[POV Liselotte]

The silence of the night was almost unreal in its perfection.

The entire city slept deeply beneath a thick, white blanket of freshly fallen snow.

Only the occasional crackle of ice forming along the edges of rooftops disturbed the absolute calm.

From my bed, I could clearly hear the faint murmur of the wind blowing across the frozen lake.

It was a deep, resonant sound — as if the water itself were breathing slowly beneath the icy surface.

Leah slept peacefully on the bed by the wall, her breathing calm and steady.

Chloé, curled into a silver-gray ball, rested by the fire, now reduced to glowing red embers.

Everything around me was completely still.

And yet, I couldn’t sleep.

Physical exhaustion weighed on my eyelids like stones, but each time I closed them, the vivid memory of the golden woman encased in ice immediately returned.

The image stayed sharp and tangible, as if she still stood before me in that frozen vastness of my dreams.

That persistent feeling — the certainty that something was watching me from beyond sleep — was impossible to ignore.

Finally, after what felt like hours, sleep overtook me against my will.

But what came was no rest at all.

When I opened my eyes in this new dreamscape, the world had changed completely once more.

The ground beneath my feet was not the warm wood of the inn nor the cold stone of streets.

It was a crystalline surface stretching infinitely in every direction, reflecting my own image a thousandfold.

I stood upon an endless field of fractured ice, faintly illuminated by a pale light that came from no visible sun.

The air was thick and sharp, and each deep breath hurt, as though thousands of tiny needles pierced my lungs.

“Here again…” I whispered inwardly, already knowing instinctively that no voice would answer.

The echo of my lonely words lingered for a few seconds in the vast emptiness before dissolving into silence.

Around me, like shadows frozen in time, stood once again those eerie statues of ice I remembered from my previous dream.

There were thousands — perhaps even more.

All stood motionless, trapped in eternal poses of war, their faces carved with unnervingly human precision.

I recognized this place immediately.

It was the same as before — but something crucial had changed.

The air vibrated with restrained energy.

The ice beneath my feet felt alive and aware, pulsing faintly with a slow, steady rhythm — the heartbeat of something colossal buried deep within that frozen world.

I took a cautious step forward.

The sound of my boots echoed sharply, a crystalline crack that shattered the silence.

The echo seemed to awaken something ancient in the air.

The statues began to move.

First, one turned its head.

Then another.

And then — as if following a silent command — they all began to move in unison.

The deafening sound of cracking ice filled the space.

Fine web-like fissures spread across their bodies until their eyes — blank, white, and soulless — opened all at once.

The air turned unbearably cold in an instant.

My breath became a thick white mist as the statues turned their heads fully toward me, their movements stiff and mechanical, yet horrifyingly precise.

“No…”

I stepped back instinctively — but the ground trembled violently beneath me.

A heartbeat later, the first figure lunged forward with supernatural speed.

Its movement was indescribably fast, like a living projectile of glass, leaving a brilliant trail of frost behind it.

I ducked to the side on reflex.

Its sword of pure ice whistled past my head by mere inches, slicing the frozen air with a piercing shriek.

A sharp shard grazed my cheek, leaving a cold burn that stung instantly.

Another statue leapt from my left without warning.

I rolled backward, the ice burning through the fabric of my coat at my elbows.

A third attack came from above — a heavy spear descending with lethal precision.

I raised my right hand on reflex, and a burst of frost erupted from my fingers, forming an improvised wall of pure ice that stopped the blow dead.

The clash rang out with a thunderous crack that vibrated in my bones.

The barrier shattered instantly into a thousand glittering fragments.

“This can’t be real!” I gasped, my voice trembling with fear and effort.

But it was.

Or at least it felt as real as life itself — the biting air, the sharp pain, the growing terror — all of it tangible and overwhelming.

I started to run desperately, my boots slipping dangerously on the slick surface.

The figures chased after me relentlessly — dozens of them — moving with inhuman precision and eerie silence, their only sound the ceaseless crack of breaking ice.

Some slid forward like swift shadows, others leapt great distances, landing with thunderous impact that shook the ground.

Instinct took full control before thought could intervene.

My hands moved on their own, tracing complex circles in the air, and shards of razor-sharp ice burst from my fingertips like floating blades.

I hurled them toward the nearest pursuers.

The struck statues shattered explosively — but even as they fell, they began to reform.

Their scattered pieces fused back together, recomposing into slightly altered figures that resumed their advance without hesitation.

“Enough!” I screamed, thrusting both hands forward.

The ice beneath me responded instantly to my magic, rising in a powerful shockwave that knocked several figures down at once.

But the wave faded as quickly as it had come — mysteriously absorbed by the dream’s very ground.

The surface trembled harder than before.

From among the shattered, reforming statues emerged long arms, full torsos, distorted faces of twisted crystal — all advancing toward me without pause.

Hundreds of empty white eyes fixed solely on me.

My fear turned into something more primal, more visceral.

I ran.

I ran without direction or purpose, dodging blows by inches, leaping over jagged fragments erupting from the floor, twisting just in time to avoid a long spear that embedded itself deep into the ice beside my foot.

My lungs burned, and each time my hands sparked with defensive magic, the air grew heavier, thicker — as if the dream itself were trying to suffocate me.

One of the largest figures appeared directly in front of me without warning.

Its broad sword came down in a deadly diagonal arc.

I had no time to dodge or react.

The impact struck me squarely in the right side.

The pain was instant — freezing, sharp, paralyzing.

The air was ripped from my lungs, and my whole body was hurled violently backward.

I hit the ground hard; the ice cracked and splintered beneath me with a terrifying sound.

For an instant that felt eternal, everything turned blinding white.

Sound stretched and warped, echoing endlessly before dissolving into nothing.

And amid that mental fog, through the distant whispers of the wind, I heard that same familiar voice again.

The same voice from the previous dream.

Wake up…

The ice beneath my back shattered completely with a final roar.

I fell into the abyss without being able to scream.

I woke up with a jolt.

A strangled cry died in my throat as I sat up sharply, as if pushed by invisible hands.

I was back in my bed at The Silver Elk Inn.

The room was almost completely dark, dimly lit only by the dying embers of the fireplace.

The air around me was utterly still.

Leah was still fast asleep, and Chloé hadn’t moved an inch — but I…

I was trembling uncontrollably from head to toe.

With a shaking hand, I touched my right side where I’d been struck in the dream.

There was no visible wound — no blood, no bruise.

But the phantom pain was still there, cold and deep, as though something essential inside me had fractured — somewhere beyond flesh and bone.

I took several deep breaths, trying to calm the nervous trembling coursing through my body.

It couldn’t have been just an ordinary dream — not after feeling everything so vividly, so painfully real.

The ghostly reflection of that endless ice still shimmered in my mind.

And that voice — that urgent whisper echoing in the depths of my thoughts…

Wake up.

I squeezed my eyes shut, placing both hands over my heart.

The inner crystal of my power — that frozen essence that lived permanently within me — now pulsed with a rhythm entirely different.

Slow, but steady.

And with each beat, it grew stronger.

Then I understood — with a chilling fear crawling down my spine and a sharp certainty piercing my soul — that something inside that recurring dream…

had reached me.

Tangible.

From the other side of the dream world.

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