A one-shot from a story I had in mind for a long time. If you'd like to read it, just leave a comment. And if enough people ask for it, I wouldn't mind continuing it.
....
The Return of the Ice Emperor
Life is like a random day. Sometimes it can be bright, full of vitality and joy, with children running and laughing while their innocence fills the air. But other times it turns stormy, drenched in rain and mud, forcing people to remain indoors or simply gaze out the window, patiently waiting for it all to pass.
Stories are no different. They change depending on who tells them, on the inspiration of the moment, and the heart of the one who reads them. This story, for many, will be heartbreaking and sad. For others, a refreshing relief that speaks of the fragility of glory.
Claude von Soler, Archduke of the Human Empire, was one of the four most powerful generals among his kind. A true master of aura. A prodigy who, at barely fifteen years old, had surpassed his own father—the former general of the northern army—breaking records once thought unreachable, as if it were merely a trivial stroll.
Most people trained their entire lives hoping to feel, just for an instant, the flicker of aura in their hands. Claude, on the other hand, by the age of twenty already commanded his sword shrouded in an aura so frigid he could shape ice at will, like a sorcerer born of legend.
With a single motion, he was capable of annihilating entire armies, transforming everything he touched into fragile statues of frost. By twenty-five, he had become a hero to his people... and a cold, ruthless monster in the eyes of many others.
The Human Empire was an elitist place, where countless rules upheld the hierarchy with an iron fist. One of those decrees stated that any master of aura who reached a certain rank had to marry before the age of twenty-six and sire an heir to carry on the lineage. According to tradition, this ensured the inheritance of power would never be diluted.
And it worked. No one could deny it. It was no coincidence that this mandate had remained in effect since the founding of the kingdom, and it was always the same families who gave birth to the prodigies destined to rise above the rest.
Claude's father had fulfilled this duty, as had his grandfather and each of his ancestors. Generation after generation, his lineage ruled the north with a steady hand, long before the other three generals ever raised their banners. They were the first. And their power earned them respect—but also the deep hatred of many, including the emperor.
In the previous generation, that hatred had seemed to wane. Claude's father had been His Majesty's closest friend, and people believed the old enmity was buried. But the illusion ended the day his father died. The new emperor, raised in resentment by his grandfather, ascended the throne with an unrelenting disdain for Claude—a scorn that burned like an open wound.
Claude, a man of imposing bearing, with golden hair and blue eyes that seemed to observe the world with absolute indifference, attracted everyone's gaze. His body, sculpted with the precision of an artist—neither overly muscular nor too slender—was the very image of perfection. Some said it was the work of his prodigious aura. Others claimed it was simply the product of an unparalleled bloodline. Perhaps the only thing he lacked was the faintest trace of emotion on his face. His countenance, perpetually cold, remained unchanged even in the face of His Majesty's most brazen provocations. He fulfilled every assignment with the precision of a clock, only to return home without a word.
When he reached twenty-five years of age, the inevitable moment of marriage arrived. Even the emperor, feigning an affable smile, chose to assist in the search for the perfect bride for the genius of the Human Empire.
The chosen woman was a young lady of gentle demeanor, from a family that had risen with astonishing speed among the nobility. Her father, a renowned blacksmith, had created a revolutionary forging technique: it allowed aura masters to double the energy they unleashed when wielding their weapons, increasing their power so dramatically that the swords seemed almost alive. Even knights who could barely summon a flicker of aura could, thanks to this method, fuse it into their blades and become deadly adversaries.
It was for that achievement that the emperor had granted her family a sudden and spectacular elevation in rank, even though many protested to see simple commoners transformed overnight into part of imperial glory.
The bride-to-be was Sarina Le Ciel, the eldest daughter. Unlike her younger sisters, who had grown up surrounded by luxury and protocol, Sarina had known the misery of her former village. To many, she was nothing but a peasant girl who had happened to be born at the right moment.
Most were convinced that Claude would reject her without mercy, just as he had done for years with all the women who approached him. Not even the emperor's proposals had bent his will. But to almost no one's surprise, Claude accepted as he accepted all things: with an inscrutable serenity.
The wedding was splendid. The entire empire dressed in celebration, though the rumors never ceased. Some whispered that the Le Ciel family did not deserve to share such an illustrious legacy, that the emperor was provoking unnecessary conflict with the duke. But nothing happened. Everything unfolded in an unsettling calm.
