The covered sled jolted over the frozen ruts of the Lockstar road, the rhythmic crunch of frost-mule hooves the only sound besides the wind whistling through the canvas cover. Inside, buried beneath sacks of grain that smelled of dust and damp, Ariel Lotus shivered. Not just from the cold seeping through the rough burlap sacking still covering his head, but from a deeper, gnawing terror. The muffled sobs had dried up hours ago, replaced by a hollow ache in his chest. Grandfather's face – weary, lined, kind – kept flashing behind his closed eyelids. The warm oven glow of the Frosted Delight. The clink of copper pennies. He'd run away. He'd been stupid. And now… merchandise.
Roger Lithuanian drove with the grim efficiency of a man delivering cargo, not a child. He occasionally spat into the snow, the sound sharp and dismissive. Ariel could feel the man's presence like a banked furnace radiating dangerous heat – the unnatural warmth of his Left Palm Core, the subtle thrum of his Abdomen Core fighting the chill. Power. Unfeeling, pragmatic power.
They stopped at a ramshackle inn just before dusk, a place called "The Frozen Wheel," clinging to the roadside like a limpet. Roger hauled Ariel out, the sacking still on his head, wrists and ankles bound. The sudden burst of cold air and the smell of woodsmoke and unwashed bodies was overwhelming. Ariel stumbled, his legs numb.
"Quiet," Roger growled, steering him roughly through a side door into a cramped, smoky taproom. Faces turned – hard, weary faces of drovers and a few soldiers in mismatched gear bearing Lionheart's oak-leaf insignia. Their eyes flickered over the bound figure, then away. No questions. In times like these, curiosity was a luxury few could afford.
Roger dumped Ariel onto a straw pallet in a tiny, freezing storeroom, removing the sacking but leaving him bound. "Try anything, boy, and I leave you for the wolves. Or worse." He slammed the door, the crude wooden bolt sliding home with finality.
Alone in the near-darkness, Ariel strained against the ropes. Panic surged, hot and desperate. Grandfather! He pictured Alfred discovering the empty bed, the cold shop, the untouched chores. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing his lungs. He thrashed, the ropes biting into his skin, until exhaustion and the suffocating fear overwhelmed him. He curled into a tight ball, the image of Roger's scarred face and cold eyes the last thing he saw before a fitful, terror-filled sleep.
The next day, the landscape changed. The endless white monotony gave way to scarred earth. They passed the smoking ruins of a small hamlet. Blackened timbers jutted like broken bones from the snow. The air stank of ash and something sickly-sweet and charred – a smell Ariel would later learn was mana-burned flesh. A lone, scorched Lionheart banner lay trampled in the mud. Roger didn't slow.
"Estian efficiency," Roger remarked, his voice flat. He pointed a gloved finger at the ruins with his free hand, the reins loose in the other. "See that? Clean lines of destruction. Runic artillery. Incinerated everything before the infantry even got close. No messy resistance." He glanced back at Ariel, who was staring wide-eyed, nausea churning in his gut. "That's what happens to weakness. To villages too poor for proper wards. Too slow to flee." He turned back to the road. "Copper pennies don't buy protection from gold-backed annihilation, boy."
Ariel pressed his face against the cold grain sack beside him, trying to block out the image. He thought of Driftmore's worn guards, melting ice with their palms. What could they do against that?
At the next inn, "The Chipped Anvil," Ariel saw the war's human cost. The common room overflowed with refugees. Hollow-eyed women clutched silent children. Men with bandaged limbs stared blankly into cheap ale. The air hummed with low murmurs of fear and loss: "...overrun before dawn...", "...saw the runes flare green...", "...children... couldn't find..."
While Roger negotiated with the harried innkeeper for a private corner, Ariel saw his chance. An unattended kitchen door stood slightly ajar. Heart hammering against his ribs, he slid off the bench, his bound ankles making him shuffle. He bumped into a soldier nursing a mug. The man grunted, shoving him away without looking. Ariel stumbled towards the door, the smell of stale grease and hope momentarily overpowering the despair.
He pushed through the door into a small, snowy yard. Freedom! He shuffled desperately towards a low fence, the icy air burning his lungs. Just over the fence, woods beckoned.
A hand, radiating that unnatural palm-core heat, clamped onto his shoulder like a vise. Ariel cried out, stumbling.
"Persistent little rat, aren't you?" Roger's voice was dangerously soft. He spun Ariel around. The mercenary's eyes held no anger, only cold assessment. He didn't hit him. He simply lifted Ariel off his feet with one arm, the power of his Right Leg Core making it effortless. He carried him back inside, past the refugees who averted their eyes, and tossed him unceremoniously onto the pallet in their assigned closet-room.
