"What do you think Popsicle? Should I have given them a bit of a head start? This was way too easy."

  Shiver entered her room of descension at a leisurely gait. There was little room for doubt that this room contained the object of her Fear.

  Ice.

  Snow covered the ground in small mounds, like a miniature version of the vast landscape that she had glimpsed in the Floors of Trepidation. She took a seat in the very centre of it, and watched, as the door that led to the outside disappeared.

  Icey appeared to hesitate, trailing behind her. Finally, her guide spoke, her tone growing uncharacteristically solemn.

  "Shiver… before we begin. There is something I need to ask you."

  "Oh? So serious. I’m an open book."

  "What is your true wish? Have you thought about what you’ll do if you achieve your revenge? If you manage to kill Berevan Brimstone?"

  Shiver broke out into a practiced, easy smile.

  "Live a happy life with my extensive popsicle harem of course. Would you like to apply? It’s a highly coveted position."

  Shiver shot a glib look towards her guide. This time, however, Icey didn’t rise to the teasing. She remained silent, and as the silence drew on, Shiver began to fidget. It was usually a trivial thing to parse her guide’s mood from her cheery tonality and energetic movements, zipping around the group in her usual excitement.

  Her guide betrayed none of her emotions, remaining a distance away from where she was seated.

  "This isn’t like you. Have you gotten too used to my teasing? Or maybe I’ve taken it a little overboard?"

  "If the Highlord never took their lives, what would you have envisioned your life being?"

  Shiver started, surprised at her guide’s question. The little ice cube usually got easily flustered, falling right into the traps set by her.

  This… felt different.

  "Well…"

  Shiver smiled, her smile tight.

  "They asked me to join their family, you know. The day before they died. If you asked me what I would have done… I would torment Pov every morning, bothering him for more free popsicles."

  Shiver’s eyes were far away as she recounted a future that was denied to her.

  "Run from Marta as she chased me, telling me to have a bath. I would help them prepare dinner, school the younger orphans, provide them with ample feedback on their “heists”."

  Her smile flickered. Icey’s voice was soft, as it reached her. Carrying in it, a tenderness that surprised her.

  "What is to stop you from achieving this with another family, in the future? Will you give it all up for revenge? Have you thought about what they would want for you?"

  Shiver’s lips turned into a frown. Her voice cracking.

  "There’s no replacing what I had with them. I’m an orphan – a worthless burden. Abandoned in a Feardamned cave by my own parents. Yet they took me in. You think something like that would be so easily replaceable? That I would want to replace them?"

  Shiver scoffed, turning away from her guide.

  It was a simple question. But Shiver could feel her anger gradually building, at even the slightest suggestion that replacing them was ever an option.

  "What would you know about loss – you’re just a Feardamned ice cube."

  The silence drew out between them.

  Shiver knew that she was being unkind, that Icey deserved none of this. Shiver felt a pang of guilt at her thoughtless words, lashing out with anger, at the thought that there could be anything that surpassed the value of their lives, to give up her revenge. Let alone something as base as her own desires.

  Yet the pain was raw, and the suggestion that it was even possible to replace them, offensive.

  "Don’t you know, Shiver, even ice cubes like me are capable of a bit of affection!"

  Icey replied cheerily. As if undeterred by her harsh words. Shiver felt a flash of annoyance at her guide’s levity. What did she expect, assuming that an ice cube could understand. Even if she was a sentient one.

  Then Icey’s voice lowered, and softened.

  An ephemeral crack in her cheerful lilt.

  "Suppose… for a moment even an ice cube was capable of love. I would say…"

  Icey turned away from Shiver.

  "There is nothing more terrible than losing the ones you love. There is nothing more terrible than isolation that is imposed."

  Shiver stared entranced at her guide’s words.

  "Isolation over which you have no control. Forcibly torn from the people who care about you the most, especially when you are undeserving of their love in the first place. When they had no reason to afford you the affection that they did. You would do anything for them, to do anything else would be a betrayal."

  Shiver’s eyes were wide, her heart hammering in her chest. Icey’s soft words speared right into her chest, inducing a familiar pain greater than any nightmare or shade could ever inflict. Putting to words what Shiver had so struggled to describe, betraying her understanding.