Claude attended every noble gathering with his wife, always wearing the same unchanging expression. Sarina, for her part, endured the scornful stares with unexpected grace. Over time, her intelligence and charm began to silence every tongue. Even the emperor started to feel ashamed, realizing that his scheme had achieved exactly the opposite of what he intended.
It was then, in a surge of vanity—or perhaps madness—that the emperor chose to rekindle a fire long dormant. For hundreds of years, the Demon Empire had been humanity's sworn enemy, but peace was finally within reach. And in a gesture as petty as it was absurd, His Majesty offended the princess of the Demon Empire, awakening a war that had been slowly dying.
And everyone was forced to pay the price. Claude, as the general tasked with defending the north—the direct border with the demon realm—was once more sent to the front lines.
…
A man who seemed eternally young, so calm and serene that his presence felt almost unreal, walked in silence through a castle that, long ago, had been the very image of a fairy tale: white and blue walls that shone beneath the sun, columns carved with the delicate grace of glory itself. Now, everything was stained with blood. The once-polished floor was covered with bodies sprawled in undignified heaps.
He advanced with heavy steps, his cold gaze sweeping across the landscape of death. Each footprint he left behind seemed to freeze the blood that flowed in dark rivers around him. From his hand hung a sword of a deep blue hue, its blade dripping with the blood of countless enemies who had dared to stand in his way.
He did not hasten his pace. He walked with the slowness of one carrying an impossible weight. As if every movement of his legs dragged tons behind them. As if only the force of his will kept him on his feet. And still, not a single flicker of emotion broke the mask on his face.
When he reached the castle's main hall, he found the doors covered in bloody handprints. He raised a hand with an almost mechanical motion and pushed the door open. The gate swung with a guttural creak that was swallowed by the echoes of absolute silence.
Upon entering, his gaze met that of a young woman whose hair was as red as flame itself, so radiant that not even the blood soaking her sky-blue dress could dim its light. Her green eyes, once so bright, were now a sea of pain and exhaustion. She was sitting against the wall, surrounded by the lifeless bodies of beings with black horns sprouting from their foreheads: the mark of demons.
The young woman was breathing with difficulty. Her chest rose and fell unevenly as blood trickled from the wounds that covered her body. She could barely keep her eyelids open.
Claude rushed to her side, breaking the calm of his steps for the first time. He knelt beside her, and with hands that trembled almost imperceptibly, began to freeze her wounds in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. But she shook her head, a slow gesture laden with resignation.
"It's... it's too late, Claude. I was only waiting for you. There is no blood left in my body... I'm only alive because my aura sustains me," she murmured in a broken voice.
Claude could feel that energy coursing through her, replacing the life that was slipping away. But he could also feel how it consumed her from within, like a cold fire that was destroying her. Aura was not meant to keep a broken body alive. It only prolonged the suffering, only held her in this world a moment longer... so she could say goodbye.
"Serina," he whispered, kneeling in front of her, not knowing how to stop the inevitable. For the first time, his unshakable expression cracked. Grief emerged, cruel and unstoppable, breaking the wall that had kept him apart from the world for so many years. At last, his emotions rose to the surface.
"I don't know if I should feel happy... to finally see an emotion on your face, after searching for it so long... or if I should hate that it's sorrow," she said with a weak smile, lifting her trembling hand. Claude took it carefully, pressing her fingers against his cheek.
"Haha... you were always such a fool, Claude. Cold... arrogant... a hopeless fool. You made me struggle so much to win you over... you even fled the bed when I tried to seduce you..." Her gaze filled with tears, but still, her lips shaped a smile steeped in tenderness.
"And still... I love you. I loved you and I will always love you... every part of you. Your distant look, your harsh words... when you simply didn't know how to treat a woman... your hair... the way you looked at me when you wanted to show love but couldn't find the way... your touch... when I awoke as a spiritual master and my body couldn't bear the change. You spent days watching over me... and when I opened my eyes, you ran away. You are... a fool. My great and beloved fool."
Little by little, her aura began to fade. The spark of her life was consumed with every breath.
"Please... tell me. One last time. Say those words... our vows," she pleaded in a whisper that barely rose above the silence.
Claude closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the courage he had never known he would need.
"The day you appeared before me, with that furious gaze... it was like seeing the sun after an endless winter. The warmth that thawed my heart, when there was nothing left but ice... the warm, chaotic breeze that shattered my orderly world... and still... I couldn't take my eyes off your smile. The smile that made me fall in love... slowly... and completely, until it taught me emotions I never knew existed."
