The horn echoed through the glacier again, lower now—closer. It was not the kind of sound made by any beast of flesh and blood. It dragged behind it a weight of ages, a resonance that made bones ache and thoughts tremble. It did not warn. It did not threaten. It summoned.
Ren Zhe stood still in the pulsing chamber, frost swirling around him as if the very air recognized the danger. The boy Jin was silent now, suspended mid-air, limbs limp but breath steady. The silvery glow in his eyes flickered with unnatural cadence, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Meimei reached for her weapon. A slim blade sheathed in jade and wrapped in wolfskin. Her hand trembled as she gripped it, and not just from the cold.
"Ren Zhe," she whispered, "what was that sound?"
Ren Zhe walked to the edge of the stairwell that led up into the glacier's tunnel. The stone steps were now coated in a fine frost that hummed with foreign energy.
"They're coming," he said simply.
Meimei pressed closer. "Who?"
"The Coldbinders. Cultivators of the forgotten oath. Jailers of the old world. And they've smelled the shard."
He looked down at the still-floating Jin.
"And him."
Meimei's eyes widened. "Then we run."
Ren Zhe didn't answer. He reached forward and touched the boy's forehead.
"Wake," he said.
Jin's eyes shot open. He dropped to the ice, landing with surprising grace. The moment his feet hit the ground, something invisible flared around him. A wave of pressure, ancient and violent, swept through the chamber and carved thin lines into the walls.
The shard inside Ren Zhe pulsed in response, the frozen flame dancing like breath drawn too fast.
Jin looked up at Ren Zhe, blinking. "I saw them. While I slept. A city in the dark. Pillars taller than mountains. And a throne made of ribs."
"Memories," Ren Zhe murmured. "Echoes sealed in your blood."
The horn blew again.
This time, the glacier cracked.
A fissure spidered down from the stairwell, running along the floor of the Womb of Cold Flame. Ice flared upward like knives, then shattered. A freezing wind howled down the corridor, thick with shadow.
Then the first of them stepped into view.
Clad in robes of cobalt and dusted silver, the Coldbinder did not walk. It glided. A helm shaped like a weeping face obscured its features. From its shoulders flowed chains of black ice, whispering as they dragged behind.
Behind it came four more. Each taller than the last. Each carrying a different relic—an hourglass of frozen time, a blade made from forgotten names, a lantern filled with blue fire, and a staff carved from a frozen spinal column.
Ren Zhe stepped in front of Jin and Meimei.
"You're far from your prison," he said to the Coldbinders.
One of them tilted its head. The movement was alien, bird-like.
"You broke the Seal of the Second Grave," it said. The voice was not spoken aloud but vibrated directly into the chest. "It belongs to the Vault. You do not."
Ren Zhe's eyes narrowed. The shard embedded in his chest pulsed once.
"I was forged beneath the Vault," he said. "It's you who forgot."
"You are the fallen one. The child who chose the pit. The sword who dulled itself to rot."
Meimei whispered, "What are they talking about?"
Ren Zhe said nothing. He stepped forward, letting his aura surge.
The glacier trembled. The walls of the chamber screamed as energy cracked the air.
"I have taken back what is mine," he said. "Try to reclaim it. See what remains of you."
The Coldbinder raised its hand. Chains lashed out.
Ren Zhe moved faster than light.
He grabbed the chain mid-air, and it exploded in a burst of frost and blood.
Then he struck.
One step—he crossed the chamber.
One blow—he shattered the helm of the first Coldbinder.
Its body crumpled, bones turning to mist before they hit the floor.
The others responded instantly.
The one with the hourglass twisted its relic. Time fractured around Ren Zhe. His steps slowed. The world froze.
But only for a moment.
Ren Zhe growled, and his aura burned through the temporal lock. The shard in his chest lit up with crimson light.
The blade of names flew toward him.
He caught it barehanded.
The names screamed.
He snapped the sword.
The lantern bearer unleashed its blue fire. The flames coiled like serpents and roared across the chamber.
Ren Zhe summoned the cold within the shard. A wall of frost surged up around him, devouring the flames.
Then the staff-wielder struck the ground.
Everything stopped.
Sound. Light. Breath.
A void of silence descended.
Ren Zhe stood within it, heart frozen, blood turned still.
But deep inside him, something stirred.
A memory. Not his own.
From the first shard.
A man in golden chains, kneeling in a pit of ash, whispering to a broken sky.
"Silence is not the end. Silence is the soil."
Ren Zhe roared.
The silence cracked.
The second shard ignited.
Time returned.
The Coldbinder stumbled back, its staff humming violently. Ren Zhe surged forward, fist blazing, and drove his hand into the being's chest.
There was no scream. Just light. And dust.
The final two stepped back, bowed, and vanished into mist.
The battle was over.
But not the danger.
Ren Zhe turned to Meimei and Jin. "We must leave. Now. The glacier is waking."
Above them, the ceiling cracked. A roar—not from beast or man—shook the world.
Jin's eyes were glowing brighter now. Symbols danced across his skin, shifting too fast to read.
"The Grave General," he whispered. "He's dreaming again."
Ren Zhe hoisted the boy onto his back. "Then we move before he opens his eyes."
They ascended the frozen steps. Behind them, the glacier began to collapse inward. Ice swallowed light. Frost devoured shadow.
When they emerged into the surface blizzard, the sky had changed.
It bled blue lightning.
And in the far distance, pillars of dark metal had begun to rise from the earth—ancient structures that hadn't been seen in ten thousand years.
The world was remembering.
And it remembered Ren Zhe.