  "Perhaps even ice cubes know what it is like to cause torment with their own, silly naive actions. Your intention never matters, only the pain and suffering you impose on others. Isn't that right? Still, Shiver."

  Icey had captured, in that brief moment, the beliefs that Shiver had carried from the very second she had awakened, alone, in that cold cave.

  With a Fear of ice, and nothing or no one else.

  "You think so little of yourself. If you descend, drawing in too much of your Fear, you will be a threat to those you love around you. The deeper you descend, the greater the danger. Do not pursue power for the sake of revenge. You will forsake yourself the possibility of the love you so desire. Please, I beg of you Shvier."

  Shiver gritted her teeth, her hands like vices around her Phobia – knuckles white as her fingers tightened around her twin daggers. Her resolve waning, tears threatening to escape.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The memory of Pov, Marta and Blaze’s bodies reappeared in her vision, lying on cobbled streets. Their lives so casually stolen from them, never to laugh, smile again.

  "I was wrong about you. I’m sorry, Icey. For misjudging you."

  The ice cube remained silent. She turned away, as if in silent understanding. As if she already understood her choice.

  Shiver stated it anyway.

  "You do understand. You understand that I would be betraying their memory if I made any other choice. Because you do understand, I know that you’ll respect my decision. What I want, doesn’t matter. I will descend. You wonder what I’ll do if I achieve my revenge?"

  Her laugh was soft, but it carried no petty deception or artifice in it had before.

  "Come now. What are the chances, that a Fearshaper in Trepidation would stand a chance against a Highlord who has descended over the course of a lifetime? Berevan probably stands in Serenity, he would burn me to ash even if I did become powerful by Trepidation’s standards…"

  She spoke softly.

  "The truth… is that I don’t expect to survive the exchange. I could attempt to descend further into my Fear. To the stages beyond, but what are the chances that I’m capable of doing that while evading capture when I’ve drawn the ire of a Feardamned Archcity."

  Shiver expressed the futility of her goals matter-of-factly. Her cold acceptance of her fate written on her expression.

  "But perhaps… it may be within my ability to inflict a lasting wound, to show that Highlord a fraction of the pain that he caused me."

  Shiver smiled at her guide, this one genuine and candid. Her veneer of self-confidence having crumbled under her guide’s scrutiny.

  "I’m many things, and an idiot is one of them. But even I know that going up against a Fearshaper who has descended far deeper into their Fear like he has is a hopeless endeavour. But… It’s the only thing I can do."

  Shiver looked down her guide with genuine tenderness. An expression usually reserved only for those troublesome folks that stuck around in spite of everything she was.

  "Thank you for trying. You’re too kind for your own good, you know? There isn’t anything else someone like me can do."

  She smiled.

  "But I’ll be Feardamned to the depths of Insanity if I don’t at least try."

  "I understand. Then, there is nothing more to be said. You can count on me, Shiver!"

  The cheery voice returned, as if their exchange had been a dream. Although this time, a small sliver of insight reached her.

  She’s faking it. Her cheer.

  Shiver stared as a chill came over her. One not born from the snowy room of descension in which she stood.

  Her eyes fell on the guide she had so misunderstood, just like others had misunderstood her. A troublesome, prickly orphan filled with bravado. Railing against her Fear, engaging in pointless, theatrical efforts of rebellion.

  She had consigned her guide to the same treatment that she herself had received from others, and Shiver hated herself for it.

  She wished things were different.

  Perhaps, in another life, a truer friendship, free from artifice could have blossomed between them.

  Icey’s voice returned. This time, it sounded as it did in her very first dream.

  It lowered, and a degree of authority entered her voice.

  "Your Fear has been brought within your awareness. Harness it. Draw in the object of your Fear, the Alarum that the cold induces and shape it into a vessel. This will form your foundation - your Fearcore, from which your nightmares of ice will be birthed."

  Shiver surrendered herself to the awareness of her Fear, which carved its way through her body, now within her awareness.

  Then, she watched in disbelief. After opening her eyes, the small mounds of snow that surrounded her in the tiny room had shifted.

  She gazed up at immense icicles that hung from a cave roof. She glanced to her sides.

  A cavern of ice?