Suddenly, he felt Serina's heartbeat stop. She closed her eyes, her expression softening into a peace that no longer knew pain. And still, Claude held her hand against his cheek and continued:
"You are the light that came into my world to banish the darkness... the owner of my soul and my heart. You are the love of my life."
A single tear fell, silent, tracing a bright path down his skin. The first tear his face had ever known.
When he leaned in to embrace her, he understood that Serina was no longer there. She would never be there again. Not ever.
It was then that all his power, contained for so many years, finally spilled over. Snow began to fall from the sky, covering every corner of the city. In a single instant, the entire territory of the duke was wrapped in an eternal shroud of ice. The houses that had burned, consumed by the flames, froze in the middle of their agony. Even the fire remained intact, like sculptures frozen in disaster.
Several days passed before a massive army, led by hundreds of knights, arrived in the city. Awe filled every gaze. They had entered the place that had always boasted of being the safest in the empire—safer even than the imperial palace itself. The fortress on the border, where the greatest resources and the most formidable protection had been deployed.
But now... there was only silence and ice.
The leader of the army dismounted from his horse with a somber expression, advancing with cautious steps through the streets. Among his men, some held their breath, unable to comprehend what force could have caused such devastation.
"Lord Cirse... we arrived too late," murmured a soldier in a tense voice. He wore a green uniform, and a sword of the same color hung at his waist. His black hair framed green eyes brimming with uncertainty.
"Yes... there is nothing we can do," Cirse replied with a sigh as he gazed over the frozen city.
He was another of the empire's four generals. Another protector of humanity. Paul de Cirse, master of the emerald aura.
Along with his men, he advanced toward the palace. He inspected every silent corridor, every corner covered in ice, until he reached the main hall.
There, Claude stepped out of the chamber, his expression even colder than the ice surrounding him.
"C-Cl... Claude..." Cirse stammered, surprised and, for a moment, afraid. "Y-you're alive," he murmured, while his hand moved slowly toward the hilt of his sword.
"You're late," Claude said, his voice so calm it hardly seemed human.
"Yes... we're at war. I had to protect my territory," Cirse replied quickly, as if he needed to justify his presence.
Claude fell silent for a moment, his gaze settling on Cirse's sword.
"What was the order?" he asked suddenly, his voice filled with a coldness different from his power.
"Wh-what?" Cirse stammered, a chill running down his spine.
"The order... what was it? From the Emperor."
Cirse's eyes widened with disbelief. For a moment, he seemed to search for the right words, but finally, he lowered his gaze with resignation.
He raised a hand to his forehead, letting out a sigh that vanished into the hall.
"Well... Claude, you did it. You caused so much damage to the enemy army that you even killed one of their generals. That's why the demons want to negotiate peace. They will marry the princess to the Emperor... as a symbol of truce. And... they will abandon the battle."
He forced an awkward smile.
"You did it."
"What is the price of this change?" Claude asked in a voice so serene it was colder than winter itself.
Cirse held his gaze for a long moment before answering.
"You."
"You really hurt them... but they hurt us as well," he continued, with a tone that sounded like an attempt to excuse and justify himself all at once. "We are the only two generals left. The only surviving aura master is the Emperor. But thanks to the swords of Le Ciel, we have more power than an ordinary aura master. They barely have two left... but they have many more mages than we do. If we throw in everything we have... we'll only manage to annihilate each other. You are the imbalance on the scale."
"I see," Claude replied, as unmovable as a glacier.
As he spoke, Cirse began to draw his sword. His fingers trembled. Despite being as young as Claude, not even in his most arrogant fantasies had he believed he could compare to him.
His late grandfather had earned the right to be a general after decades of battles. Cirse, on the other hand, barely understood the subtleties of his own aura.
An aura master was the pinnacle of energy control. Even so, that pinnacle was divided into two levels: those who wielded aura in its pure form and those who managed to give it an element. Elemental aura was infinitely more powerful than simple essence. In the entire Empire, only two men had mastered it: Claude... and the Emperor.
That was one of the reasons they wanted to eliminate him. Since the creation of the empire, no one but the monarch had wielded an element. The Emperor's sickly jealousy had begun when Claude awakened an element never seen before: ice. A perfect fusion of water and wind, more powerful than the simple water the Emperor could barely wield.
"Don't make this harder, Claude," Cirse said in a tense whisper. "We brought all the semi-masters of the empire. And ten mages. If necessary... we will end you. It's just another order. Like always. Just accept it."
