Whoooosh—
A carrier bird spread its great wings and cut across the sky.
Far swifter than any traveler on the dirt roads threading between the conifers, the bird arrived at its destination without delay: the window of Calypse Krost’s study, deep within the walls of Krost Duchy.
“A message has arrived, Your Grace.”
“Read it.”
Calypse had been waiting for exactly this. Word had reached him that Kyle had appeared without warning in the town square of Torn—and in a state drenched in blood, no less.
Which means there was a spy.
The knight’s eyes widened as he unfolded the letter with visibly tense hands.
“Your Grace. The thing is—”
“What.”
“The boy has vanished, and in his place, Lady Aisha has appeared.”
“What?”
My daughter, who had threatened to sleep the entire day—why on earth would she be there?
“And apparently she’s asked one of the knights to escort her to the Ice Wall. They’re currently making their way toward the edge of the world, near—”
“We’re going too.”
“Yes, sir!”
Whatever bewilderment he felt, Calypse set it aside. He swept his cloak over his shoulders and mounted his horse in one fluid motion.
He’d been thinking about it lately—that raising a daughter was somehow harder than raising sons.
* * *
At that same moment, before the iron gate in the Ice Wall that led to the edge of the world—
“Please open the gate!”
“My lady. We will send out a search party for the white-haired boy ourselves. So please, if you would just—”
“This isn’t something you gentlemen can handle! I’m telling you, he’ll just refuse your help!”
Stomp, stomp.
I stamped the ground with my short legs, but the knights only exchanged helpless looks and shook their heads.
“But, my lady—in all the years we have guarded this gate, it has never once been opened. Is it not possible that the boy you’re searching for hasn’t even reached the Ice Wall yet?”
“He’s definitely already there. That kid could just leap over it if he wanted to.”
“Pardon?”
“He isn’t just a person—he’s a cat! Cats can jump over anything!”
I balled my hands into fists and demonstrated my point, bouncing energetically on my heels.
“Like this!”
“My lady…”
Bounce. Bounce.
I jumped as hard as I could, as earnestly as any cat clearing a fence, but the knights only grew more pained in their expressions.
I knew. To their ears, every word out of my mouth was nonsense.
But I have to catch Kyle.
The misunderstanding had to be mended. If I didn’t resolve the wound I’d left on him right now—I felt, with a strange certainty, that I never would.
That was when it happened.
“Aisha.”
The low, razor-edged voice from behind me made my bouncing stop cold.
“What kind of trouble are you getting into now!”
Along with a voice thick with suppressed fury, two enormous hands landed on my shoulders and spun me around.
When my body turned, there he was—Father, wearing an expression that could curdle milk.
“You know perfectly well how dangerous it is beyond the Ice Wall. You said you were going to sleep all day, and then you vanished—do you have any idea how worried I—”
But his rapidly moving lips went still.
“Aisha.”
He looked at my face once.
“Why are you crying.”
He asked it with a look of mild surprise.
“…Papa.”
I had tried so hard to hold it together. But the moment he asked, the emotions I’d been keeping at bay crashed over me like a tide.
Even so, I refused to actually let the tears fall—I bit down on my lip, desperate.
“You’ll make yourself bleed. Stop doing that.”
It didn’t matter what I wanted. A warm thumb gently tapped my lips—once, twice—completely indifferent to my inner war. That simple touch against the chin still marked with old bruises was enough to make my jaw tremble.
I didn’t want to cry over something this small. That would make me a proper five-year-old.
But it took only one touch—one ordinary, warm gesture—and my tears, completely unarmored against tenderness, finally gave way.
Embarrassingly.
I scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand and pressed on.
“I… I accidentally hurt Kyle, and I think—I think that’s why he ran off past the Ice Wall.”
It had been my first time, after all. My first time caring about someone like this.
“Kyle has nowhere else to go but me. If he goes past the Ice Wall, he’ll never speak to another person again—”
My first time wanting to hold someone back this desperately.