  The idle drip of water onto the cave floor greeted her. The cold stagnant air of the cave, colouring her breath.

  The cold moved with subtlety. It was insidious, it crept up on you. And that gradual discomfort turned into something greater, not because it increased in intensity, but from its very existence.

  Effortless submission.

  That was the nature of ice.

  She was at the mercy of it again. Shiver grit her teeth in mild frustration. It hardly mattered that she had spent her entire life trying to conquer it. No matter how many popsicles she went through, in the warmth of the Archcity of Flames. No matter that she had made the sight of her Fear’s inception her home.

  She could feel the familiar return of her Fear as her heartbeat started to race.

  Icey sat in silence before her.

  Shiver closed her eyes.

  "Now that I think about it, it’s been a while since that shade of mine has graced my lordly presence. I’m almost starting to miss her."

  The silence dragged on, and the anxiety welling within her continued to skyrocket, the cold inching itself into her blood. Her statement went unanswered, it looked as if her shade was content on remaining dormant.

  Embracement. She was supposed to take in the cold around her?

  She was dissatisfied with the cave around her, so similar to the one she had conquered.

  More.

  Shiver heard a familiar feminine voice reach her ears.

  Request to unseal limiters received.

  Exception identified – authorisation granted.

  She blinked. Her eyes widened.

  Where she had been in an middle of a dark, icey cavern the one second, the next, she found herself in the midst of a forest. Snow fell slowly from skies the colour of anthracite.

  Not enough.

  She blinked, and the forest before her was once again replaced.

  Now, she lay on a mountain’s peak, in the epicentre of a silent blizzard which circled her in the darkness of night. It framed Valefor and Idriel above her, that cast their gentle moonlight of gold and silver onto her.

  She felt as her awareness began to encompass the blizzard around her. Icey’s voice reached her, as if far away in the distance.

  "Concentrate. Is this the limit of your Fear, Shiver?"

  She hadn’t realised it, but there had been something strange about this room from the very beginning.

  She felt a connection to it that she had not previously.

  It responds to my desires.

  The blizzard filled her vision, and continued to circle her. Icey’s voice was drowned out by the cold that filled her body and soul.

  So, what does this say about my desires? Look at me, up on this frozen throne. All alone again.

  Perhaps, this is enough?

  She blinked once more.

  No

  She rested on the same mountaintop, a barren, frozen landscape beneath her, now, brightly lit.

  Not a hint of winter wind graced the land, attempting to forcibly impose the cold.

  There was no need for it. In the land beyond her, there was no evidence of life, or warmth capable of persisting.

  The sun blared brightly overhead, a mockery, for its rays brought no warmth. Its light brought no comfort.

  Rendered powerless by the desolation around her.

  If there was anything capable of snuffing out a phoenix’s flames. Perhaps this will be enough. Or… do I go further?

  Shiver’s eyes widened, as Icey’s scream reverberated through her. It eclipsed the scream that had rang through her head, when Silvanis’ venom had tore its way through her guide’s body.

  It will have to be enough.

  She coughed, her lips parting painfully. The air around her was so devoid of moisture that rivulets of blood met her tongue as they escaped from the cracks in her dry lips.

  Shiver she smiled once more. She rasped softly.

  ‘I’ll stop. For you.’

  She fought to clench her fist, struggling to regain control of her body. She fought the doubts that lingered at the edge of her mind. Living with… all of this? Cold and despair as far as the eye can see?

  Then, comfort returned to her.

  The truth that she had confessed to Icey.

  At least I won’t have to live with it for very long.

  Then, she drew it in.

  Cold filled, her, and with it, whatever vestiges of warmth remaining in the creases and folds of her skin fled. She felt as if she would never be graced with the comfort of heat again. It continued to fill her, and Icey’s cries were lost. She felt it filling her, and as Icey had instructed, she harnessed the cold within and twisted it to form a vessel for her Fear.

  She drew in ice and isolation, and it was only when she tasted blood did she realise she had been screaming, a symphony of despair to join her guide’s cries.

  Yet she continued, for what felt like an eternity. An eternity two-fold. And longer still.

  Once she had consumed it all, leaving the land around her devoid of ice, Shiver’s eyes finally fell shut.

  Deaf to an ice cube’s guilt, tears and despair.

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