As he spoke, his aura began to flow through his muscles, dyeing his sword with an emerald glow that trembled like a dying flame.
Claude looked at him with absolute calm.
"No."
For a second, the silence was so profound that the frenzied beating of hearts could be heard.
Cirse clenched his teeth, his features taut with frustration and fear. He shook his head, unable to respond, while the soldiers behind him drew their weapons in unison.
The ground trembled as the ceiling of the hall began to give way under a spell. Ten mages descended in concentric circles, raising their staffs as they recited incantations that made the vault quake. Magic filled the air with an oppressive pressure that bordered on panic.
"Then... I'm sorry, Claude," Cirse murmured, the weight of betrayal heavy in every word. "It's a shame to lose a prodigy like you. But we need peace. Too many are dying."
His figure vanished suddenly, turning into a green blur that crossed the distance and appeared in front of Claude's chest.
At that same instant, the soldiers disappeared and reappeared around him, all their swords aimed at his neck.
The blades pierced Claude's body with ease. The mages remained frozen, stunned by how simple it had been.
But when his head and torso fell to the ground, his flesh crumbled into transparent crystals. Pure ice.
"Careful!" Cirse screamed, his voice ragged, turning toward the mages.
It was too late.
Claude was already behind one of them, standing on a platform of ice that had materialized beneath his boots. The mage's head flew in a perfect arc before striking the floor.
The rest raised their staffs with a cry of terror, reciting spells at inhuman speed. But Claude vanished again. A sudden snowfall descended upon them, followed by a gale that tore banners free and raised a whirlwind of debris.
He reappeared in front of another mage who had barely managed to utter the last syllable of a spell. His blue sword pierced the mage's chest, shattering three magical barriers in a single motion, driving through his heart.
The remaining mages finished their incantation and unleashed lightning and fire from every direction.
For an instant that felt eternal, everyone watched as Claude turned into a block of ice, which was shattered to pieces by the attacks. The body of the mage he had just slain was reduced to charred remains, a victim of his own comrades' desperation.
A freezing roar swept across the hall as the storm intensified.
"Claude! Killing us will only weaken the Empire! Are you truly willing to destroy everything you built? Everything your family protected for generations?" Cirse shouted, his voice ragged as he watched another mage collapse, eyes glassy and lifeless.
"They chose to come," Claude replied, emerging from the storm. His blue sword dripped with blood and frost. "And so did you."
He launched himself toward Cirse with a leap that left a trail of ice hanging in the air.
The mages raised their staffs to conjure another barrier, but Claude moved so fast that their explosions of fire and lightning struck only empty space.
Cirse lifted his sword, muscles tensed, while his men formed a defensive circle around him.
When Claude was a single step away, he vanished again.
Cirse barely caught a glimpse of a white flash… that wasn't aimed at his heart, but at the semi-masters positioned in the rear.
"Idiots, fall back!" Cirse shouted, a thread of panic in his voice.
But if he could hardly perceive Claude's movements, the others had no chance at all. In the blink of an eye, two heads rolled across the ice stained red.
"Signal the alarm!" Cirse roared, pointing to a mage.
The conjurer raised his staff and fired a red beam into the sky, which exploded with a deafening boom and bathed the entire territory in its bloody glow.
Cirse charged at Claude with determination, knowing he could do nothing but buy time.
Claude stared back as he raised his sword.
"You're making this more complicated than it needs to be," Cirse muttered, breathless. "You're betraying the human race."
"And you betrayed me," Claude replied, his tone so icy it felt like it could crack a man's soul. "But even that wouldn't have mattered… if you had protected my people. If you had protected her."
He lifted his leg and delivered a brutal kick to Cirse's chest. Cirse was thrown back several meters, spinning through the air until he managed to brace a hand against the ground and steady himself with a groan of pain.
At that same instant, Claude leapt back, narrowly dodging a rain of lightning bolts that fell upon him like the wrath of the gods. One of the mages tried to trap him in a cage of electricity while the others raised barriers to seal every possible exit and prevent him from striking again.
But all of it was useless.
Claude lifted his gaze and, with a gesture that seemed almost lazy, an ice spike materialized above one of the mages, driving straight through his back.
That was why elemental aura masters were so feared. They didn't need direct contact: they could create their element anywhere, shape it at will, and turn it into an extension of their intent. In that storm of snow and wind, Claude was a god among mortals.
One of the mages, seeing death descend upon them, began to chant with frantic desperation. Several spheres of fire appeared, encircling everyone—even the semi-masters and Cirse—with the intention of melting the ice and reclaiming some measure of mobility in that frozen hell.
