark. Not fully material, but tangible enough to disturb the mind.

This is… a test. They want me to see, to think, to react.

He exhaled slowly, grounding himself. Fear prickled at the edges, but he could not allow it to control him. Every calculation, every observation was stored mentally, pieces of a puzzle forming rapidly.

Elias (muttering): “I won’t die… not like this. Not without knowing what I’m facing.”

From the shadows, Sleipnir observed, shifting positions, reporting back to the Top Seven. The entire village was under the Templar’s unseen gaze. Every shadow, every gust of wind, every snowflake that fell was a test, a trap, a thread in the web that Shadow had woven.

And somewhere, in the darkened treeline, a figure whispered directly into Elias’s subconscious: “Elias… watch. Learn. Survive… if you can.”

Elias shivered, not fully understanding why, but knowing instinctively that his life—and his sanity—was now a game. One he had not chosen. One he could not ignore.

The first thread had been pulled. The Templar of Being were moving. Frosthaven was no longer safe. And Elias, clever as he was, would soon discover the price of awareness in a world ruled by shadows and the dead