“Then who will help him? Kyle is wary of everyone except me.”
Before I’d ever taken Calypse’s hand in that ventilation shaft—before this life and the last—I had never felt anything like this.
Kyle must have felt the same way about me. And I had hurt him.
“…Hff!”
I pulled in a sharp breath and finally said it out loud.
“Kyle is actually a baby kitten.”
I watched Father carefully, half-expecting shock. But Calypse said nothing.
His silence made me oddly anxious. I fidgeted with my fingers and kept going.
“He’s still young—he can’t survive on his own. He might die. And since he won’t trust anyone but me, please, just open the iron gate—”
Then—
“Even when they’re fully grown, living alone is hard.”
My body lifted suddenly into the air.
Calypse rose to his feet, holding me aloft with one arm as though I weighed nothing at all. Cradled against his chest, I had no hope of escape. With his free hand, he scrubbed roughly at my swollen, fish-puffed eyes.
“And if that Kyle kid is younger than you are, it’ll be even harder for him.”
He muttered it almost to himself, still looking at me—then shifted his gaze to the nearest knight.
“Open the gate.”
Once he made up his mind, there was no hesitation in Calypse Krost.
Creeeeak—
The iron gate that had seemed as though it would never open in a lifetime groaned at the command of the duchy’s lord and began, slowly, to move.
Between the parting slabs of iron, the world beyond revealed itself: white and black, stark and absolute. Through the driving snow, dark shapes prowled in the distance—creatures, almost certainly, that lingered near the Ice Wall.
Calypse held me in one arm and drew his sword with the other, then stepped through into the world beyond the wall.
“We will open the gate again the moment you give the signal, Your Grace. Please take care.”
The knights’ last words, laced with worry, faded behind the gate as it shut with a heavy thud.
White in every direction.
In a place wider than the entire Kingdom of Frozen—how were we supposed to find one small boy?
“Papa, let’s just start walking.”
I wriggled in his arms, trying to slip free—
“Wait a moment.”
A quiet warning settled against my ear.
Calypse tilted his head back and gazed in silence at the dry, still sky. Then he began to walk—unhurried, deliberate—and holding me against his chest, he gave a quiet, brief laugh.
“It’s a day without snowfall. We’re lucky.”
“…Why does that matter?”
“Look there, little one.”
He had found something. He folded at the knees and set me down gently.
“Looks like someone left a trail of crumbs.”
His voice carried a smile. I followed the line of his pointing finger—out, and out, and further across the white expanse—
“!”
In the snow, pressed deep into the white surface, were small footprints that could only have belonged to Kyle.
“Shall we follow them?”
“!”
At Father’s suggestion, my blue eyes—blurred and swollen from crying—went wide.
* * *
At that same moment—
“This is my home now.”
Kyle stopped in front of a massive black boulder, larger than his own body. Its upper surface was worn smooth and flat, like a bed—it seemed about right for him.
He sprang lightly onto the rock and sat, staring out at the white world that had no visible end. Nothing moved except the vague shapes of a few creatures drifting in the distance.
This would be where he lived. For the rest of his life.
“At least I won’t starve. Might even be better than living in Ahili’s circus.”
He gazed into the distance and decided it wasn’t so bad.
The cold could be endured. Hunger could be solved by hunting wild animals.
Because I’m a monster.
Your name is Kyle.
Just as he accepted it—just as he gave in to the word monster—Aisha’s voice surfaced in his mind, unbidden, as though the memory itself was shouting that he was wrong.
Monsters didn’t have names, he thought, almost without meaning to. A monster was just a monster.
But I have a name.
Then what am I?
Kyle blinked at the sky, newly confused—
“…O… our…”
An unfamiliar language. Kyle sharpened his gaze immediately and fixed it on the direction the sound had come from.
Something was speaking to him.
“…Our king… our… chieftain… you are… you are…”
Our tiny god.
________________________________________