But Claude took a single step. In an instant, a field of frost erupted from his body, spreading out like a frozen ocean. The flames petrified on contact, turned into orange sculptures that sparked and died. And, at the same time, dozens of ice spikes erupted from the ground, launching in every direction.
The soldiers and mages tried to dodge, but most managed only a scream before they fell. Soon, all of them lay wounded, bleeding onto the snow that never stopped falling.
That was the true reason for the blizzard: the moment they allowed it to form, they had lost almost any chance of victory.
Then, a trumpet blared amid the echoes of death. Claude turned his gaze for just an instant, always vigilant. In the distance, the rest of the army that had come with Cirse was marching toward him. Hundreds of men with weapons raised. Some looked at him with grim determination. Others with a nearly childish hope. Many more… with a hatred that seemed to justify any atrocity.
"They know that defeating you will bring peace to the kingdom…" Cirse shouted, trying to shatter the stone in Claude's heart. "Will you kill them too?"
"Yes," Claude answered with absolute calm.
A new wave of frost spread from his body.
Even Cirse's eyes widened in disbelief. This man, who had risked his life so many times to save civilians… was no longer the same. Perhaps he never had been.
Cirse clenched his teeth, his aura forming a shell of emerald light around his body as the ice closed in. But the protection shattered with a single crack. The semi-masters' barriers broke just as easily.
The army, unable to hold the line, was trapped in a frozen shroud that swallowed their bodies, their weapons, even their screams. For one second, there was perfect silence… until everything exploded into a storm of shards. Fragments of ice and blood soared into the air like a macabre fireworks display.
"You're insane… you're truly insane," Cirse cried, his voice breaking as he staggered back. "Now I understand why we have to stop you… why the Emperor ordered it."
"No," Claude replied, his voice so cold it seemed the air itself froze when it touched him. "He ordered it because he's a fool."
He vanished before Cirse's eyes.
An instant later, the head of a semi-master rolled across the snow, his face still frozen in disbelief at the massacre.
The remaining soldiers advanced, though their trembling betrayed the terror inside them. They had no choice. They had to try to stop the Ice Demon who killed with the same ease that others breathed.
Cirse stepped back, feeling his conviction drain away. He let his men place themselves between him and the fate that awaited them.
...
For five days, the sky blazed with explosions, fire, and lightning. For five days, the snow fell without end, while the storms erased any trace of hope. The battle was even more savage than the clashes on the border against the demons.
And in the end, only one man remained standing.
His golden hair was stained red, soaked in the blood of enemies and traitors alike. All around him lay hundreds—perhaps thousands—of corpses. Reinforcements that had kept arriving, only to die.
The ten mages lay torn apart. Most had perished by spells from their own comrades, so desperate to kill Claude that they were willing to sacrifice everything.
The semi-masters, decapitated, covered the battlefield like broken dolls.
In front of him, Cirse was on his knees, barely breathing. His eyes, once so sure, were now empty wells.
"What have you done, Claude?" he whispered, voice strangled as a viscous dread squeezed his chest. "All the semi-masters... ten of the twenty mages... The loss the Empire has suffered is greater than the entire war. You have caused the fall of humanity... of the Empire your family protected since its creation."
He was right. With those deaths, they had lost most of their military might. Common soldiers no longer mattered. It was the mages and semi-masters who decided the fate of a kingdom. Each one was a strategic treasure that could not be replaced in decades.
The reason the Demon Empire had demanded Claude's head as the sole condition for peace was simple. While the humans possessed twenty mages and three aura masters, the demons had two aura masters and thirty mages. No one, except Claude, could face ten mages at once. He himself had killed two demon generals during the war—and seven mages.
The death of a single human general had been enough to shatter the balance.
"When she died... that was the end of everything. Not just for humanity," Claude murmured with the serenity of a man who no longer had anything left to lose. He raised his bloodstained sword as if in a final gesture.
"Wait... Claude, wait... Remember that the Emperor is also an elemental aura master, like you," Cirse pleaded, a thread of hope in his voice.
But Claude's words were colder than any blizzard.
"Yes. But I have defeated him many times before. And I can do it again easily."
With that, he moved his sword in a clean arc.
Cirse didn't even manage a final scream. His body split in two.
...
The Human Empire.
For centuries, its people had called it the Palace of Water. A vast walled city that had protected its inhabitants from invaders and savage beasts. The safest place on the continent, they used to say with pride.