"Every time you try," Roger stated, pulling the door shut and leaning against it, "you prove my point. Weakness invites suffering. Look at them out there." He jerked his head towards the common room. "Weak. Slow. Unprepared. They lost homes, families, futures. Because they lacked the power to hold what was theirs." He crouched, his scarred face inches from Ariel's. "You think your grandfather's kindness saved his shop? His warmth saved you? It made you soft. Easy prey." He tapped Ariel's chest, where his core should be. "Power is the only currency that matters. Strength. Cores. Gold to buy both. Without it, you're just… meat. For the wolves. Or for dukes with peculiar tastes."
He stood. "Get some sleep. We cross the border tomorrow. Into the real world."
The border between Lockstar and Lionheart wasn't a line on a map; it was a charnel house. Roger guided the sled off the main road, climbing a ridge overlooking the contested valley. Below, the frozen fields were churned into muddy carnage. Smoke rose from burning farmsteads on the Lionheart side. Estian soldiers, clad in dark, efficient armor etched with faintly glowing runes, moved with methodical brutality. Ariel watched, frozen in horror, as a squad advanced on a cluster of peasant huts clinging to a hillside.
Green light flared from a portable runic device – a tripod-mounted cylinder humming with power. A beam lanced out, silent and deadly. The central hut simply… disintegrated. Not exploded, but dissolved into shimmering ash that drifted on the wind. Screams, thin and distant, reached Ariel's ears. Figures ran – a woman clutching a bundle, an old man stumbling. Estian crossbows, augmented by Palm Cores for impossible accuracy, thrummed. The runners fell. Ariel retched, dry heaves wracking his small frame, bile burning his throat. The copper smell of blood seemed to fill the air, even from this distance. He saw a small shape, a doll perhaps, lying in the mud near a still form.
Roger watched impassively, chewing on a strip of dried meat. "See? Precision. Power. Estia doesn't waste time on sieges. They erase resistance. Lionheart cavalry's brave," he gestured towards the far end of the valley where a ragged charge of augmented horsemen was being cut down by coordinated bursts of runic energy, "but bravery is just a slower way to die against superior force. Four months. Lockstar bleeds. Lionheart bleeds for its ally. Estia wins. Because they invested in power. In cores. In artifice. In ruthlessness."
He turned to Ariel, his gaze like shards of obsidian. "This is the world, boy. The world your grandfather's pennies couldn't shield you from. The world your dreams of knights are too fragile to survive in." He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a chilling rasp. "Your new owner understands power. Duke Valerius. Rich? Beyond your grandfather's wildest nightmares. A former knight himself – Four cores, they say. Abdomen, Chests, Palms. Retired young, bought his dukedom. Lives in a palace in Luxious where it's always summer, thanks to artifice. Has two wives – one barely older than you will be soon. Five children. Spoiled brats, no doubt." A cruel smile touched Roger's lips. "And the youngest daughter… Selene, I think the Duke called her? She's turning ten. Your age. And you are her birthday gift. Her very own exotic pet. Half-elf. Untouched." He chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Better than scrubbing floors, eh? Better than ending up like that." He jerked his thumb towards the smoldering ruins below.
The words struck Ariel like physical blows. Pet. Gift. Untouched. The horror of the massacre below fused with the terrifying image of his future. The defiant spark that had made him run to the knights, that had made him bite Roger's hand, that had driven his escape attempts – it guttered and died. It wasn't just fear now; it was utter desolation. The weight of his guilt for abandoning Grandfather, the crushing reality of the violence, the absolute certainty of his powerless fate – it all coalesced into a cold, heavy stone in the pit of his stomach. He stopped shaking. Stopped crying. He just stared blankly at the mud-caked runners of the sled.
Roger grunted, seemingly satisfied. "Good. Finally starting to understand." He flicked the reins. "Let's go. Estia awaits. Then Luxious. Your gilded cage beckons, little bird."
They descended from the ridge, Roger flashing forged papers stamped with Estian sigils at a bored checkpoint commander whose armor still bore flecks of dried blood. The man barely glanced at Ariel, huddled and silent in the back. They crossed into Estia proper.
The change was immediate and jarring. The air grew warmer, thick with the acrid tang of sulfur and hot metal. Geothermal vents hissed plumes of steam into the grey sky. The landscape was dominated by obsidian cliffs and vast, organized industrial complexes built around roaring lava channels. Massive rune-inscribed crucibles glowed with molten metal. The rhythmic clang of hammers on enchanted anvils was a constant, oppressive beat. Soldiers marched in tighter formations, their gear uniformly dark and menacing. Estia wasn't just winning the war; it was industry incarnate, fueled by fire, mana, and ruthless ambition. Ariel saw it all through a numb haze. Driftmore's frost, the Frosted Delight's warmth, the knights in the training yard… they felt like scenes from a storybook belonging to another child. A child who was gone.
As the sled rolled deeper into the heart of the Estian war machine, towards the port where a ship would carry him further from everything he knew, Ariel Lotus didn't look back. He simply sat, small and broken amidst the sacks of grain, the cold stone of despair finally eclipsing even the fear. The price of warmth, he realized with a chilling finality, wasn't measured in copper pennies or gold crowns. It was measured in the shattered pieces of his own soul. The journey to his prison had only just begun, and he was already buried.