The silence of snowfall still blanketed Frostfang, but the hush was brittle, like thin ice over a dark river. Every torch that burned along the ramparts cast long, twitching shadows, and the men who stood watch found their hands trembling without reason they could name.
Aldric felt it, too — the prickling sense that something vast and merciless was rising from the depths, a horror too old for the world to remember.
He met with Kaelin and Torven in the war room, the old stone walls thick with damp. The table before them was strewn with maps and tokens marked with the sigils of allied holds. By the hearth, Rowena sat, re-binding the feathers of her arrows, every motion precise and purposeful.
"They gather again," Torven growled, one finger stabbing at the coastline where the White Shoals bled into deeper water. "New sails, new teeth. But the same black hearts."
Kaelin shook her head, anger simmering just below the surface. "They will not stop. They will gnaw at us until nothing is left."
Rowena looked up then, eyes glinting in the firelight. "The old woman's warning," she reminded softly. "The serpent waits."
Aldric felt the weight of those words sink through him like a cold blade. The sea will steal your name, your heart, and your family.
He swallowed hard, fists tightening at his sides.
"Then let it come," he said, voice low and sure. "I would rather break upon the waves than bend to them."
But even as he spoke, an unease clawed at him, something dark and coiling that he could neither name nor deny.
Tides of Fear
The next morning, rumors spread like wildfire through Frostfang. A merchant ship had limped into harbor under torn sails, its crew half-mad with terror. They babbled about shapes moving beneath the waves, shadows longer than galleys, eyes like lanterns burning in the dark.
Kaelin rode to the docks herself to see. The sailors fell to their knees at her presence, their skin raw from salt and fear.
"It took them," one man wept, voice splintering. "A serpent — a serpent as long as the sea is wide — it crushed them, dragged them down…"
Kaelin's heart went still. She helped the man to his feet with a soldier's steadiness. "You are safe now," she told him. But in her own heart, she was far from certain.
Word spread to the fortress like poison through water. By nightfall, no one could sleep. Mothers huddled children closer. Men who had fought at the White Shoals now feared to even look upon the sea.
And Aldric felt their dread settle on his shoulders like a burial shroud.
The Hunter's Prayer
That night, Aldric went alone to the small stone chapel within Frostfang, where ancient wolf-banners hung faded from the rafters. He knelt before a cracked iron brazier, the embers guttering low.
He closed his eyes and let his voice whisper out into the quiet.
If any spirit yet guards the North, hear me. If any strength remains in these bones, grant me the will to stand.
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then, impossibly, a wind curled through the chapel, smelling of ice and pine and old battlefields. It stirred the banners and sent the embers flaring bright.
Aldric felt its chill upon his cheek, and a memory of wolves howling at a winter moon surged through him — fierce, loyal, unbroken.
When he rose, there was iron in his spine once more.
The Serpent Reveals
Three days later, scouts from the Drowned Vale came screaming into the courtyard on foam-lashed horses. Their voices were torn with panic:
"The sea is moving!"
Men rushed to the walls, climbing towers to look.
And there, on the horizon, something vast stirred.
A coil.
A glimpse of a scaled back, dark as night, ridged with barnacles older than kingdoms. A head that broke the waves — a head with jaws wider than a galley, eyes pale and unblinking as moons.
Children screamed. Men fell to their knees.
Rowena gripped the rampart with white-knuckled fists, a prayer lost on her lips.
Kaelin's voice cut through the panic like a drawn sword. "Archers to the walls! Load the ballistae!"
But Aldric stood frozen, every nightmare from the stories of his childhood made flesh before him. The serpent — the drowned horror that had devoured fleets, swallowed cities.
It had come for them.
The Oath Renewed
When night fell, the serpent was still there, coiling lazily in the outer bay, as if toying with their courage.
Aldric gathered his captains once more in the torchlit hall. Outside, the wind had turned cruel, hissing against the arrow slits like the breath of the beast itself.
Torven spat into the rushes. "You cannot fight the sea," he said grimly. "That is death."
Kaelin met Aldric's eyes, unblinking. "But what if we must?"
Rowena's voice was quiet, but held a terrible strength. "If we do nothing, the sea will swallow all. We cannot let fear do its work for our enemy."
Aldric looked from face to face, and for a moment he felt small, terribly small, against the enormity of what they faced.
Then he remembered the boy on the battlefield, no older than ten, who had survived against impossible odds.
If a child could stand, so could he.
He slammed his palm upon the table. "Then we will not yield," he declared. "We will not let it take this land from us. We are the North. We are wolves. And the sea itself will learn to fear us."
A ripple of courage spread through the hall like wildfire, catching in every chest, reigniting every spark.
Kaelin lifted her hammer in salute. "Then let us teach it."
Shadows in the Deep
That night, Aldric walked the walls alone, his breath steaming in the cold. Far out in the water, the serpent drifted, a dark shape against the moonlit sea, impossibly patient, as if it could wait forever.
He watched it. It watched him.
And in its gaze, he felt a terrible certainty — this was no mere beast.
Something guided it.
A mind, old and hateful.
Rowena found him there as dawn began to pale the eastern sky. She took his hand without words.
"We will face it together," she whispered.
Aldric nodded, his heart battered but unbroken.
Together.
The Storm Gathers
The next day, all of Frostfang bent to war-craft once more. Nets of steel were forged, to drag across the sea should the serpent breach the harbor. Ballistae were retuned to drive quarrels deep enough to pierce iron scales. Oil was boiled, to set the water itself alight if need be.
Kaelin drilled archers until their arms shook. Torven's raiders practiced throwing harpoons from moving boats, their chants harsh and rhythmic.
Rowena prayed at every forge-fire, blessing the weapons as they came fresh from the hammer's kiss.
And Aldric went among the people, not as a king on a dais, but as a wolf among his pack. He reminded them of the Shoals, of the day they stood when the world thought they would fall.
"Remember," he told them, voice like thunder. "We are not alone. We are the North, and we do not bow."
A Glimpse of Tomorrow
That night, sleep took Aldric at last.
He dreamed of the serpent again — but this time, he stood before it unafraid.
And behind him, stretching to the edge of sight, stood thousands of wolves, their eyes blazing, their breath white in the winter air.
They howled as one, a song that shook even the sea.
And the serpent recoiled.
When Aldric woke, he held that vision tight against the chill, letting it warm his spirit.
War was coming again — a war against a nightmare pulled from the deepest black of the ocean.
But he would not face it alone.
Rowena. Kaelin. Torven. The children, the old, the strong, the weak — all of them, bound together in one fierce heartbeat.
And if the serpent meant to steal his name, his heart, his family — then it would have to fight for them.