Now, there was only destruction. Screams and explosions echoed in every corner. The snowfall fell like an implacable storm while one of the once-unbreakable walls lay in shattered ruin, frozen in place.
At the heart of the Empire, the buildings had collapsed into heaps of rubble. The golden castle, symbol of imperial power, had been split in two... in truth, by several sword strikes that still seemed to throb in the broken walls.
In the midst of that apocalyptic scene, two men fought. Every clash of their weapons destroyed everything around them.
Hundreds of soldiers lay dead upon the ice. Civilians ran in all directions, seized by a panic no army could contain.
"You bastard, Claude! You should have died that day! You took everything from me!" roared a man with blue hair, his face twisted with rage. His sword, the same color, released torrents of water that turned into liquid blades, cutting down everything in their path.
"I helped you gain your throne... and yet you cast me aside because of your jealousy," Claude replied, as calm as a corpse. He raised a hand, and dozens of ice spears materialized around him before launching at his enemy.
That man was the Emperor. Ocarion Von Dolav.
"You should never have been born! In this Empire, there can be only one wielder of elemental aura! It has always been the Emperor! That's how it has been for hundreds of years! When a special one is born outside the royal bloodline... they must die. My grandfather understood that. I should have done the same. But your mother protected you... and my grandfather paid for his weakness," Ocarion shouted as the surrounding water rose into dozens of gleaming spheres aimed at Claude.
"Most of those who were killed bore my name," Claude murmured as he dodged each jet with minimal, almost lazy, movement. "And still, when your brother was to be the heir, I was the one who helped you earn your merits. And I regret it."
"If you were so strong, why didn't you go and destroy the Demon Empire! Why did you come here! They killed Sarina!" Ocarion roared, his voice thick with rage and fear.
"Because that war was never mine," Claude replied as he vanished, only to reappear in front of the Emperor. "I was only following orders. As I was always taught. But I protected the wrong ones. The ones who betrayed me."
The Emperor lifted his sword in both hands, determined to block the descending strike.
Both were covered in wounds. Blood streamed freely from their bodies. Except Claude used the ice to seal his own bleeding.
"But after ending the Human Empire... I will go for them too," Claude declared, his voice glacial.
An ice spike burst from behind Ocarion, piercing his side. The Emperor twisted just in time to avoid having it go through his heart, but he couldn't hold back a cry of pain.
From his hand, a pressurized jet of water shot out, piercing Claude's stomach. He didn't flinch. He froze the wound in an instant and, with a single motion, drove his sword into his enemy's chest.
"You were always a monstrosity... Serina never should have ended up with you... she..." Ocarion stammered.
Before he could finish the sentence, Claude twisted his sword. The Emperor's head flew free, while his body collapsed into a pool of his own blood.
Claude, covered in wounds and red stains, remained there, breathing calmly.
A few months later, the same thing happened in the Demon Empire.
That kingdom, a barren land of dunes and scorching wind, was transformed into a frozen wasteland stained red.
Claude sat upon the throne of the demon emperor. Before him lay the lifeless corpse of his final enemy.
His gaze was empty. There was nothing left inside him. No satisfaction, no relief. No hatred. No sorrow. Only silence.
For an endless moment, he remained there, without moving a single muscle.
Then, he raised his sword. The same one Sarina had given him on their wedding day.
Memory brought back a lost fragment of time: that first night, when she had appeared in his chambers wearing that false innocence that fooled no one. The wolf disguised as a lamb who had managed to make the mighty general of ice flee.
For weeks, she had chased him with her radiant laughter and shamelessness. Not only because she loved him, but because something about his body fascinated her. More than once, he had caught her trying to spy on him as he dressed, until he had to drive her from the room just to put on his shirt in peace.
That memory, so absurd and so human, drew a faint smile to his lips.
His wife's madness… it had been the only thing that made him happy. And now, without it, there was only emptiness.
Claude raised the sword, placed both hands on the hilt… and drove it into his heart.
...
And so ended the tale of the Ice Demon King.
The man who had been born among humans and destroyed two empires for the simple fact of having lost the love of his life.
The man who became the most powerful of all… because he could not accept the silence death left behind.
But that story would be heard by no one.
Because Claude von Soler opened his eyes and found himself staring at a ceiling he knew well.
His body was small. His hands, thin and still unscarred.
Fifteen years old.
He had awakened in the past, with all the memories of a future he would never allow to repeat, even if it cost him his life.
And so, the tragic and heartbreaking story… perhaps would not be so, after all.